From Sailor Moon to Pokémon and even the cast of Final Fantasy XV, this chocolate box is proving to be the perfect canvas for all sorts of different characters.

In autumn last year, Japanese confectionery company Meiji released a new product called “THE Chocolate“. With a focus on using only the highest-quality cacao beans from select regions, the premium bean-to-bar sweet was marketed as the “perfect chocolate“, with each piece inside carefully moulded into a variety of patterns to really showcase all its intensity and hidden flavours.

While the chocolates themselves have become hugely popular, the simple packaging has also won its own legion of fans, with artists everywhere now using the empty space on the chocolate boxes as a canvas for various sketches and designs.

The new craze for transforming these boxes into works of art first began appearing on social media last month. Since then, the trend has grown to the point where there are now thousands of photos online featuring a huge variety of animals, flora and cute and popular characters.

Some artists are choosing to incorporate the decorative cacao bean on the front of the box into their artworks.

▼ While others prefer to work around it in different ways.

▼ From the most simple designs…

▼ To those with highly intricate details…

Each pack takes on a different character, depending on the creative vision of the artist.

There are images of Totoro from Studio Ghibli’s animated film My Neighbour Totoro

▼ An artwork dedicated to Tokyo Ghoul

▼ An appearance from Evangelion’s Unit 01

▼ And these amazing character sketches from Final Fantasy XV.

Illustrations of characters from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and My Hero Academia are also startlingly impressive.

As is this one of Kaito Kuroba from the Magic Kaito manga series created by Gosho Aoyama.

Some artists are showing their love for Nintendo with artworks dedicated to Super Mario and Pokémon.

Female characters are also well represented online, with images of cast members from popular series like Sailor Moon

The Idolmaster

Love Live!

▼ And Puella Magi Madoka Magica

▼ There’s a lot of humour in the collection too.

Along with a few scares, like this one, depicting the infamous clown from Stephen King’s It.

▼ Snape from Harry Potter also makes an appearance.

Some artists are choosing to go one step further with their illustrations by incorporating more than one box into their designs.

While others are choosing to give their artworks away as birthday presents, with the added gift of chocolate included of course!

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こんにちは〜😇❤ お久しぶりですっ!毎回投稿するたびにお久しぶりですって言ってる気がします…笑笑 😼😼😼えっと、今日誕生日の友達に今流行りの#明治ザチョコレート に絵を描いてプレゼントしました!😼😼😼 #orange より #成瀬翔 と #高宮菜穂 です! 実は大分前から、翔を描いてと頼まれてたんですけど💦💦 その友達に申し訳ない😅 ちゃんと描いて渡せてよかった〜😯🙌🏻 喜んで貰えてよかった!! お誕生日おめでとう! #少女漫画 #高野苺 #コピック #色鉛筆 #漫画 #描いてみた #イラスト #ペン #誕生日 #プレゼント #narusekakeru #takamiyanaho #drawing #manga #draw #illust #illustration #copic #pen#anime #art #arts #movie #happybirthday #color

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The extensive collection of chocolate box art has made the hashtag #明治ザチョコレート (#MeijiTheChocolate) increasingly popular online.

Whether or not Meiji knew the sparsely decorated chocolate packs would cause such a commotion is yet to be revealed, but one thing’s for certain: these are THE chocolates everyone wants to get their hands on right now.

Source: Instagram/#明治ザチョコレート
Featured image:
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