The name of Ogaki city used to mean “Big Kaki”. The Ogaki Castle is known as the place that had been occupied by famous commander while important battle in Japanese history in 1600. Due to that, it was registered as the national treasure.
As the memorial event of that battle, the city government organized Ogaki Expo in 2000, after 400 years from that battle. Ms. Nobuko Yamada, a member of Ogaki Expo Executive committee, suggested planting kaki trees as the project for future, not only looking back in past battle. They made a musical about “Bombed kaki tree” for planting ceremony.
After the expo, some members formed O-KAKI project executive committee to develop the project. They actively worked for participating many events such as, “Posters for war, peace and future”, “Electric Picture Latter by fax art”, “Messages for 21 century” and “Peace in chorus” which over 2000 people from Ogaki city participated.
They also organized an event by setting the O-KAKI TREE plaza inside of Ogaki Castle Hall. They showed a picture card show and a puppet play under the Kaki Monument.
They have been developing the project including planting kaki trees at elementary and junior high schools in Ogaki city. They carried out planting at some school in every year. Their act is spreading out in the city even now.
On the 10th of October 2009, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first tree planting, the festival “O-kaki Chorus with a Theme -Bond-” was held and a huge chorus of 3,000 people consisted of children, students and adults from the city sang together.
