Pets for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be chosen in a national competition where the final jury will be primary school students, the organizing committee of the Japanese Games announced today.

Professional illustrators, designers, and members of the general public residing in the Asian country (both nationals and foreigners) can submit their proposals between August 1st and 14th this year through two special web pages enabled in Japanese and English, as explained by the organization in a statement.

Participants will have to design pets for both sporting competitions according to a series of guidelines and criteria for the proposals to fulfill the function of representing both the Olympic and cultural values of Japan, the host country.

The organization, through the special committee established last year to deal with mascot-related issues, will have until December to make a selection of several proposals, which will be reviewed by primary school students from all over the country.

Tokyo 2020 will choose the set of designs that receives the most votes from the children and plans to announce the winner in March 2018.

The organization plans to deliberate later, between July and August of that year, to decide the name of the mascots.

"Given the importance of mascots in modern Japanese culture, we always knew there would be great public interest in the choice of the Tokyo 2020 mascot," said one of the responsible for the special panel, Yoshiko Ikoma in the statement.

The organization considers that the competition offers the public "a unique opportunity to participate in the design and selection process," Ikoma explained.

Mascots are an important and popular element within modern Japanese culture, where it is common for private companies and public organizations to use them to promote their products.

Cities and towns throughout the Asian country have devised creatures inspired by the area's history or typical foods to promote tourism and other events.