No detail is too small for this amazingly complex kit.

There aren’t that many ingredients in a piece of sushi. You’ve pretty much just got the rice at the bottom and a slice of fish on top, right?

So when Tokyo-based plastic model maker Syuto says its newest product is a build-it-yourself sushi model, it probably sounds like the least challenging kit ever.

Here’s the thing though:  While that might look like a super-simple kit where you just lay one piece on top of the other, Syuto’s Sushi Plastic Model kit actually contains 366 pieces!

So where are they all hiding? In plain sight, because each grain of rice is its own individual piece.

And yes, each grain of plastic rice is attached to a frame you need to snap it out of. That might seem like a lot of extra work, but you actually don’t have to use each and every grain. Syuto wants to leave space for personalization, and so there are no set instructions for how to put the kit together other than to use a liquid adhesive coating so that the grains of rice will stick together. It’s up to you to choose how much rice you want to use, and what exact shape and size you want the block to be.

Naturally, a set of tweezers is a must, and even leads to a pun as Syuto asks “Can you nigiru?”, with nigiru being the Japanese word for both “pick up/grasp” and “press” (as in pressing together the rice for a piece of sushi).

Two different sets are on offer, representing the two types of fish that consistently sit atop the sushi popularity rankings in Japan: tuna (maguro) and salmon.

The designers took great pains to make sure all 364 grains of rice look their best, too. Syuto even went so far as to throw out their first mold for the parts because, while it produced pieces that looked like rice, they looked too much like uncooked rice. They just didn’t have that visually perceptive sensation of softness, so the mold had to be redesigned in order to produce the rice seen here.

▼ Even the packaging is designed to look like the boxes of sushi that restaurants in Japan use for takeout orders.

Syuto says putting together one piece should take between 40 and 60 minutes, and single-piece kits, priced at 1,430 yen (US$13.80) can be ordered through Amazon (tuna here, salmon here). Either one would make a fine companion to the Cup Noodle model if you’re building a shrine to Japan’s greatest foodstuffs.

Source: Syuto via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Amazon/Syuto
Insert images: Amazon/Syuto, Syuto, Amazon/Syuto (2)
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