Izumi is a young Japanese food artist who specializes in detailed cake icing artworks inspired by popular manga and anime characters.

We’ve featured some incredible cake artists over the last 12 years, from the super-talented Sarah Hardy, who can create edible replicas of just about anything, to Chinese patissier Zhou Yi, whose creations look more like porcelain dolls than sugar paste, but when it comes to anime-inspired cake art, Japanese artist Izumi is in a class of her own. One of her latest projects, an edible, three-dimensional rendition of Kaoru Hakaze from the Ensemble Stars! video game recently went viral, and that’s how most people discovered her impressive portfolio of cake decorations.

Photo: @kiri0izm/Instagram

As you can imagine, these ultra-detailed cake-icing artworks require a lot of time and effort, and that becomes obvious when watching Izumi at work on her YouTube channel.

The Japanese food artist starts off with a layer of cake carved in the shape of the character she is trying to replicate, and pieces of sugar paste she then painstakingly molds, sculpts and carves using a variety of fine tools.

After creating the base layer of sugar paste, she carefully paints the small details of her artwork, like the eyes, eyebrows, mouth and any required shadows, before adding additional 3D elements like hair strands, hands, or flowers. Every little detail is done by hand!

According to Izumi, the eyes are the hardest part, but looking at how complex her edible artworks look, it’s hard to tell what the easy parts are.

For more amazing anime-inspired food art, check out the colorful bento box art of Riyu Yuda, the pancake portraits of ‘otaku chef’ Keisuke Inagaki, and even some of Izumi’s past works.