These traditional giant straw animals are made after the rice harvest in Japan

When it comes to seeing everyday life from an innovative, charming and oftentimes bizarre perspective, is there any country better than Japan? The birthplace of anime, sushi and Super Mario is back with some more wonderful weirdness, and this time, we're getting an interesting look into the harvest season in Niigata City in Northern Japan. The Wara Art Festival has occurred every year between the months of September and October since the year 2008, when the city's tourism partnered with the Musashino Art University to make some pretty fantastic rice straw figures. These are some of the highlight's from this year's harvest. Enjoy!

1. Here are some of the artists hanging out in what must be the safest crocodile jaws ever

2. They also went pretty bananas for this gorilla

3. The sculptures are pretty large, as you can see, and building them takes a lot of prep

4. Here are some of the artists hard at work

5. Rice straw was once used to construct various good, but has now been replaced by wood and plastic

6. Now, the straw is used to make pretty cool straw animals, like this immense rhino 

7. These guys are really grabbing the bull by the horns

8. Don't panic! It's not a real lion. It's made from straw!

9. Stay calm! This is just another straw lion

10. Here's the crocodile again. Where are the artists? No-one knows

11. Isn't it wonderful what we can create with just some straw and the creativity in our minds?

In modern art, there's new technology coming out every day that's designed to help you bring out your visions in the best possible way. You don't always have the best of equipment, but as these Japanese artists have proven: sometimes, you've just got to make hay.