Bento Lunches Decorated As Album Covers

Bento can be very elaborately arranged in a style called kyaraben or "character bento". Kyaraben is typically decorated to look like popular Japanese cartoon characters (anime), characters from comic books (manga), or video game characters. Another popular bento style is "oekakiben" or "picture bento", which is decorated to look like people, animals, buildings and monuments, or items such as flowers and plants. Contests are often held where bento arrangers compete for the most aesthetically pleasing arrangements. There are similar forms of boxed lunches in the Philippines (Baon), Korea (Dosirak), Taiwan (Biandang), and India (Tiffin).
"Bento" originates from the Southern Song slang term 便當 (pinyin: biàndāng), meaning "convenient" or "convenience." When imported to Japan, it was written with the ateji 便道, 辨道, and 辨當. In shinjitai, 辨當 is written as 弁当. In the 20th century, the term was imported to modern Mandarin, rendered as 便當, where it retains its older meaning of "convenient" and also refers to bento in mainland China and generic boxed lunches in Taiwan.