I've been living in Europe for 10 years before returning to Japan a few years ago. I wasn't used anymore to excessive the amount of cuteness that can be found in kid products.

 

I think that this is related to Japan history, where every aspect of life needs to be easily identified, thus becoming easy to understand at a glance.

 

So, we have salary men, whose style of life is so typical in Japan! They're too serious and formal when they commute, but far too excessive when they're drunk. 

 

Or think about Japanese traditional crafts. Unlike gothic and baroque, they have been simplified with every evolution, and even popular art is very minimal nowadays.

A brief glance at traditional popular pottery will make it clear. 

 

The list goes on, touching every aspect of life: luxury items that are too gorgeous, customers that are considered like gods by clercks, a bureaucracy that works, politicians that are either too corrupt to be ashamed or too politically correct to take action, student uniforms to uniform students, kids that are too well behaved, adults that are too frustrated, ...

 

I would dare to say that good or bad things—here in Japan—are exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad.

Really, it does! That is because lunch boxes aren't spared from the kawaii movement.

 

One day, my daughter asked me octopus for lunch at the kindergarten. Of course, at first I thought about something like a yummy octopus to eat.

But she actually meant something like this.

Since childhood, we're ranked through exams. It's normal to attend cram schools every day after regular school, so a student's life if a hard one.

 

Imagine therefore moms competing to every other mom for the "best lunch box" prize!

And voilà, here you are some fine but extreme lunch boxes.

You may find them cute at first, but imagine having to craft a different one every day, just because every mom simply has to. A hell made of cuteness.

Then they needed clean up, in order to vectorize them as better as possible. So I played with curves and levels to achieve some contrast, clone stamp tool to make defined borders, etc.

Upon thanking Photoshop for the help, Illustrator jumped in to join the fun. Seriously, it has been a good practice vectorize all those tentacles! Not too many details to show, but not too few either, in order to keep the right balance.