Tokyo Olympics country flags make for impressive anime Samurai Characters

The Tokyo Olympics officially began Friday with the Opening Ceremonies, a four-hour extravaganza of flag-waving, parades, music, lights and cultural celebration that culminates with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.

Parallel to the games, Japanese artists created anime samurai based on every participating country’s flag. This is their way of merging a very important part of Japanese culture and the spirit of the Olympics. The creators have used the flags of competing nations as inspiration to design Japanese warriors.

Created by Japanese artist Kamaya Yamamoto, each samurai has his own strengths and weaknesses that reveal more details about his personality.

"Samurais are unique to Japan and we want everyone to get to know traditional Japanese culture," Kamaya Yamamoto said.

Many countries like India, the UK, Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Turkey, Spain, and South Africa have been reimagined as Samurai characters

Sri Lankan Samurai Character seems to be most popular which brings three ethnic groups together – Sinhalese, Tamilians and Muslims. So the samurai not only wears these colours, but the image also includes a lion, prominently featured on the flag.

"We received so many messages online from Sri Lankans telling us how cool it is that we've turned their country into a samurai," Mr Yamamoto says proudly.

The description of the anime character is very similar to how they appear in video games. In an interview with BBC news, artist Yamamoto says, they start by researching about the country’s flag, culture, significance of colors and design.

Samurais have been part of Japanese history since the 12th century. ‘Bushido’ or the way of the warrior which places high value on discipline and honour is part of Japanese culture even today.

The online initiative by the group of 15 artists is not meant to make any money and is being done purely out of passion and in their free time. For many flags, they have also conducted polls on Twitter to find out the most iconic symbols or objects of their country.

The artists hope the samurai will excite people to watch the Olympics online as games are not open to public.