Bento of Nippon

Hello, this is Mocco.
My morning yesterday began with making lunch (bento) for my oldest son.
So today, I will write about Japanese bento.

My son’s bento of yesterday

Nutritional Balance

Mothers often prepare our children's bento with nutritional balance in mind. Elementary school students, especially in public schools, usually eat nutritious school lunches (給食). 
So when I used to make lunches for my children during long vacations such as summer vacation, I used to worry about whether the bento I made would provide them with the nutrition they needed.

Color (red, yellow, green)

Many Japanese bento boxes are colorful. When I make it, I try to keep it simple and include red, yellow and green ingredients.

• red … Tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, etc.

• yellow … Eggs, corn, etc.

• green … Bell peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, etc.

My oldest son loves fruit, so I try to serve fruit in a separate container whenever possible. In the photo above, the fruit in the blue container is a Japanese mandarin orange called Iyokan.

Bento box lunches depicting characters （キャラ弁）

For me, making a bento is not a normal bento like the one pictured above, but a bento depicting a character (キャラ弁).

But, very unfortunately, because of my profession, and out of concern for copyrights, I am unable to present my own "kyaraben" here.
Since I have no choice, I would like to show you today a selection of photos that seem to have no rights issues.

My oldest son's favorite yakisoba bento

Boys like dinosaurs when they are little.

In fact, I also made kyaraben with Gundam, Bomberman, Doraemon, and other anime characters, but I will introduce those separately at some other time!