The 2022 Rice Paddy Art in Gyoda

Kodai Hasu no Sato in Gyoda City (Saitama Prefecture) is the closest place to Tokyo that you can see a large size rice paddy art display. This is rice that is planted in such a way to create the art, it is not painted. It is absolutely incredible how they do it. The rice is planted in the middle of June and slowly from around mid July you can start to see the image form. The best time to see it is generally the last two weeks in August. Usually, the image starts to fade in September.

The 2022 display

The image changes every year. The 2015 image won a Guinness World Record for being the largest rice paddy art display ever. That was my favorite display until last year, when they had a breath taking cultural display with Mt Fuji at the center. In comparison, for me personally, this year's - although as impressive as ever - is a bit boring! But I am not an anime fan and I am more into rugby than soccer and this year's display is based on the soccer anime "Ao Ashi"! 

You can see the 2018 image and will find even more detail about the rice paddy art on this post here on City-cost. There is also a review for the venue, Kodai Hasu no Sato, here (City-cost). For information about the event updated annually see here. If you would like to see more event posts on City-cost, please do comment below.