ホームランバー

The Japanese passion for baseball is famous. By 1920, Japan had gone professional. Living in Tokyo, I guess I must be a Yomiuri Giants fan, but I'm certainly fonder of the names Orix Buffaloes and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Of course, Nippon-Ham is a giant meat packer and the cross marketing potential of tagging its name on a ball team (not necessarily the best) means automatic advertising whenever a sportscaster or casual observers even mention the name. And of course, Nippon-Ham is one of the worst ham products available in Japan.

But we're talking about ice cream today. Specifically Mieto's ホームランバー (Home Run Bar). They're celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, so the fancified their package, made the bars a little bigger and costlier. They're still a deal. And the new plastic package pales in comparison to the old-fashioned foil wrapper on their original product. I imagine that once this promotion is over, they will go back to their very cool old design.

The bar itself offers nothing new or better than your average vanilla ice cream covered with a thin vanilla or chocolate fondant. Their cheapness reflects in their taste. Not much to write home about. But for nostalgia value alone, they have that sort of kid-blandness that brings me back to some unspecified youth in some baseball-loving country and the simple pleasures of a life that never happened. By the 60s, when this bar came out, baseball wasn't the national pastime, merely a reflection of it. Long gone were the days of the Babe. Now, it's more boring than golf, more corporate than ever and only the rich can afford to go to games. At least, for less than a buck (or 100 yen) you enjoy a Home Run Bar. And if you get a specially marked stick you can get another one for free.