The Japanese obsession with cute food goes beyond just eating it. There’s a whole industry dedicated to fake food. That way rather than the window of appreciation being restricted to pre-ingestion, they can be admired forever.

A practical purpose applied to fake food is the models seen outside restaurants displaying the type of cuisine that can be ordered inside, an indispensable help to indecisive customers. But beyond this, in Japan, plastic food can be found as trinkets, jewellery and even smart phone accessories.

In the past we’ve introduced Japanese sweets that look like animals and animals that look like Japanese sweets, but how about ornaments that look like Japanese sweets that look like animals?

That’s exactly what Twitter user @unamuu2014 specialises in. These adorable animal manju aren’t edible, as much as we may wish they were.

Although, these manju otters are so cute maybe we couldn’t eat them even if they were actual sweets.

Manju are a popular traditional Japanese confection (you can also get a manju flavoured Kit Kat). Similar to a red bean paste filled cake, the outer layer is made from flour, rice powder and buckwheat.

Mizu (water) manju looks like it could be a type of mochi, but it isn’t. The translucent exterior is made from kuzu starch giving it its jelly-like appearance. These mizu manju cats look so realistic you can imagine they would be soft and wobbly, just like the real thing.

Some of the artist’s creations are available to buy via the Village Vanguard online store.

You can also see more on his Twitter.