Japanese movies tend to portray Japanese dads as male chauvinists who never step into the kitchen if they can help it and have little interest in raising their kids. Consider Yasujiro Ozu's timeless classic "Tokyo Story." Sure, Chishu Ryu played a kind and gentle patriarch — but did he once help the women in his family or even get his own tea? That's a big negative and it applies to countless screen fathers and many real-life ones, too.
But now papaben, or bento made by papas, are trending. There are a lot of recipes out there (online and in bookshops), geared specifically for Japanese dads who have taken the plunge into the world of bento crafting. And now there's a movie about it: "Papa no Obento wa Sekai-Ichi," which can be translated as something along the lines of "Papa Makes the World's No. 1 Bento."
Directed by Masakazu Fukatsu, "Papa no Obento wa Sekai-Ichi" stars 50-year-old Toshimi Watanabe, who back in the mid 1990s made his debut as one of Japan's early hip-hop artists and was the vocalist for Tokyo No.1 Soul Set. In other words, he was super cool and back then no one imagined him making bento for anyone. But in 2014, he came out with a book about bento, featuring photos of his own, handmade boxed lunches for his teenaged son, crafted every single day for over three years until graduation. Watanabe's book caused a sensation as other male artists came out of the bento closet. Hitonari (aka Jinsei) Tsuji, an Akutagawa Prize-winning novelist residing in Paris, published a similar book of chic French bento that he made for his young son after his wife (actress Miho Nakayama) filed for divorce.