Crazy, crazy lunchboxes

If you haven't seen a book called Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes by Christopher Salyers, you have no idea what a really tricked-out lunchbox could look like. The art of arranging food artfully in a bento box (compartmented lunch box) is an age-old Japanese tradition. Now combine this with the current Japanese obsession with cartoon (manga) characters and you have something called charaben (a mash-up of the words bento and character).

You sort of have to see this yourself to understand what charaben is all about. There are sample pages of the book on the publisher's site. Check it out. Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes