TOKYO-In advance of the tenth anniversary of the development of Gokusen Bananas®, specifically for Japan, popular for their firm, dense sweetness, Dole Japan, Inc. (Headquarters:Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo/President:Yosuke Watanabe), has launched a Dole Gokusen Banana® Tenth Anniversary Event.
The event’s Gokusen Day (May 9) is a special day, coming immediately after the arrival of Japan’s new imperial era, Reiwa. To commemorate both the dawning of a new era and the tenth anniversary of the Gokusen Banana®, a massive textual artwork, comprising 2,000 bananas, spelling out Reiwa, has been created and is on display.
The work plays on the contrast between the green of the not yet ripe Gokusen Banana® and the yellow of the ripe ones to allow Reiwa to appear. It is a massive mosaic, measuring 6 meters in height and 3.5 meters in width. A representative from Dole remarked that the Gokusen Banana®, a product of the Heisei era, was chosen from more than one hundred varieties of bananas for its superior sweetness, aroma texture, and overall quality. The event was planned in the hope, he continued, that the Gokusen Banana® will continue to be a beloved banana choice for the Japanese on into the Reiwa era.
The event also invites Shin Rei, a renowned Japanese calligrapher, and the artist who drew the calligraphy work on which Dole’s massive banana Reiwa is based, as well as extending an invitation to Issei Nomura, the ambigram artist, with the announcement of a new ambigram work based on Gokusen Bananas®.
The massive mosaic and the ambigram works will be on display on both Wednesday and Thursday, May 8 and 9. In addition to being on display in the first floor atrium of the KITTE building in Tokyo, the event will also make Gokusen Bananas® available to visitors.
A video documenting the making of the massive mosaic is available for viewing at a specially designed website: https://www.dole.co.jp/gokusen_event/.
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Dole Gokusen Bananas® are a unique type of banana, researched and developed by Dole from more than one hundred banana varieties, for superior sweetness, aroma, and texture.
