| A popular anime movie, “The Rose of Versailles,” was released on January 31, 2025, with active collaboration projects promoting agricultural and livestock products. Saga Prefecture will roll out a new product that uses local marbled Wagyu beef to resemble red roses. A Saitama-based supermarket chain, Belc, started to sell a grilled pork belly rice bowl named “Berubara-Donburi.” (Berubara is a short name for “The Rose of Versailles,” as derived from its original Japanese title “Berusaiyu no Bara.”) Many more other projects will follow, targeting the fans of this popular Japanese manga series.
One of the collaborative projects by Saga Prefecture is the “meat art” gift. The prefecture will use finely sliced Saga-brand wagyu beef, known for its beautiful marbles, to resemble roses, the flower loved by one of the main characters, Queen Marie Antoinette, by putting them in specially designed decorative gift boxes. The boxes have an image of Lady Oscar, another main character, and Marie Antoinette surrounded by red roses, which are actuary rosy red wagyu beef carefully arranged behind a plastic film. The unique gift box will become available on JA Town, an online farmers market portal run by the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (ZEN-NOH), on February 9, Japan’s day of meat. (The pronunciation of meat (niku in Japanese) sounds similar to the Japanese numbers 2 (ni) and 9 (ku), so February 9 is the day of meat in Japan.) A box containing 500 grams of loin is sold at 15,920 yen until March 16. Another collaboration campaign with “The Rose of Versailles” is a limited-edition product of the supermarket chain Belc: “Belc Pork Belly Rice Bowl (Belc Buta Bara Donburi)” sold at 499 yen (tax not included). The product name is abbreviated to “Bel-bara,” similar to the short title of the manga. It’s a boxed bento of flavorful garlic pepper rice topped with large pieces of grilled pork belly to be sold until March 4. “By linking it to the title of the manga, we can create a memorable campaign,” said a representative of Belc.  A poster featuring Saga beef, strawberries, and roses (Provided by Sagaprise) |