bento#51 PenPen and Lilith from Evangelion

While I was making Prinny bento, very naturally, as an otaku, I thought of this.

Bento #51: Evangelion PenPen & Lilith
Created and eaten on: 6/2/2009

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a 26-episode anime series started in 1995, as written in wikipedia “is a commercially and critically successful, influential, and controversial Japanese anime.” It’s hard to describe what the show is about if you’ve never seen it. It’s not just about robots fighting monsters as it makes it seem. It’s depressing, disturbing, awkward, yet somewhat reminds you how you though and felt when you were 14. If you want to start watching anime, but don’t know which one to watch, Evangelion should definitely be in your list.

You might love it, you might hate it (the director received a lot of death threats after the last episode was aired) but it’s one of many anime that was so sensational that it’s a milestone anime. I wouldn’t recommend it to younger kids. It’s suggested to 14 and up, and the main characters are 14 years old, but I don’t know if it’s suitable for an actual 14 year old. There’s some violence and nudity in the show, but I think how the director portrays the psychological state of each character is more twisted than a 14 years old can (or should be able to) handle.

Anyway, in Evangelion, there is a character called PenPen. He’s a “warm-water penguin” who eats human food and drinks beer. He’s a great comic-relief in this anime. But PenPen by himself in the bento wouldn’t be very fun, so I decided to make Lilith, one of the “Angels” (more like an alien/monster from the show). I knew that I’d still have an empty spot in the bento, so I cut out a seaweed “NERV” logo.

For Lilith’s purple face I chopped purple cabbage, microwave it in a bowl of water and put a hard boiled quail egg in. (see “how to dye eggs naturally”) As usual I put sauteed renkon (lotus root) in the bento box first. Using plastic wrap I molded plain rice into the shape of PenPen, and put it on the top of the renkon. Then I cut seaweed for the black part of his body and put it over the rice.

For the cross I mixed rice with ketchup. Then I used *the left-over rice to make Lilith’s body and the head.

* I always portion the rice I’ll be using for the bento in a bowl first so I don’t put too much or too little. Before I started doing this, it was very hard to keep track of how much rice was in the bento box.

After the rice was put in, I filled the space with soboro. (see “how to make soboro”) I wasn’t too happy with it, but I couldn’t think of any other way to put meat in this bento. (I could’ve put mixed vegetables or something for color… oh well.) Then I boiled broccoli, and put it at the bottom of the bento box.

When the background was ready, I started to work on PenPen’s face. First I tried to use kamaboko (fish cake) for the white part around his eyes, but the kamaboko refused to stick to the seaweed, so I changed the plan and used cheese. Then I peeled the skin of red pepper and cut it to make the red eye brow thingys above PenPen’s eyes. I cut konbu (dried sea kelp) for the colored part of his eye, and seaweed for the pupil.

For his beak and feet, I cut cheese out, and put seaweed on the beak. PenPen has a name tag around his neck, so I made it with cheese, and put cut the “Pen” out of seaweed and put it on.

I couldn't cut out the middle part in "P" so I put a tiny piece of cheese on it.

Making the face parts and his name tag took a LOT longer than I expected. When something isn’t round, square or triangular it has to be cut out freehand. This is usually very hard because you have to keep adjusting the shape and size as you make it.

After spending too much time on PenPen, I moved onto Lilith. I took the quail egg out of the purple cabbage juice, washed it, and buried it in the head. For his eyes I cut out cheese with a straw, and put black sesame seed on each eye with tweezers. SPOILER for the show: Lilith in the anime gets stabbed in the chest with a lance called “the Lance of Longinus”, but I didn’t want to do that in my bento… so I cut fake sausage (fish cake) with a little heart shaped cutter, and put them where the lance would be.

Finally, I took out the seaweed NERV logo I made the night before, put it on cheese, cut the cheese into a circle, and put it in the bento.

Then I put a tiny bit of mayonnaise on PenPen’s pupils for the sparkle in his eyes.

As usual, I was running late, and the bento looked… meh. I had no time to do anything else. T_T I liked how PenPen came out, even though I forgot to put fingers, and couldn’t make him holding a beer can like I wanted, but I don’t like the color of this bento, especially around the top left corner. I also wanted to make Lilith holding a flower or something. (In the show, there’s a nail there.) This was a result of a bad planning. I’ll upload the sketch soon, but the bento was supposed to be in a sideways formation, not portrait. I was too lazy to re-draw PenPen or cut out PenPen. This failure made me want to make a PenPen bento with better composition again someday…

Not directly related to bento, but it was funny that when we moved in together, and trying to sell DVDs, CDs and manga for more storage space, we each had a box set of Evangelion. 😛 If you own two of the same box set of anime show, or the same game console or the same game, between you and your boyfriend or girlfriend, that’s pretty much the proof of a very nerdy (and otaku) couple. 🙂

PenPen:
– rice and seaweed
– cheese for his beak and feet
– red pepper
– konbu and seaweed and mayonnaise for his eyes

Lilith:
– rice
– quail egg dyed in purple cabbage juice
– cheese on black sesame seed

Cross:
– rice mixed with ketchup

NERV logo
– seaweed on cheese

Other food:
– renkon
– soboro
– broccoli

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