First off, I saw many mentions of nanabake, the "7 stages" or "7 changes" of hagi.
The funny thing, though, is that I was familiar with nanabake, but for ninja, not hagi. There's an old saying about the 7 common disguises of the ninja, which is called nanabake (七化け). Though ninja have been around longer than hagiyaki, it's not necessarily a given which one used it first (or if it didn't come from something else altogether). But most likely one did borrow it from the other.
The second thing -- along with the recent SO purchase, I bought a large hagi water canister (mizusashi) as well. I had intended this for long-term water storage, but will this work for a hagiyaki item....?
