┌─∩─┐ 　 よいしょっ　　│　 千　 │ 　　　　　　　　　 │　 歳　 │ 　 　 (=^>ω<^=)│　 飴　 │ 　　　　( 　 　 )っ└───┘ 　　　 　 し し

Read top to bottom, the three kanji inside the tall box on the right spell 千歳飴, chitose-ame, “thousand-year candy”: 千 on row 2, 歳 on row 3, 飴 on row 4, stacked as on the real thing. The box is the paper bag the candy comes in, built from box-drawing characters: ┌─∩─┐ across the top on row 1, a single │ down each side on rows 2 to 4, and └───┘ along the bottom on row 5. The ∩ in the middle of the top edge, the math symbol for set intersection, is the handle, arching up like a little loop. The one hauling the bag is the kitten on row 4, (=^>ω<^=), and there isn’t a single space between its face and the bag’s left edge. The = just inside each parenthesis are whiskers, the small ^ next to them sit high on the row as ears, and ω is the cat’s mouth. The eyes are > and <, both pointing in at the mouth: eyes squeezed shut with effort. On row 5, ( ) with nothing but spaces inside is a round little body, and the っ right after it is a paw, level with the bag’s bottom edge and just left of the corner └. On row 6, し し are the feet. The bag’s bottom is on row 5 and the feet are on row 6, so the bag is already one row off the ground. The bag is five rows tall, the kitten three, and the top of the bag is three rows above the kitten’s head. Off to the left on row 2, よいしょっ (yoisho!) is the grunt that comes out in Japanese when you heave something heavy, the small っ at the end cutting it off mid-breath. That っ is the same character as the paw, and the し in it is the same character as the feet. Around November 15, on Shichi-Go-San, Japanese families take kids aged three, five and seven, dressed up in kimono, to a shrine to celebrate how they’re growing, and the kids come away with chitose-ame: long, thin red-and-white candy sticks that wish them a long life, in a narrow bag that looks enormous in small hands. This little original AA, drawn for this site, gives that bag to a kitten.