A few years ago we ran the story of Inakadate, a village in Japan that developed rice paddy art (known as tanbo) in order to draw tourists. Click here to see some epic shots.

When the village first started doing this in the '90s, they didn't really have the perspective thing figured out, and they only had three strains of rice to represent different tones. Thus an early '90s take on the Mona Lisa didn't look so hot:

This month, however, they revisited it and nailed it:

The image to the right is a sort of Japanese analog in artist Kuroda Seiki's Lakeside painting.

This year we also get to see how the farmer/artists are able to calculate where to plant the seven different strains of rice, in order to get the perspective correct from the viewing platform:

The villagers now use seven different strains of rice, allowing for more tonal variety. Between that and the skewed blueprint, the results are vastly improved over their early efforts. But one thing that hasn't changed is the patience it takes, waiting for the images to emerge:

May 31

June 16

June 23

July 1

July 22

There's a few more images on Inakadate Village's Facebook page.