The Japanese festival holiday of obon is a time to welcome home and honor the spirits of one's ancestors. Every year (August 12th this year), families often do so by crafting a shoryouma ("spirit horse"), which is a horse figure made out of cucumbers. The speedy animal is meant to represent a steed that can quickly transport the departed spirits back home. Alternatively, a a shoryouma ("spirit cow") is made sometimes from eggplant for the spirit to leisurely make their way back to the spirit world at the holiday's end. Recently, people have taken to getting a bit more creative with their spirit animals, however, including making awesome Studio Ghibli-inspired vessels.

Aya (@mukiyausamifu87) decided to take that exact approach during this year's obon inspired by the Studio Ghibli classic Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. While impressive, after completing it, she shared it to Twitter nervously with the comment "I wonder if my ancestors would ride this..."

You can see the reason for her trepidation:

Aya's incredibly imposing traveling spirit animal is one of the Ohmu, the giant insects found in The Sea of Corruption in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (which Starbucks Japan's new cream pies' resemblance to terrified customers).

As you can see, Aya didn't limit herself to one veggie for crafting the beast. The epic insect's body is made of goya bitter melon, its many eyes out of tomato slices, while the legs and facial tendrils are made from corn ears and whiskers.

Many on Twitter were blown away by the veggie insect steed, although they did also wonder how an ancestor's spirit would react being greeted by it to be picked up. Still, Ohmu are quite fast so Aya's ancestors must have come home soon.