As your Father’s Day gift, how about sending ukiyo-e and Omi beef together in one box? Hyotanya, a Japanese restaurant in Omi-Hachiman, Shiga Prefecture, is selling a series of gift items that are catching the eye of consumers. The name of the collection is “Art Beef Gallery.” The restaurant uses the vivid red meat and finely marbled white color of Omi beef to “color” part of ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints to make a gift that allows you to enjoy Japan’s highest-ranked A5-grade beef tastefully and visually. The products come in four patterns, such as Akafuji (Red Mt. Fuji) and Renjishi (Kabuki lion dancer). You can also enjoy decorating your room … Continue reading →

GUNMA, Jun. 4 – On June 2, in Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, five married couples participated in a joint wedding ceremony followed by a mud run in their wedding attire at a rice field. Approximately 1,300 guests celebrated the couples with big smiles and clapping as the brides’ pure white wedding dresses turned “colored” in the mud. This event was part of the 19th Yoshii Mud Festival, which aimed to strengthen community bonds between parents and children. One of the organizers, Shigenari Okabe (69), proposed holding the wedding ceremony for couples who were already married but had not held their ceremonies. The couples who participated in activities headed to the … Continue reading →

TOKYO, June 5 — A contest for artworks depicting dairy cows created with the use of artificial intelligence image generators was held in Japan to commemorate World Milk Day on June 1. In the contest, organized by Noujoujin, an agriculture branding service firm based in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, the top prize was awarded to an artwork by Tetsuya Kawakami, 37, a dairy farmer of Izumo, Shimane Prefecture. Kawakami’s work portrays a design of a cow along with red, orange and yellow flowers and plants. He instructed AI to include not only a dairy cow but also farm produce so that people who look at the work will understand how the … Continue reading →