🎑 Moon Viewing Ceremony originated in early Japanese mobile emoji sets during the feature phone era, when major carriers such as SoftBank, au, and NTT DoCoMo designed emojis based on local customs and seasonal imagery.

The design reflects Japan’s traditional otsukimi (moon viewing) practice, combining a full moon, ornamental grasses, and an offering of tsukimi dango（月見団子） placed as a seasonal tribute. In its original usage, the emoji was commonly used to mark the autumn moon-viewing period or to evoke a gentle seasonal atmosphere, rather than to express celebration or family reunion.

It was later standardized as a Unicode emoji, becoming one of the earlier emojis adopted into the Unicode Standard, which allowed this culturally specific imagery to spread beyond its original Japanese context.