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We’ve seen quite a number creative character bentos here on RocketNews24, some cute, some educational, and some that didn’t turn out as well as expected. The most common way of creating character bentos we’ve seen so far involves decorating with pieces of seaweed, ham, egg, sausages and the like.

But Japanese Twitter user Akiran takes a different approach to creating anime character bentos for her two sons. Read on to find out how she does it!

Anime fan and mother of two, Akiran often prepares lunch boxes for her children, decorated with their favorite anime characters. Instead of the usual ham, cheese and seaweed cutouts we often see in kyara-ben, the characters on Akiran’s bentos look almost like they were printed directly onto the rice. Perhaps some of you already have an inkling of how Akiran achieves these beautifully colored and detailed anime character bentos, but if you haven’t, here are a few more pictures for you to scrutinize! How many of these characters do you know?











Have you figured out the secret behind these well-illustrated anime bentos? Akiran literally draws the characters, though not directly on the rice, but on oblaat, which are thin sheets of starch. Oblaat is transparent, tasteless and odorless, and is often used to wrap candies in Japan.

Using food coloring, Akiran paints on the transparent edible sheet, then cuts it out and pastes it on a layer of smoothly compressed rice, and finally places the completed layer seamlessly on to the rice in the box. We’re guessing that she probably traces over printouts of the characters, but regardless of the method, this cool mum definitely has some artistic talent and loads of dedication!

I wonder what it feels like to consume the face of your favorite character though… I wouldn’t be able to decide where to begin! Follow Akiran on Twitter or check out her blog (Japanese) to see more of her wonderful anime bentos and the adorable cosplay costumes she makes for her little boys!

Source: Zhaizhai News
Top image: Akiran (@pikachu0207) on Twitter