Despite the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami in the northeastern part of Honshu, in most of Japan, life has to go on as usual.
April marks the start of the new school year, which means that parents all over the country are cranking up their morning lunch-making routines. In Japan a packed lunch is always called a "bento" (literally meaning "box") or "obento" to be more polite, whether it's stored in the quintessential lunchbox or not.
While most elementary schools and many junior high schools have lunch programs, kindergartens and high schools tend not to, so young mothers with toddlers generally take great care over the contents of the small bento boxes they fill every day. The charaben or character bento phenomenon of decorative, occasionally inedible, bento boxes that have caught the imagination of people worldwide via the Internet, was born from a mother's desire to get her child, a picky eater, to eat his lunch. While making the contents of a bento attractive and appetizing is very important, a kid's bento is much more than just a pretty lunch.