Only in Japan would you find such masterfully decorated bento. Charaben キャラ弁 is a shorten form for “Character Bento”, where the contents of the bento are made into what resembles a character from popular anime/video games/pop culture icons.
When you look at such a masterpiece, its difficult not to wonder whether you should be so cruel to devour the character, and sometimes its even harder to choose which part you should start from. Nevertheless, these tiny creation of art are simply amazing part of Japanese popular culture.
![[JFOOD] Eating Anime Characters!? Oh Wait Its Just A Charaben](http://i1.wp.com/www.afachan.asia/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/creative-bento-charaben.jpg?resize=650%2C560)
The origins of Charaben can be traced to the days when food was just decorated nicely to entice children to consume their meals. Nowadays, there are even charaben making contests and its likely that mothers would spend time to research and create the most interesting charaben so that their children would be proud to show it to his/her friend at school.
Before you throw in the towel and bathe in misery that you would never be able to create something so delicate for your loved ones, check out this simple instructional video that guides you how to make Monokuma from Danganronpa:
Actually charaben makes use of very simple ingredients, and all you need is some creativity and nimble hands. Evidently cheese, nori (seaweed sheets) and rice are going to be the commonly used ingredients, while other items might differ from project to project, but I’m seeing sausages as a recurring ingredient.
After trying out the easy stuffs, you can move onto the intermediate level by checking out the onigiri-type charaben, where the onigiri is shaped like the character’s head and their hair is layered with various seaweed and leafy vegetables.
Something like this.
If you are daring to take on the challenge, then check out the next instructional video:
While they may not look as amazing (your mileage may vary) as some of these charaben that I found on the web (props to kasumin!), I think that video pretty much sums up the process you need to create them. Clear plastic foil used to shape the rice, rice coloring, and using an image as a reference, or just stencil them onto your ingredients.
Here are pictures of some I found:
Looks like Tomoko is still as moody as ever.
Rikka and Nibutani, shocked that they are going to be eaten?
Ranka! “Kira~!”
Yo dawg, I heard you liked to eat tigers, so I made a Taiga and a tiger so you can eat while you eat.
Inori. She must be thinking “I don’t like those chopsticks you are holding”.
This is not the first time that we had talked about charaben. WOWJapan did a lovely coverage back where Shirley from BENTO SINGAPORE did a demonstration on how to make a kawaii Hello Kitty Bento.
You can read the article here:
WOW JAPAN BY AFA CHANNEL EP#03
Well, I’ll wrap it here! If any of you readers have tried making character bentos or intend to make some over the coming weekend, do remember to take some pictures and let us see your creations! Twitter or Tumblr is fine. Also, what ingredients would you be tempted to use in your creations? Let us know in the comments down below!
References: [Kawaii Kakkoii Sugoi][Kasumin@tokyootakumode]
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