bento #39: Mechazawa of Cromartie High Schoo
February 26, 2009
Posted by AnnaTheRed in bento blog (all), bento blog - anime Tags: Cromartie High, Mechazawa
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My gods! My blog has finally caught up with my current bento!! I was wondering when it’d happen when I started the blog about 3 months ago. It’s sooner than I thought.. probably due to lack of bento-ing the past month or two. I’d like to keep my bento blog 3 times a week with a how-to on Sunday, but I’m only human. So if I don’t have any bento to blog, I’ll probably blog about random stuff like my other hobbies, such as making plush, crafts and such.
When I was writing a post about Bento #36: Penny Arcade robot bento, I realized something. It was so strange that I’ve never even thought of this before, but Penny Arcade robot has a striking resemblance to a character from an anime/manga/live action show which my boyfriend also liked.
Bento #39: Mechazawa from Cromartie High
Created and eaten on: 2/26/2009
I don’t know how to describe Cromartie High. The show is a parody of other manga/anime shows which was about a men-only (not boys) high school filled with delinquents. Both Cromartie High and the one that was based on had a very similar style, and very well drawn character design. The major difference is that Cromartie High is just how silly it is. How silly? In the school, there are a character called Freddie who looks like he’s in 40’s and exactly like Freddie Mercury from Queens, a guy who eats dozens of pencils, a gorilla, and a robot. My favorite character was the robot, called Mechazawa. He looked like a garbage can in school uniform.
First I put lettuce on the bottom of a bento box. And I sliced and sauteed renkon and put the slices on the top of the lettuce. And I mixed rice with black sesame seeds and salt (see “how to dye rice naturally”) to make gray rice, and spread the rice thin in a rectangle shape on a plastic sheet. Then I put six meatballs I had made the night before on the rice and rolled the rice around the meatball. I placed the Mchazawa’s body into the bento box, and put a bit of gray rice on the top of his head to hide his meatballs. I put a little bit of rice on the top of Mechazawa’s body.
Top of his head is filled with rice...
...and you can kinda see the meatballs from the bottom.
Smoking is very bad for you, even if you're a robot!
Then I made skinny & long piece out of rice with black sesame seed and salt for his arms. I sliced and boiled konnyaku (yam cake), cut out circle shape using a bottle cap for his hands, and I sliced red radish and made a cigarette for him to hold. Then I cut open a fake crab meat stick and put it on the middle of his body as his red shirt. With the rest of rice with black sesame seed and salt, I made mini Mechazawa. (a.k.a. Mechazawa Beta) For his shirt, I cut kamaboko (fish cake) and put it on mini Mechzawa.
After I made both Mechazawas, I boiled some broccoli and put it in the bento. Then finally, I cut seaweed for Machazawa’s school uniform and mini Mechazawa’s pants and put it on them. I used a straw and a plastic bottle cap to cut out cheese for the button of Mechazawa’s school uniform, mini Mechazawa’s pants, and their eyes. I wasn’t going to put the text on Mechazawa’s shirt, but I thought this bento was too simple as is… So I decided to just cut out small & thin strips of seaweed and put them together to spell “Kon Jou”, meaning “Guts” (as in “guts to fight”), using a tweezers. This wasn’t a very good idea… Because seaweed itself was too small, and while I cut carrots into star shapes, the seaweed absorbed moisture and shrank and warped. T_T I wish I could’ve made the background a little more interesting than star shaped carrot since Mechazawa itself was quite easy…
Anyway, this was my first bento at our new apartment! Even though I haven’t done setting my new kitchen yet, my new kitchen definitely has more counter space than my boyfriend’s old place, and I’m very excited to make bento in there. 
Mechazawa:
- rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt
- meatballs
- cheese for his eyes and the buttons
- seaweed
- konnyaku (yam cake) for his hands
- red radish for the cigarette
Mechazawa Beta:
- rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt
- kamaboko (fish cake)
- seaweed
- cheese for his eyes and the buttons
Other food:
- renkon (lotus root)
- lettuce
- broccoli
- carrot
For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.
Comments»
That’s super neat-O!
My brother introduced me to this show about a month ago, love it. I like the lack of scantily clad clown boob girls with pink hair.
I love your bentos! They are so detailed, the patience I imagine to be involved eludes me.
P.S. I’ve nominated you for a Kreativ Blogger award! You can check my blog for details.
http://nwfoodfunandcraft.blogspot.com