bento#41 Ryuk from Death Note

When I made the Braid bento, I had some extra quail eggs left over from the bunny, so I put them in my bento. Later on the pinkish color on the egg has turned to blue-ish purple. As I was eating the egg, I remembered something…

Bento #41: Ryuk from Death Note
Created and eaten on: 3/13/2009

One of my boyfriend’s favorite manga/anime is Death Note. Death Note is a Japanese manga/anime series. The story begins when Light Yagami, a high school student, finds a supernatural notebook the “Death Note” which was dropped on Earth by a shinigami (death god) named Ryuk. The story is very dark, clever and full of twists. Not to mention it was beautifully drawn, and each episode has a very tense cliffhanger. It made a huge impact on manga/anime world.

Ryuk may be a hideous looking death god, but his behavior and the way he talks do not suit his looks at all. He talks like a modern young man, and has a great sense of humor. He also looooves apples, and Light sometimes even uses an apple to make Ryuk do him a favor.

Since I knew how big Ryuk’s head was going to be, I drew a sketch based on the size of a quail egg. (I used pictures of the nendoroid figure of Ryuk as reference) I also knew he’d have a lot of small pieces that had to be put together in the morning, so I decided to try making the rest of the bento simpler than my usual bento. The night before, I prepped purple/blue quail eggs (Even thought I only needed one, I dyed a couple of quail eggs for backup), and I left them soaking in purple cabbage juice in the fridge overnight. (see “how to dye eggs naturally”)

I also cut out seaweed for his wings, hair, mouth, eyes, feathers around his neck, body, arms, and legs. I put them between two sheet of paper in a Ziploc bag, so the seaweed wouldn’t get wrinkly from moisture in the air.

I sliced renkon and put them in a tupperware with water and a little big of vinegar to make sauteed renkon. Peeling and slicing renkon takes only about little more than 5 minutes, but I usually cut renkon the night before to save time. Vinegar is to prevent discoloration.

When I was drawing the sketch, I thought the color palette of this bento would be too dark. So I made an egg sheet (see “how to make an egg sheet”) just in case, and put it in the fridge.

The following morning, I sauteed renkon, put lettuce in the bento box, and placed the sauteed renkon over the lettuce. Then I mixed rice with black sesame seed and salt (see “how to dye rice naturally”) and put it over the renkon.

I microwaved asparagus for about 30 seconds, and wrapped asparagus with bacon, put together with a tooth pick, and cooked it on a pan until the bacon was cooked. (I don’t even need to put oil in the pan, because the bacon will provide enough oil) I put asparagus with bacon to the sides of the rice, but as I had thought before, the bento looked a bit too dark. So I cut sausage and made sunflowers with the egg sheet (see “see how to make a sunflower”) and put them below the asparagus with bacon.

After everything was ready, I started working on Ryuk.

I put seaweed on cheese, and cut around it with an exacto knife. I also made the Death Note with just seaweed and cheese. I cut cheese for the eyes and teeth and put it on seaweed, but I realized that the cheese was too thick, and I was worried the teeth wouldn’t stay on the round surface of quail egg. So I carefully sliced it in half so the cheese’s thickness was half of what it was. So the egg would stay in one place I made a little hole with a spoon for the quail egg. I put the egg, and put the body parts around it.

Before I put the face and hair, I took the stem off from cherry tomato and stuck a tooth pick in it. For the apple’s leaf I cut a small piece from snow peas.

Finally, I placed the hair and face parts on the egg, and cut a small piece of tomato skin for his red eyes. I had to move really fast putting Ryuk together, because seaweed tends to curl up when it absorb moisture. You can see the body parts already starting to warp a bit in the pictures. Especially the hair which was just seaweed with no support had to be put on at the very end.

Doesn't he look happy with his note and an apple?

I woke up late this day, and considering this bento actually took an hour less than my usual bento, I thought it came out pretty okay. Until I realized that I forgot to make his earring… T_T

I think preparing food the night before helped a lot. I could’ve sauteed renkon, cooked asparagus and saved even more time. (My boyfriend puts his bento in the fridge and heats it up in the microwave, so it wouldn’t really matter if I had cooked food the night before)

Face only mother could love? My boyfriend and I love it. 😀

*As I mentioned in my blog before, blue is an appetite suppressant. So if you’re dying something blue-ish to put your bento, I’d put something small that wouldn’t take up entire bento.

Ryuk:
– Quail eggs dyed in purple cabbage juice
– Seaweed on cheese, tomato skin for his eyes

Apple:
– Cherry tomato, tooth pick and snow pea

Sunflower:
– sausage and egg sheet

Other food:
– asparagus wrapped with bacon
– rice mixed with black sesame seed and salt
– sauteed renkon
– lettuce

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.