So…many…eyeballs…

Presentation is important to Japanese foodies. There’s an art to picking out the best ingredients and skillfully arranging them so that the colors and shapes form a comprehensive aesthetic, creating an atmosphere that you can taste even before you take your first bite.

And Aoki’s Pizza has definitely outdone themselves in that department with their new menu items…it’s just that the atmosphere they’ve created isn’t one of elegant luxury or whimsical fun, but instead grotesque horror.

Ordinarily, we’d try to find a more diplomatic way of describing a chef’s hard work, but no one can deny that the Zombino of Hell, as the above-picture pizza is called, looks gross. Even Aoki’s Pizza itself describes it as “an intensely grotesque pizza, overly realistic to the extent that you’ll want to turn your eyes away.” Of course, even if you turn your eyes away, there will still be around a dozen eyes staring at you, plus a whole lot of zombie fingers that look like they’re going to grab you and pull you down into the hot cheese hellscape.

As you’ve probably guessed, the Zombino of Hell is a seasonal pizza, offered as part of Aoki’s Halloween Carnival campaign which kicked off on September 28. Zombie “Zombino” pizzas are an annual tradition with the chain, and this year’s “of Hell” variant gets its name because not only will it haunt your dreams, it might haunt your bowels too, as it’s a super spicy pie with habanero sauce and a double dose of jalapenos.

If you don’t mind the secret being spoiled, or, alternatively, are desperately looking for confirmation that the dead aren’t rising and coming for vengeance on the living through our pizzas, what look like eyeballs on the Zombino of Hell are actually chewy globs of mozzarella cheese, and the zombie fingers are whole pork sausages, leading Aoki’s to promise that the pizza’s taste is as great as its appearance is horrible. You might still need a bit of courage, though, as even by Japanese standards Aoki’s uses some pretty unorthodox pizza toppings, and in addition to eyeball cheese, finger sausages and jalapenos, the Zombino of Hell is also topped with potato salad, hash brown potatoes, and taco-seasoned ground meat, plus more mundane peperoni, mushrooms, basil, and black pepper.

In a disclaimer, Aoki’s Pizza says that it accepts absolutely no responsibility for anyone who purchases the Zombino and is disgusted or otherwise bothered by how it looks. If you’re willing to accept the Zombino of Hell’s appearance but not its spiciness, there’s also the Blood-Soaked Zombino, which is essentially a Zombino of Hell without the habanero sauce and jalapenos.

Oh, and if you’re of the highly understandable mindset of not wanting your food to look like a rotting corpse, even at Halloween season, Aoki’s Halloween Box, a spread of chicken nuggets, French fries, and mini churro bites with barbeque and chocolate dipping sauces, is for you.

Both zombie pizzas are priced at 3,290 yen (US$22) for a medium size, and the Halloween Box at 1,160 yen. They’re all on sale until November 5, after which Aoki’s will have to go back to making pizzas that aren’t gross, just bizarre, like its mushroom and ice cream fondue pizza.

Related: Aoki’s Pizza
Source, images: Value Press
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s actually more bothered by the mushrooms than the zombie eyeballs.