Friday, 29 March 2024

Minamo

Minamo is one of the J.League's most recently created mascots, and easily one of the strangest. When Gifu first unveiled its mascot in early 2014, most of those who saw it for the first time concluded that the bulb-shaped creature was some sort of fruit, or maybe a strangely coloured acorn. The name -- Minamo -- was also a source of confusion, though most people are aware of its meaning once they see the kanji characters: 水面. Minamo literally means "the water's surface"!

That's right -- as existential as it may sound, the yellow-and-blue-patterned official mascot of Gifu FC is supposed to represent the sun glinting off the water's surface, and presumably the shape of Minamo's head is supposed to be a drop of water. So far, fans of opposing teams are still restraining themselves out of pity for the Gifu faithful, but one suspects that it wont be long before sly puns about "making a splash in Gifu", or the Gifu team "swirling down the drain". At least as far as this writer is concerned, the Minamo concept is all wet.


 Old Uniforms

Click on the small pictures to see a larger-size image

2008 (H) 2008 (A) 2009 (H) 2009 (A) 2010 (H) 2010 (A)
2011 (H) 2011 (A) 2012 (H) 2012 (A) 2013 (H) 2013 (A) 
2014 (H) 2014 (A) 2015 (H) 2015 (A) 2016 (H) 2016 (A) 
2017 (H) 2017 (A) 2018 (H) 2018 (A) 2019 (H) 2019 (A)
2020 (H) 2020 (A) 2021 (H) 2021 (A) 2022 (H) 2022 (A)