Playful miniature food replicas are also a Japanese play on words.

When most people imagine a piece of sushi, what they’re thinking of is the type called nigirizushi, a rectangle of rice with a slice of raw fish or some other topping placed on it. More experienced sushi fans may mentally picture makizushi (long sushi rolls) or gunkanmaki (stout seaweed-wrapped sushi).

But a type of sushi that often gets overlooked is oshizushi. Coming from the word oshi, meaning press or push, oshizushi is made by placing vinegared rice into a box, firmly pressing down on it with a lid, then adding the toppings and pressing those down forcefully too, for a dense, hearty, and satisfying sushi eating experience.

▼ Making of oshizushi

As delicious as oshizushi is, though, it’s easy to forget about its existence. It’s not nearly as common as other sushi types at specialty shops, and you won’t often see it on the menu at sushi restaurants, especially conveyor belt eateries. But you know where you’ll be able to see oshizushi every day? On your PC keyboard.

Gacha vending machine capsule toy maker Rainbow noticed that the oshi used to describe making pressed sushi is the same work used to talk about pressing a key when typing. From there, the naturally twisted logic of capsule toy design compelled Rainbow to create the Pressing the Keys and Sushi Again Today (Kyo mo Ki wo Oshizushi in Japanese) series.

As always, variety is a key element of gacha toys, and the lineup consists of a total of six miniature oshizushi model key covers, sized to fit over the keys of a Cherry MX keyboard. From left to right at the bottom of the left image in the above tweet, the possibilities are tuna, egg, cucumber, mackerel, salmon, and saltwater eel (anago).

▼ Sabazushi, made with mackerel, is the most popular type of oshizushi.

Rainbow originally announced the items back in January, and they’re scheduled to finally be making their way into capsule toy machines next month, priced at 400 yen (US$3.05) each.

Source: Twitter/@rainbowrising03 via IT Media
Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24)
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where’s he’s also fond of Iwakuni hakozushi.