An employee at Hanshin Department Store in Osaka displays two types of bento boxed lunches based on menus from World War II.

The lunches, created for the day to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, were priced at ¥490.

People started to line up for the special items at around 8 a.m. Store officials prepared tickets for the bento, and they were all gone before the store opened.

Instead of using rice, one lunch used millet while another used barley and came with baked, dried sardines and sweet potatoes.

"We used to eat much more meager meals than this. I want to give this to my grandchild and talk about the hardship we went through during the war," said customer Kokaku Suematsu, 66, who lived in Kashiwabara, Osaka Prefecture, during the war to escape the U.S. bombings.

The Japan Times Weekly: Aug. 20, 2005
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