Japanese creative company NAKED has begun a new projection mapping event at Maruoka Castle in Fukui, as well as the nearby Otenshuzen Park. The company has also introduced a new way to safely promote the area’s beautiful nighttime scenery, with the NAKED Distanced Lanterns. 

Since 2014, NAKED has used new creative and futuristic technology to better highlight the appeal of local sites around Japan. 

In March 2021, NAKED’s influence at Maruoka Castle became permanent with the start of the Maruoka Castle x NAKED Hikari Musubi installation. The castle itself is one of the oldest in Fukui prefecture, and visitors and locals alike can now enjoy a symphony of beautiful lights shining on the historic landmark year-round. This new version of the projection-mapping project is ‘Hikari Musubi ~Creating the Future~’, and it hopes to convey the charm of Sakai city to the rest of the world. 

The company brought its projection-mapping technology to Shinzen Izumi Elementary School in Tokyo in 2014 and to Kesennumakoyo High School in Miyagi in 2015. In 2016, NAKED launched the 0 x 0 Mugen Project in collaboration with the Osaka University of Arts, which supports the projects of students at the university as well as those of prospective students. 

Event Overview

Maruoka Castle Tower

The theme of this projection-mapping show is ‘From Maruoka Castle to the World and the Future.’ The Maruoka Junior High School Chorus Club is responsible for some of the event’s music. 

NAKED Distanced Lanterns®︎

A participatory artwork allowing people to create light while maintaining social distance, the NAKED Distanced Lanterns project has invited local citizens to design lanterns to display outside Maruoka Castle. 

Japanese creative company NAKED began a new projection mapping event at Fukui Prefecture’s Maruoka Castle on March 31 as part of its Future Creation Project.

Maruoka Castle Castle Tower

Castle Tower Parkお天守前公園

NAKED launched its Future Creation Project back in 2014 as a way to express local sites around Japan in a creative manner going into the future. The project is held together with local children, grown-ups, and businesses, and takes place both inside and outside Japan.

The company took its projection mapping technology to Shinsen Izumi Elementary School in Tokyo in 2014 and again to Kesennumakoyo High School in Miyagi in 2015. It then rolled out its 0 x 0 Mugen Project in collaboration with Osaka University of Arts in 2016 which supports the projects and productions of students at the university as well as students looking to study there.

This year, NAKED joined hands with the locals of Fukui to set up a one-year projection mapping event at Maruoka Castle as part of the Future Creation Project.

Hokkaido Hyaku Soba is a new restaurant that just opened in Asakusabashi, Tokyo that serves soba noodles that are made using 100% buckwheat flour.

The restaurant has opened in a joint agreement with Ikkyu Soba―a famous restaurant that opened in the city of Tomakomai, Hokkaido in 1975―to bring their delicious flavours to Tokyo.

Only the best soba noodles are used at the restaurant, all of which are made in Hokkaido. By having them delivered directly from their place of production it will ensure an authentic 100% buckwheat flavour.

The restaurant will also serve a dish that combines the noodles with scallops and other seafood ingredients caught in Hokkaido. It is served with shiodare salt-based sauce which is made from 41 ingredients including salt that is obtained from burning seaweed, salt-marinated rice malt and more. Made by experts to match perfectly with the meal, the restaurant describes the sauce as “addictive.”

The wasabi serve at the restaurant is from the brand Yamakawa Wasabi. It is delivered to the restaurant still in soil to preserve its freshness.

Another dish on the menu is the “Yuki Wasabi Saka Soba” which is sprinkled with this wasabi. It is 1.5 times more ‘spicy’ than regular wasabi so it is sure to add a kick to the meal which travels through your nose and leaves a mellow sweetness in your mouth.

Now you can try authentic 100% buckwheat soba from Hokkaido while you’re in Tokyo.

The Shibamasa World amusement park in Fukui Prefecture is bringing in some new pool fun on June 30 where guests can look forward to a wet experience swimming and riding the rubber rings next to the wide open Sea of Japan and green laws. They’re describing it as like a ‘resort’ experience.

The Monster Wing is a new giant slide arriving this year. There are sudden drops, as well as a wall you’ll slide up at 68° and more. They’re calling it the “world’s first giant combination slide.”

You’ll begin the fun in a 6-person rubber boat at 25m high and speed around the curves before hitting a sudden drop. And just when you think you’ll get a breather, you’ll be hit again, feeling a sense of weightlessness. The end of the slide connects back to the pools.

This is the sequel to The Monster Slider, another slide that appeared in 2016 and was a huge success.

They’re also teaming up with the internationally beloved Hello Kitty to bring guests something called Hello Kitty Pool Land.

The park will also be lit up when the sun goes down this summer with the Summer Night Illuminations. There’ll be fireworks too, meaning you can enjoy being at the park all day long.

SOBA (buckwheat noodles) CAFE & BARU BW CAFE which sells original soba dishes will sell their new menu “Haruiro Vege Pota Tsuke Soba” from the 1^st of February.

SOBA CAFE was created under the theme of “making a soba shop where women can enter alone,” and the café opened on the 24^th of December 2014. The store located along an alley close to Shin Okubo and it is popular among women and their original and unique soba dishes and fruit nabes (pot) which are suitable to be uploaded on your SNS, has been gathering much attention.

Their new menu “Haruiro Vege Pota Tsuke Soba” uses lots vegetables such as fresh potatos and corn and one can eat soba with a warm dipping soup that tastes like potage. The dipping soup and ground vegetables go well with soba since it uses a Japanese-style broth. Also, the baked cheese used as a topping adds a mildness and special aroma to the dish.

Let’s enjoy their brilliant, springy and photogenic original soba dishes.

The largest soba and nihonshu event in Japan which gathers special products from all over the country called, “Oeda Waen Soba to Nihonshu no Hakurankai” will be held at the event venue in Yoyogi Park from the 23^rd of November (Thurs./holiday) to the 26^th (Sun.).

Artisans from all over Japan will gather at the venue and show their skills and introduce their special ingredients to the visitors. They will also offer fresh soba. Moreover, specially chosen sakes from all over Japan will be sold.

The goal of the event is to offer quality soba and sake to visitors and introduce the traditional food culture of Japan to the world.

Twenty famous soba shops such as “Shinshu Soba” of Nagano Prefecture, “Okutama Tennen Wasabi Soba” of Tokyo, “Dattan Soba” from Niigata Prefecture, “Tororo Soba” from Gunma Prefecture and “Izushi Soba” from Hyogo Prefecture will open up shop at the event.

In addition, a soba shop run by the pupils of the legendary soba artisan, Kunihiro Takahashi will participate the event. Kunihiro Takahashi will appear at the event as a special guest and show his skills of soba making to the visitors.

Also, hundreds of newly produced sakes will be sold.

Special sakes including “Juhyondai” from Yamagata Prefecture, a legend sake of the Heisei Era, “Hiroki” from Fukushima Prefecture which is one of the most popular sakes that is hard to obtain and “Debazakura” from Yamagata Prefecture which won many awards will be sold.

Why don’t you find your favorite soba and sake from the many items which have been gathered from all over the country?

 “Habutae-mochi” is the lightly sweet and soft Japanese well-known sweets that is recognized as the souvenirs from Fukui prefecture for a long time. I visited old-established Japanese sweets store since I heard there’s Japanese sweet that I can enjoy their taste and texture even more.

Sand the melty rice cake with fluffy bread

“Matsuoka-ken” which is good-old atmosphere Japanese sweets store is located in ten minutes’ walk from Fukui train station on the main road. This place is an origin of “Habutae-mochi” which is known as the famous Fukui sweets.  This store used to sell white pongee fabrics like a silk (Habutae), but they started running a sweets business one hundred years ago. The thin and silky rice cake which was named after this story is an excellent Japanese sweet.

　They came up with the idea to put this typical rice cake inside of Dora-yaki (a red-bean pancake) about thirty years ago. Actually, they knew the rice cake would go with dora-yaki because “Hagoromo-monaka” that put rice cake inside the Monaka (red-beans sandwiched between two thin crisp wafers made from rice) was popular about fifty years ago. This dora-yaki is like by food critic, Yukio Hattori, food writer, Asako Kishi and some of the other food specialists. The melty rice cake, plenty of red-bean made in Hokkaido and the pan cake buns make this sweet soft and fluffy. It is also its characteristic that it is lightly sweetened.

The secret specialty food which has addictive texture is limited on sale for summer

There is bamboo whisk for making Japanese tea decorated inside the old showcase in the store. Their appearance matches with atmosphere of this store. The owner, Ritsuko Kawashima, said “there are a lot of people in summer. They’re sometimes having long lines of people. ” She said that there is café space inner part of this store only in summer time. What are people coming here to get is summer time exclusive food “hand-made shaved ice.”

They shave the ice with a plane for each bowl after they get an order. It has an addictive texture which has both smooth ice and crushed ice, and some people said that they don’t feel like it is summer if they don’t eat this food. People from all over Japan are coming to get this. The sauces that go on the top of shaved ice such as maccha syrup, sweet red-beans and black sugar syrup are all made from scratch. They can’t send shaved ice to your house, so I would like you to visit this store.

■Matsuokaken Main shop

Address: 3-5-19 Chuo, Fukui-shi, Fukui

Koji Yamada(Photo/Fusosha)

Yuko Tanaka(Interview & Article/Fusosha)

Provided media:FUSOSYA 「NIHONZENKOKU OTORIYOSETECHO WEB」

■Related article：This food will make you addictive. Fukui prefecture’s soul food called “Sauce cutlet rice bowl”

 “Sauce cutlet rice bowl” from Fukui prefecture is the one of the most famous local soul food in Japan. “Europe Ken the total head office” is the original sauce cutlet rice bowl restaurant that you will never forget about it after once you ate it even though there so many restaurants in Fukui which serve this type of food.

The special sauce has never changed its taste since the first establishment of this restaurant.

To begin with, this sauce cutlet rice bowl has developed since the founder of this restaurants encountered Worcestershire sauce in Germany in the end of Meiji period. The characteristics of this food are the pork sirloin and thigh meat that is paper thin sliced, panko that minced into small pieces, and sauce which blends about twenty different kinds of vegetables and seasonings.

The fourth generation owner of this restaurant, Teruaki Takabayashi said “We have never changed how we make sauce since the establishment of this restaurant.  However, sweetness has changed since the taste of ingredients changes depending on the time, and we also add or take out the sweetness depending on people’s food preference.” The sauce which has sweetness and sourness is good to go with rice. They also have used pork sirloin and thigh meat since the establishment. Since they could not get the certain parts of the meat at that time, they had to buy whole pigs to get their meat. It successfully ended up having great food that you could enjoy oily sirloin meat and light thigh meat at the same time.

The secret of the taste is specially ordered panko.

Once you eat it, you will be surprised with this light and crisp taste of this cutlet. Regular pork cutlets tend to suck the oil in their panko too much. However, their special panko is minced three to five times smaller than regular panko, so it won’t make the cutlet too greasy. The fineness of this panko is sometimes being said smooth like sand. The food texture is different from eating deep-fried. Furthermore, their rice is blending two different kinds: Koshihikari which is soft and sweet and Hanaechizen which is a little harder than regular rice. Both of these rice is made in Fukui, and they blend these two to make the rice bowl not too greasy when they put sauce on it. They go great length to make this high-leveled tasty meal.

 Inside the restaurant, there are so many autographs of famous actors, athletes, musicians and so on hanging on the wall. No wonder they have sometimes about six hundred bowls’ ordered per day. You will be addictive to it once you ate this sauce cutlet rice bowl.

■Information

Yoroppaken Main

Address: 1-7-4 Junka, Fukui-shi, Fukui

Koji Yamada(Photo /Fusosha)

Yuko Tanaka(Interview & Article / Fusosha)

Provided media:FUSOSYA 「NIHONZENKOKU OTORIYOSETECHO WEB」

What comes to your mind when someone asks you your favorite Japanese dish? Sushi, tempura, yakitori, ramen….SOBA! Soba is not very well known in America because Americans don’t tend to eat them, and they are not commonly sold there. However, you cannot leave Japan without trying this delicious soba at restaurant Ikenoya!

The restaurant is located in Fuchinobe, Kanagawa. You can ride the bus from Fuchinobe Station Minami-guchi and get off at a stop called Chiyoda. It is about a 7 minute ride. If you like to walk and enjoy the town of Fuchinobe, it is a 30 minute walk from Fuchinobe Station. The store is located right next to ‘Bikkuri-Donki’.

This restaurant is not only known for its taste, but also amount for its price. “Nami-mori” is the normal size with just one plate of soba, however, you can change any of the soba that comes with the meal to “Oo-mori” (2 plates) or “Toku-mori” (3 plates) for FREE!

There are typical types of soba like Mori-soba, Tanuki-soba, and Kake. Then there are also menu sets like the Oyakodon set, which is a set of oyakodon (rice bowl with eggs and chicken) and soba, Tendon-set (rice bowl with tempura), etc. There are also gozen, which are set meals of rice, main dish, side dish, pickles, and soup.

Today I tried Ten-seiro, which is soba with tempura. The soba here is very soft and chewy, and it goes very well with the Tempura. The tempura included shrimp, green beans, eggplant, and pumpkin. What’s very nice is it also came with salad and dorayaki. It was hard for me to imagine the flavor when I heard that this dorayaki is made out of soba powder. It tasted a little different from normal dorayaki, however, it was really tasty and the anko (red bean paste) really goes will with the pastry. I wasn’t able to taste the soba at all!

There are tons of different soba restaurants in Japan, but I would really recommend everyone to visit Ikenoya! The waiters are very kind and would explain you about the menu politely. The location isn’t bad at all because there is also a parking lot for those who came with a car. For those who have already tried soba before but didn’t really enjoy it, this restaurant lets you change the noodle to udon for any menu! They are so kind and generous! Soba is not very known in America, so I recommend you to at least try it once. Now you know where to go to try soba!

■Information:

Address: 1-20 Hikarigaoka 1cchoume Kanagawaken Sagamiharashi Chuuouku

Telephone: 0120-381-908

Open: 11:00~14:30, 17:00~21:30

■Writer：Jessica Poluhowich

Instagram：mintbaby

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