bento2

What did you have for lunch today? If you’re anything like me, it was probably nothing special – just something to keep you going until the end of the day. Oh, how wonderful it would be to be blessed with the skills (or a skilled family member) to make outrageously accurate kyaraben, i.e. packed lunches intricately designed to look like various characters! Lunch could be so much more entertaining!

Since not all moms are adept at creating kyaraben, some kids have taken their decorative lunches into their own hands. And by kids, I don’t just mean girls…

A photo recently surfaced on Twitter of a bento box filled to the brim with adorable rice-ball Disney characters. The thing that many net users found surprising, however, was that it was made not by some super-skilled homemaker, but by teenage boy.

[tweet https://twitter.com/BS_niconico/status/559673646730317824 align=center]

▲ “This bento was made by a boy in my little sister’s class.
It’s amazing how girly this is, my whole family’s talking about it.”

Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a man who cooks. Indeed, many of the world’s top chefs are men. Many people just don’t think of teenage boys as capable of producing such heart-wrenching cuteness, but hopefully with creations like this perceptions will start to change, and most netizens were genuinely pleased to learn that a boy was behind this edible masterpiece; some commenters even expressed a desire to marry him!

Perhaps the words to the traditional adage may have to be changed to: “The way to a person’s heart is through devastatingly cute kyaraben.” I have a feeling this kid knows exactly what he’s doing. Let’s just hope his school doesn’t stifle his creativity by banning character bento!

Source: Twitter (BS_niconico) via Hamusoku
Featured image: Twitter (BS_niconico)