Packing your child's lunch calls for a whole different level of preparation in Japan. There, moms often shape ordinary lunch ingredients like ham or rice into cute little pandas, Pokemon or even famous people's faces.
It's called character bento, and there's considerable pressure to produce these cute food creations. Tomomi Maruo has been teaching how to make character bentos, or "kyaraben" for short — at her home for the past 13 years.
"My kid brought kyaraben to the kindergarten and his friends saw the bento and moms started asking me how to make kyaraben so that's how I started teaching," Maruo said.
[related story-1] These Parents Make Lovely Lunch Bag Art. Not Everyone Is Pleased
[related story-2] In Japan, Food Can Be Almost Too Cute To Eat
2016-07-14
visual essay - Japan's exclusion zone around Fukushima reactors
Compare the interactive media essays at Magnum Photos,
Walking Kesennuma after the 2011 tsunami, part 1, http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/tsunami-streetwalk-1-kesennuma
Kesennuma streetwalk, part 2, http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/tsunami-streetwalk-2-kamaishi
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Keow Wee Loong, a Malaysian photographer currently based in Thailand, snuck into the zone with his fianceé to document the current state of Fukushima's abandoned towns – and what was left behind. From a supermarket picked over by wild animals, forgotten laundry at a laundromat and a wall calendar forever frozen on March 2011, his photos show the eerie remains of daily life brought to an abrupt halt.
You can see more of his Fukushima photos and his photography on his Facebook page.