Another year, another great turnout! Beautiful Companions at Osaka Auto Messe 2025

The 28th Osaka Auto Messe 2025 was held from February 7 to 9 at INTEX Osaka in Suminoe-ku, Osaka City. This year, approximately 200,000 people visited the three-day event, which featured 351 exhibitors and 630 vehicles on display.

As the Kansai version of the Tokyo Auto Salon, this is the largest event in the Kansai region, with visitors from not only the Kansai region but also from all over western Japan, and is a great success every year.

Shofukutei Shoabei’s favorite car and Myakmyak also made an appearance.

The venue was crammed with cars competing in races and modified cars dressed up for the occasion. The exhibitors include custom cars made by major manufacturers such as Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Daihatsu, as well as cars and motorcycles made by popular custom car stores in the Kansai region.

Among the cars on display was a Mercedes-Benz 500SL, the favorite car of rakugo storyteller Shofukutei Shobei, who passed away in 2011 from an acute aortic dissection. The car is said to be famous among car enthusiasts in the Kansai region.

In addition, the booths of Nissan and Honda, which recently broke off negotiations for a business merger, happened to be set up in close proximity to each other, and both booths were very lively, although some visitors were heard to say , “This proximity is not good.

The booth was also popular because of the proximity of INTEX Osaka to Yumeshima, the site of the Osaka Expo, where visitors could get original goods by taking quizzes and answering questionnaires, and Myakmyak made an appearance for commemorative photo opportunities. However, during the Auto Messe, Myakmyak also appeared at a music event at the Orix Theater near Shinsaibashi, making it clear that there were several of them.

Even the visitors were turned off by the over-enthusiastic photographers

One of the most popular attractions of this kind of event are the beautiful companions who add flowers to the cars. Some photographers were so absorbed in photographing these companions that they were causing trouble for visitors and exhibitors alike, without paying any attention to the cars.

Female companions do not always stand at each booth, but appear at designated times to pose for photos.

However, in order to photograph the companion they were looking for, many of them took their places for tens of minutes in advance, blocking the aisles in many cases. Many of them stayed where they were after taking pictures, and some of them took pictures from low angles, as if they were taking voyeuristic pictures.

Some of them were immediately warned by the exhibitors, but showed no signs of remorse. In addition, a person who tried to get behind a companion while filming and acted in some suspicious manner argued with an exhibitor, and was taken away. Visitors who saw the scene commented, “Oh my God, he’s so creepy. What is he doing here?

Meanwhile, at one exhibitor’s booth, lottery tickets were sold for 3,000 yen per ticket, with the first prize being a customized Maserati Ghibli worth 7 million yen, the second prize being a scooter, and other generous prizes. The results will be announced online in the third week of February.

Other booths also had pay-what-you-can gachas, but some exhibitors’ staff gently offered free gifts to visitors’ children when they came to their booths. Inbound demand was also evident here, with car enthusiasts and their families visiting from overseas, taking pictures and buying all sorts of goods.

The show was a hot and lively event that was different from the Tokyo Auto Salon, as the catchphrase for this year’s Auto Messe, “Omoroi asita Mugendai,” was aptly translated, with exhibitors’ staff and visitors enjoying conversations and laughing about cars.