On Wednesday, a committee of organizers announced the two official mascots for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Ryo Taniguchi, a character designer and illustrator from Fukuoka, submitted the winning illustrations of characters with a blue "futuristic" theme (Olympics) and a sakura-theme attire (Paralympics). Thematically, the pair of official mascots are intended to represent a harmony between cutting-edge innovation and old tradition in Japan.

The winning pair was voted on by a total of 205,755 classes at 16,769 elementary schools, including international and overseas schools. From the 2,042 submissions, a shortlist of three pairs made up the final round of voting, Sankei News reports. There's been quite a commotion online about the result, with the other two proposed pairs having a lot of support.

Below is an English description of the mascots, who have yet to be given official names, and their character traits. While their general motif is embodying bridge between both traditional past and progressive future in a cute and friendly form, it's particularly interesting to note that these mascots have superpowers. As the Japan Times reports, the Olympic mascot has a transportation ability to travel anywhere instantaneously, and the Paralympic mascot can move things simply by looking at them.

The winning pair was announced in front of Hoyonomori Gakuen, one of the many elementary schools that participated in the voting. Both mascots will receive their names in the lead-up to the actual Games, but many fans have started speculating and guessing with Pokemon or Digimon-esque names, given their aesthetic. The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games haven't shied away from embracing the appeal of anime in campaign projects, having already dubbed popular anime characters like Luffy and Goku official "ambassadors" and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government celebrating with an Akira-themed projection mapping event.

At the very least, we know these mascots aren't safe from Pop Team Epic illustrations.