By far the biggest news yesterday was that Sano Kenjiro, the designer of the new logo for the Tokyo Olympics who has been plagued with accusations of plagiarism, would have the use of his design canceled at an upcoming committee meeting.
Yahoo! Japan netizens and Twitter users support the decision, with many pointing out that it would not be a good omen for the 2020 Olympics to start with a logo that was allegedly plagiarized.
From Yahoo! Japan:
Olympic Organizing Committee Agree That Use of Sano’s Olympic Logo Design To Be Canceled
It was revealed on September 1 that in the issue over allegations that the official logo for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics designed by Sano Kenjiro (43) resembled the logo for a Belgian theater, that the General Organizing Committee had agreed that use of Sano’s logo was to be canceled. It is an extremely unusual situation for the official logo of the competition to revised after it has been decided on.
On the afternoon of September 1, an extraordinary meeting of the Coordinating Council was held, comprising of representatives of the General Organizing Committee and of the City of Tokyo, to consult on how to deal with the situation from now on.
Regarding Sano’s design, which was announced on July 24, aside from Olivier Debie, the designer of the logo of the Belgian theatre, filing an injunction against Sano, problems have also continued to appear, as doubts have surfaced over issues such as Sano reproducing photographs showing the logo he had submitted that had been taken from personal websites, and the fact that the original idea for his design resembled part of a poster used for a separate exhibition.
There were also questions about Sano’s work other than the Olympic logo. On August 14, Sano admitted that he had imitated other work in a campaign product for Asahi Beer which he had worked on with several other designers, and apologized for this. His office staff had created the designed under Sano’s supervision, and it was not something that Sano had designed personally.
Committee Chair Mori Yoshiro, Olympics Minister Endo Toshiaki, Tokyo Mayor Masuzoe Yoichi, and Japan Olympic Committee Chairman Takeda Tsunekazu are expected to attend the meeting.
Comments from Yahoo! Japan:
tak*****:
Wow, like, finally….
パフパフ:
I think this is the right thing to do.
And for the new design, I hope that they get something good that everyone agrees on.
mumei*****:
The Olympics are stuffed.
m*******:
Why the hell does some guy who leaves all these traces in his work get treated like the golden child of his day?
I feel really sorry for all those people who work hard at their designs.
国士無双十三面待:
Wow, they were a bit slow judging that one…
They just stuck to the line that there was “No problem”, so just doubled how lame they are.
rms*****:
It’s only right that it should be canceled.
We could never happily welcome the Tokyo Olympics with such a bad omen design like that.
nhr*****:
So they finally realized the limits of their bulldozing, huh?
They’re late to act, but this is justified.
nag*****:
They’re too late in dealing with this, but I’m glad the design is going to be canceled.
Conspiracy in the world of design is really awful.
gpz*****:
I’d love to hear the opinions of those people who said there was no issue and that this still intended to use the design.
hid*****:
A victory for the Internet.
Comments from Twitter:
akihiko:
It’s only right.
No matter how you look at it this only ever seems to have been theft.
They were too late to respond.
Will the Tokyo Olympics be OK?
プレアデスSOLiVE24@県内M2:
It’s the right decision but they took a long time making it.
桜花＠ブイン提督:
They were slow in making a decision, but there was nothing else to be done.
Trying to keep up appearances everything backfired on them.
titti:
Damn straight. I hope the next design is done by someone decent.
りひてんＳＴ＠道東:
There was nothing else for it.
わらびもち@将ちゃん推し♡:
Sano Kenjiro has taken the piss out of Japanese people for long enough.
He should apologize with his career and pay compensation.
osamuosamu:
A victory for the good people of the Internet ＼（^0^）／
ymsyu?:
Finally. Good.
れじすとりθLibero:
! And so the Tokyo Olympics are sullied yet again…>_<...
