ふわ丸

Tohato's Fuwa Maru（ふわ丸）corn snacks are these oddball semi ninja star/fleur de lis shaped thingamabobs, slightly stale feeling in da mouth, but oddly compelling. Especially after a long night of drinking nihonshu. And just as the fleeting feeling of drunkenness will pass, these corn snacks have a very ephemeral quality, almost instantly disappearing at first contact of saliva. In fact, the clever marketers at Tohato are banking on that disappearing act. Promo for the product makes statements to the effect that like a clever ninja, the Fuwa Maru are as quick to disappear as they appear. 

Drawn to this quite insubstantial - even by junk food standards - corn puff by it's admittedly handsome package, a somewhat ukiyo-e-y illustration of a darkly garbed ninja, in the konbini aisles it stood out head and shoulders for eye catchingness. A quick peruse of the Tohato site made me realize that in this big ol' world of packaging and repackaging similar things and calling them different, that the package is where manufacturers make their cases. And Tohato excels in this area of branding.

These are the same folks who market Bokun Habanero chips. A year ago they created a campaign that involved mobile phone multiplayer game playing and a traditional advertising media to determine the winner of the "world's worst war" - Tyrant Habanero Burning Hell Hot or Satan Jorquia Bazooka Deadly Hot. Hmm. You may have thought snack foods were simply about satiating some immediate desires. Looks like the stakes can be pretty high these days.

きなこもち

Marunaga's Kinako Mochi (きなこもち) bar is one of those wonders that tries, somewhat unsuccessfully to mashup a very traditional food to a new technology. Granted, ice cream bars have been around for some time now, but the venerable tradition of kinako covered mochi is, well, ancient. 

A couple of definitions are in order. First, mochi. Cooked rice well beaten, preferably with wooden mallets, until it has become very sticky and glutinous. Kinako? A fine powder ground from roasted soybeans. Often compared in taste to peanut butter, it has a bit more of a caramel-y taste. Fresh mochi covered in kinako is a favorite old-fashioned treat, mildly sweet and chewy with a round nutty taste.

The ice cream bar in question has a thin amber colored fondant redolent with kinako, covering a layer of ice milk which surrounds a core of mochi. It all makes some sense, but on the whole, its mild flavors and textures just don't quite deliver. And there's a fascinating thing that happens when mochi is frozen. It kinda gets like silly putty. If you grab a bite and pull slowly, it stretches. However, if you pull quickly, it breaks! A great idea for some simple childish fun, but as food, it's novelty wears off quickly.  I have yet to experiment, but I wonder if it can transfer comic images, like silly putty does?

フレンチ セーキ

Tokyo based Kyodo Milk Industry Co., Ltd., under the Meito brand supplies a mess o' milk to the Kanto market. Apart from the usual, seemingly infinite variations on plain ol' milk - they have recently been touting a zero fat milk - they specialize in any number of flan and pudding products.  So it only seems right that they would spin off some of these ideas into drinkable form. The フレンチ　セーキ (French Shake) is a quite sweet - sugar, fruit sucrose, and grape sugar are all listed as ingredients - moderately low-fat milk drink. Egg yolk and vanilla Frenchify it.  

From years ago, I recall my first taste of French vanilla when the first Baskin Robbins stores crept out of California and hit the upper west coast.  French vanilla was the exotic premium version of plain ol' boring vanilla ice cream. The cloying egg custard taste was certainly offset by a somewhat real tasting vanilla. Plus it had little brown specs as further proof of its true vanilla roots... or rhizomes... or whatever.  All I really recall, was that despite it all - and that very strange yellow color - it somehow started my love affair with vanilla flavored milk products.

How's Meito's French Shake measure up?  Not bad in that sort of Proustian way that makes me want to write six volumes of filler between the first and last lines.  Sweet it is. It's got a moderately cloying eggy taste. And it reminds me of something from way back. Exactly why egg vanilla custardy things become French, I'm not so sure, mais longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure, after a nice glass of vanilla flavored milk.  Never was that much a fan of the egg though.

カラフルラムネバメロソーダ

One of the stranger enigmas to hit the frozen food case is the case of the カラフルラムネバメロソーダ - the "colorful ramune bar melon soda," from Morinaga. What exactly does this all mean?  At the heart of the mystery is "ramune," which is the name of the first carbonated soft drink marketed in Japan.  It's a lemon-ish soda in a distinctive bottle, crimped at the neck creating a bubble that held a glass marble. A strange and playful invention that amuses kids and folks like me. "Ramune" is an antediluvian bastardization of "lemony." Once the floodgates of carbonation opened, Japan embraced various and sundry flavors, including melon. Great in concept, weak in execution, melon sodas can be found in many a soft drink machine during the sweltering summer months. 

So, this crazy little frozen confection has a layer of melon soda ice, covering a layer of a lemon ice. But never leaving well enough alone the whole thing is jam-packed with little citrus acidy sweet tart type candies that burst into tart mouth-numbing exclamation points on one's tongue. It may be all in good fun, but it certainly doesn't work as a taste sensation. It's more of an assault.

Of course, it's all tied into a multiple platform promotion that includes the ice cream bar, the soda, and an anime series.  Yes! 

Dekavita C

Suntory's Dekavita C is in the realm of a long line of energy drinks marketed to Japanese consumers largely for hangover cures, but also for getting rid of bags under one's eyes, sexual enhancement and stamina, and God knows what else.  Like all energy drinks, it's basically carbonated sugar water with a few vague herbs or artificial flavors to give one the sense of maybe a bit of healthiness. Dekavita C boasts a number of B vitamins.  Oh, and C.  Tastewise, it's kind of the poor man's Red Bull. Like a light cassis, with a bit of a Robitussen edge, the taste follows through with quininic tannins.  A not entirely pleasant taste.  But remember this is supposed to be good for you.  And the massive jolts of sugar eventually cover up any sort of subtlety in the taste.  

Like many an energy drink Dekavita C capitalizes on the idea that by connecting with the very drink itself, the consumer connects with "energy." And this energy transforms one into... someone better, more appealing, beyond and outside of one' s self. It's a sacrament of shamanic release that let's one partake of the mysteries.  Of transcendence. Traditionally the realm of drugs and alchohol, the energy drink is attempting to usurp these venerable media, these keys to the beyond.  But let's face it.  It's still sugar water.

Bikkle

I can't help but think of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver whenever I pop a bottle of Bikkle, the Calpis-style milky cooler from Suntory.  Perhaps Robert De Niro may have never gone off the deep end if he had a regular supply of this somewhat sweet bifudus-laden concoction that's marketed for its wholesomeness and healthiness - chock full of calcium and magnesium. Like all drinks of it's ilk, it's sugar water - though pleasant in that sort of watery cloying keffir sort of way.  

It's got a wide-mouth bottle, so it's built for chuggin' and there's a little mascot below the 70s style typeface logo - Bikkle King. He seems to have been a bit of an afterthought, or perhaps there was little thought of him at all. Recently he's been usurped by superstar spokesmodels, PUFFY, a very popular singing duet.  The 2 girls that make up PUFFY go by the names of Jane and Sue. They caught the public attention a few years ago with their clear break from the manufactured techno-pop sound that had dominated the Japanese music scene for many years to a manufactured wholesome pop image and sound reminiscent of the Beatles and the Carpenters. If Travis Bickle had met Jane and Sue, rather than Iris, the end of the movie would have been much different.  Instead of ending like this -



It might have been something like this -

Vanilla Soda Bar Melon Choco

I'm not sure what exactly what was on the mind

of the inventor of this one, but I'm thinking he/she/it must be some Fritz Lang-like Mabuse, straightjacketed, in a padded cell, masterminding a very twisted and convoluted plot in dominating the frozen confection market with very strange ice cream bars. Or he/she/it may just be mad.

Dr. Akagi*, as I will call him/her/it is responsible for the Garigari bar (ガリガリ), a strange and popular soda-flavored popsicle. As to what sort of soda it is, is up to question, but a quick suck and the tongue is fooled into experiencing sweet effervescence - actually quite odd and worth the 80 or so yen just to say you've tried it.

However, the Vanilla Soda Bar Melon Choco, though marketed to the same niche of pimply-faced otaku, seems to be coming from a parallel universe. Tossing aside the simplicity of the Garigari popsicles (they also come in various fruit flavors), this bizarro pop has a cuboid of the aforementioned soda ice laying beside and equal rectangular parallelepiped of a somewhat bland vanilla ice cream, all lathered with a melon fondant. Where the choco comes in in anybody's guess. Nonetheless, the flavor combinations work toward a sort of Rococo frivolity, combining a vague milkiness with bubbles and melon. I'm sure it's the perfect thing to suck on while playing Grand Theft Auto 4. Parallel universes, indeed!

NV

* The name of the comic character on the package is actually Mr. Cookn.