Japanese designer Akihiro Mizuuchi has created a set of precise Lego moulds that turn melted chocolate into edible bricks (+ slideshow).

Akihiro Mizuuchi formed moulds around real Lego pieces, which were used to make the individual chocolate bricks that he built into figurines.

The idea started with a Valentine's Day tradition amongst Mizuuchi's friends to re-create characters from popular Japanese anime television programme Mobile Suit Gundam out of chocolate, documented on a dedicated Facebook group.

"On Valentine's Day this year, I decided to make a lot of chocolate Lego first and then assemble the characters with the chocolate Lego," Mizuuchi told Dezeen.

He designed each character in Lego bricks on his computer first, so he could calculate which components he would require and in what quantities.

He then laid the required bricks out on a Lego baseplate and formed a mould around them. The result is so detailed that it even includes the Danish toy company's logo on the top of each brick.

Mizuuchi poured melted chocolate into the moulds and waited for it to cool before popping out the individual bricks required to make the Mobile Suit Gundam characters.

Blocks were made in dark, milk, white and strawberry chocolate to create tonal variation, and Mizuuchi also experimented with colouring to produce green and blue pieces.

Mizuuchi is an illustrator and designer and also lectures at the Shizuoka College of Design and Tokoha Gakuen University of Art.