Simply put, it’s an eggstravaganza!… sorry.

When I think back to my days at primary school, lunchtimes were definitely a highlight. There was of course the obvious benefit that we were no longer studying, plus it was always cool to compare your lunches with your friends. A Capri-Sun meant you were the champion of the playground for a day, whereas taking out a soggy tuna sandwich meant you got docked a couple of cool points.

But none of the lunches at my school, Capri-Sun or not, could have ever held a candle up to some of the excellence produced by parents in Japan. Chara-bens (character bento) are not only delicious but insinanely cute, and you can find all kinds of adorable designs all over social media.

Etoni Mama (etn.co_mam on Instagram) is a mother of three and posts photos of her food to Instagram regularly. But she is not just your run of the mill food art blogger – she’s a published author and has even had her art featured in magazines like Vogue. And it’s not hard to see why – check out the way she spruced up some plain old corn.

Etoni Mama is particularly good at making food art using eggs. While most of us are used to boiling, frying or scrambling them, the Instagram food artist takes it one step further by recreating characters using the boiled yolk.

Check out this Pikachu lunch, with the Pokémon being made entirely out of egg yolks.

Here’s a bowl of fried udon topped with a fried egg, with characters from Japanese cartoon Sazae-san relaxing in an eggy hot spring. Etoni Mama used seaweed for the hair and bonito flakes on top.

Winnie the Pooh makes an appearance in this chara-ben, with asparagus and sesame seeds to give it an outdoors-y feel. Is it bad that I want to poke his tummy to make the yolk run out?

Just when you thought you’d seen it all, One Piece’s Luffy gets his own fried egg art with a neck made of ham.

Given the current social climate, it’s only appropriate to give Chibi Maruko-chan some masks to keep them safe  (… before they get eaten, of course.)

I’m not sure if this Toy Story toast is going to taste like pork or like egg. But I know I want to try it and find out – check out the little ham pig snout!!

If all of these arrangements are too cute for your liking, maybe this elegant Nightmare Before Christmas breakfast plate is more your taste. The details of the seaweed Jack Skellington against the bright yellow egg yolk moon is impressive.

As much as I love my mother’s cooking, her presentation skills are absolutely nothing compared to Etoni Mama’s. Her kids don’t know how lucky they are! The only downside to any of this is just how guilty I’d feel eating these cute creations.

If you want to see more of Etoni Mama’s creations, you can follow her on Instagram. And if cooking is not your thing, you can always try your hand at revenge bentos, where the worst they taste, the more effective they probably are! Just don’t serve us one, please…

Related: Etoni Mama’s book on Amazon
Source: Instagram/etn.co_mam via NLab
Featured image: Instagram/etn.co_mam
Top image: Pakutaso