The opening ceremony of the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics took place on 23 July 2021 at Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, and was formally opened by Emperor Naruhito. As mandated by the Olympic Charter, the proceedings combined the formal and ceremonial opening of this international sporting event, including welcoming speeches, hoisting of the flags and the parade of athletes, with an artistic spectacle to showcase the host nation's culture and history. The majority of the artistic spectacle was pre-recorded, with live segments performed adhering to social distancing to athletes, officials and a small VIP audience. The ceremony marked the 125th anniversary of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens—the inaugural edition of the modern Olympic Games.
The theme of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Ceremonies was "Moving Forward", which referenced the global COVID-19 pandemic. The opening ceremony theme was the Tokyo 2020 motto "United by Emotion", with the aim to "reaffirm the role of sport and the value of the Olympic Games." The ceremony expressed responses to the pandemic by the athlete community, congratulate front-line workers, and included themes of lament, waiting and hope. The ceremony also showcased Japanese popular culture such as Japanese theater, video games, and variety shows, such as Kasou Taishou. For the second time in an Olympic opening ceremony, a minute of silence was observed in honor of the Munich massacre's 50th anniversary at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the 10th anniversary of the Tōhoku disaster, happened in 2011.
Preparations.
January 2017–December 2020: Original plans.
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) gave the first report of preparations in December 2017, with the release of the "Basic Policy" document for the Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies. The document was based upon feedback from experts and opinions of the Japanese public and includes the foundational elements for the positioning and overall concept of the four ceremonies. The Olympic opening ceremony is to introduce the themes and concepts of the four ceremonies, including peace, coexistence, reconstruction, the future, Japan and Tokyo, the athletes and involvement.
Between July 2018 and December 2020, Mansai Nomura, an actor in traditional Japanese theater, was the chief creative director. Marco Balich of Balich Worldwide Shows, is the Senior Adviser to the Executive Producer. Balich was involved as producer of the ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics, 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics, and has done other international ceremonies such as the 2019 Summer Universiade and the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima. In July 2019, he mentioned that his involvement will be in partnership with the Japanese advertising company Dentsu. Dentsu's creative director for these ceremonies, Kaoru Sugano, resigned in January 2020 over harassment claims.
The new National Stadium, called Olympic Stadium during the Games, served as the main stadium for the opening ceremony. Demolition of old National Stadium was completed in May 2015. Construction of the new stadium began at the site on 11 December 2016. The stadium was handed over to the IOC on 30 November 2019 for preparations. Had the pandemic not happen, capacity of the stadium during the Olympic Games would have been 60,102, including account press and executive seating areas. Before the announcement of barring spectators was made, ticket prices for the Opening Ceremony were expected to range between ¥12,000 and ¥300,000.
Previous Olympic opening ceremonies in Japan, such as the 1998 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Nagano, mixed ancient Japanese cultural elements with themes of international peace. Reports from "Inside the Games" and Kyodo News in January 2020 suggested that there would be a bigger focus on Japanese technology and its popular culture in this ceremony. According to reports from "Shūkan Bunshun", the original program would include numerous references to J-pop and video games with the creative team led by MIKIKO before it was scaled back. The plan was to follow on with what was presented in the Rio 2016 closing ceremony, where then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dressed as Mario in the handover segment.
According to the leak, the following artists, musicians, actors and cultural franchises were to appear in the ceremony:
December 2020–July 2021: Impact of COVID-19.
In February 2020, after announcements concerning scaling back the Tokyo marathon due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, health officials began to question whether the Olympic opening ceremony would also be impacted. On 24 March 2020, the IOC and the Tokyo Organizing Committee officially announced that due to the pandemic in Japan, the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics would be delayed to 2021, and held no later than summer 2021 (marking the first time that an entire Olympics was postponed). On 30 March 2020, it was announced that the ceremony would take place on 23 July 2021.
In December 2020, it was announced that Normura stepped down from Chief Creative Director as the original ceremony team disbanded, and Hiroshi Sasaki was announced as the new director. Normura became an advisor. At the press conference, Sasaki pointed out that the previous plans were scrapped as it was considered too extravagant, which suggested that it would be simplified as per audience expectations.
In March 2021, Sasaki resigned after making a derogatory comment about Japanese comedian and fashion icon Naomi Watanabe. The reports came a month after Yoshirō Mori, president of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, resigned over derogatory comments made about female members of the committee. Since March 2021 until 22 July 2021, Kentarō Kobayashi was made chief creative director, with Takayuki Hioki, managing director of Sports Branding Japan, promoted to deputy chief ceremonies officer and executive producer.
During organizing talks in late 2020, concerns were raised over who could attend the Opening Ceremony. In July 2021, the organizers agreed that the ceremony would be performed with no live audience, except for competing athletes if they choose to attend, a maximum of six officials for each country's delegation, and invited VIP guests. Much of the artistic and cultural sections of the ceremony will adhere to social distancing guidelines, and the majority of segments will be pre-recorded.
In a press release released on 14 July 2021, the committee announced the themes and the creative team for the opening and closing of the Olympics and Paralympics. The theme of the Olympic ceremonies would be called "Moving Forward" referencing the world recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The creative team state that they "have designed the ceremonies around the concept that the Games can bring fresh hope and encouragement to people around the world through the active appearance of athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Games and via the power of sport." This was expected, as just after the postponement in March 2020, Balich said that the crisis would be mentioned at some point during the ceremony due to its significance at the games.
In that same press release, it found that they appointed Keigo Oyamada of Cornelius as one of the composers. The appointment prompted criticism on social media due to Oyamada's past bullying of people with apparent disabilities, such as Down syndrome. Oyamada admitted the disability abuse in interviews that resurfaced after his appointment. On 16 July, a week before the opening ceremony, the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which was questioned for insight and good sense, announced their support for him to continue as a composer. Toshirō Mutō, the chief executive of the Organizing Committee, said he wanted Oyamada to remain involved. However, on 19 July, Oyamada formally apologized, resigned and withdrew his music from the ceremony.
On 22 July 2021, the day before the ceremony, Kentarō Kobayashi, the chief creative director of the ceremonies after Sasaki resigned, was fired by the organizing committee for making jokes about the Holocaust in a comedy routine in 1998, and the committee asked for a review of the ceremony content before it was performed. That evening, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who serves as the Supreme Advisor and Chairperson of the Organizing Committee, described Kobayashi's Holocaust jokes as "outrageous and unacceptable", but also said that the opening ceremony, prepared and directed by Kobayashi, should proceed as planned.
Concept.
"Moving Forward" was the overarching theme for both 2020 Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as announced by Tokyo 2020: the ceremonies were linked by the concept of "Moving Forward", a reference to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The artistic team said in a statement, "We have designed the ceremonies around the concept that the Games can bring fresh hope and encouragement to people around the world through the active appearance of athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Games and via the power of sport." "United by Emotion", the official motto of the Games, was adopted as the theme of the Opening Ceremony.
The Opening and Closing Ceremonies was produced by Takayuki Hioki, having been advised by Marco Balich, who notably was part of the development team for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. Balich said of the ceremony that "We will aspire to reaffirm the role of sport and the value of the Olympic Games, to express our gratitude and admiration for the efforts we all made together over the past year, and also to bring a sense of hope for the future. We hope it will be an experience that conveys how we all have the ability to celebrate differences, to empathise, and to live side by side with compassion for one another." Although the creative director of the Opening Ceremony, Kentarō Kobayashi, was fired the day before the ceremony due to the past jokes of the Holocaust, the organising committee decided to proceed with the ceremony as prepared and directed by him.
Proceedings.
Programme.
The event, which was set to last three and a half hours, started at 20:00 JST, featured many sequences of the ceremony which were pre-recorded. As part of the "Moving Forward" theme, many segments involved diverse representation and building or re-building. The titles from this section largely come from the organisers.
Prelude.
On the day of the ceremony, there was an exhibition flight by Blue Impulse, the aerobatics squadron of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force. The squadron drew the Olympic Rings over the Tokyo skies, marked the 57th anniversary of the 1964 Games for the first time in Tokyo.
"Where the Stories Begin".
A stop motion video begins showing many geometric shapes drawn in chalk, before showing a birds eye shot of the stadium. The camera zooms in on National Stadium, while a flock of doves fly by. The camera zooms into the grass ground where it focuses on a seed. Cutting to a live shot, an athlete is lit in green, while a projection of a seedling growing is shown behind the athlete.
A videotaped montage of Tokyo's recap to hosting the Games began, from awarding the rights in 2013 during the 125th IOC Session, to the hard work and training of the athletes, to the Olympic Games Rio 2016, to the qualification of the athletes and then, the chaotic events of 2020 when the world suddenly changed, which caused the athletes to continue training from home via video communication. A countdown from '21' referencing the postponement of games played, showing athletes overcoming the challenges of the past year. At 0, 694 fireworks then are then set off.
"Apart but Not Alone".
The first performance of the ceremony, designed "[showcase] Japan's forte in digital art and projection mapping technology," featured a digital graphics projection on the stadium floor, at the centre of which nurse and boxer Arisa Tsubata, who won a national championship only two years after taking the sport, but was unable to participate as an athlete after being eliminated in the first round of the Asia &amp; Oceania Boxing Olympic Qualification tournament held prior to the pandemic and the games' postponement, jogged on a treadmill, then was joined by performers on an exercise cycle, rowing machine, running in place, while performers abstract danced and coloured ball of light were projected, "symbolising the athletes' plight in training during the pandemic for this event."
A dance presentation was performed with dancers wearing white outfits connected by red strings, meant to "portray the inner workings of the body and heart."
"A Welcome from the Host".
The following act featured the Japanese national flag and was carried by six bearers. They are:
Then, veteran singer Misia, who wore a dress designed "to honour the LGBTQ+ community and symbolise the fight for LGBTQ+ equality" made by openly gay costume designer Tomo Koizumi, sang the National Anthem of Japan while the flag was raised up by the members of the Japan