Do you know rice paddy art? It's an art style using real rice paddies as a canvas. Pictures and words are "painted" with varieties of rice that produce different colors. Artists are farmers and local people. They plant rice in the paddies in spring. After growing, the rice paddies become a giant picture. There are more than 20 rice paddy arts in Japan, but you can see the best example in Gyoda City of Saitama Prefecture, about 60 kilometers north of Tokyo. It's known as the world's largest rice paddy art.
This year's theme of the rice paddy art in Gyoda City is "Revived Japonisme: Ukiyoe and Kabuki". You can see Japanese traditional Ukiyoe paintings and Kabuki plays in the rice paddies. The area of the paddy art is 28,000 square meters. It was planted by 200 local people. To see the paddy art, visitors should climb Ancient Lotus Tower (50 meters in height) in Kodai Hasu no Sato Park. The best observation period is from July to the rice harvest season in September.
To visit this giant paddy art, the nearest railway station is Gyoda-shi (Gyoda City) on the Chichibu Railway. My vehicle was the EMU 5000 series. The 5000 series is originally the Toei (Tokyo Metropolitan Government) 6000 series, which was launched in 1968. 4 sets (12 cars) in total were transferred to Chichibu Railway in 1999 after their retirement from the Toei-Mita line. Currently, 3 sets (9 cars) of the 5000 series are still operated on the track.
Official VR of the rice paddy art in Gyoda City:
Official information about the rice paddy art in Gyoda City (in Japanese):