Once you see her you’ll never unsee her… which sucks if you need to find your way around the Tsukuba Space Center.
When it comes to seeing visions in ordinary objects, like Jesus in a tortilla, the apparitions tend to be something deeply tied to the viewer’s culture. The devout often find figures of their faith, dragons often pop up in clouds and rivers of Asia, while Disney Princesses and Pokémon appear in the darnedest places to fans of the series.
When living in Japan, it’s hard not to be inundated with the doe-eyes faces of Japan’s moe mascot characters based on anime-stylized young women. They can be found everywhere from Self-Defense Force recruitment posters to temples to beer.
And now a moe character can even be found at the headquarters of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), although she might not appear right away, as these following images taken by Twitter user Tamago-san at the Tsukuba Space Center show.
▼ Do you see her in the image on the left?
JAXAの案内図が遠くから見たら萌キャラに見えたのはワイだけじゃないはず... pic.twitter.com/h0WCZa01FL
— タマゴさん (@86723nasogamat) November 8, 2017
At first glance this appears to be an ordinary map of the facility, but take a moment to look at the map in the intentionally blurred left image and she should reveal herself. I didn’t catch it at first, but now that I’ve seen her it’s impossible to see the regular map anymore. In fact even the enlarged image on the right sort of looks like her.
If you’re still having trouble, a lot of other Twitter users shared their interpretations of the JAXA map girl. It’s interesting to see the subtle differences in how people see her, and some have taken it to the next level creating fully-realized moe artwork of her.
https://twitter.com/higle_pso2/status/928204705121026048
ちょうどこんな感じのコメットさん pic.twitter.com/dqi79Gw1tX
— さつきふみたか@休みが欲しい (@kudryavkanoumie) November 8, 2017
こんな感じ? pic.twitter.com/ybd6AS2l4t
— せーご (@seigomonikon) November 8, 2017
https://twitter.com/Oo_ATARI_oO/status/929095116836421632こんな感じのロボっ娘に見えます。 pic.twitter.com/nGg96nnPyo
— まさこっこ (@niwa10riko) November 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/nekofriends3/status/928948433284579328うちの嫁に見えている景色はこうらしい。
— スパイクスピーゲル (@1967kenchan) November 10, 2017
#jaxa#筑波宇宙センター#構内案内図#萌えキャラ pic.twitter.com/CJrh0y4xoC
Surprisingly, JAXA has yet to create an official moe mascot for their organization. They’ve come close with an promotional anime for their Global Precipitation Measurement project and also have associated themselves with the popular manga Space Brothers, but no straight-up moefication has been blessed by the agency.
However, if there ever was a sign from the heavens to create one this would be it, so hopefully JAXA will get their priorities straight and put aside all their space doodads to get JAXA Visitor Map Girl off the ground.
Source, feature image: Twitter/@tamagosan32768
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