I’ll Make It Myself!: Afternoon Tea x Glico’s “Sweet Love Story”
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L.M. (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. Ze works in international student exchange; writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan and the US; curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan; and admins The JET Alumni Culinary Group on LinkedIn.
Via @eerrkkyy. Images of Aya, the Pocky character, in a yellow dress and her lips puckered up, lined up with the women characters from the Afternoon Tea bottles, thus appearing to kiss them.
On Feb. 16, 2016, Kirin’s Afternoon Tea brand and Glico’s candy Pocky released their second design/pairing collaboration with Pocky’s “Lemon Love” (恋のレモン) and Afternoon Tea’s “Teagurt” (yogurt + tea) (ティーグルト). Eaten together, the candy and the tea are supposed to taste like rare cheesecake (レアチーズケーキ) a Japanese style of cheesecake that isn’t baked but is stabilized by the addition of gelatin. The package design is also a collaboration: the Pocky boxes feature a woman (Aya) in a yellow dress on one set and a man (Tsubasa) in a yellow vest on the other. Aya and Tsubasa are positioned on the left side of their respective Pocky boxes so you can pair them with the 6 different characters featured on the right side on the drink bottle. There are three men and three women characters on the drink bottles, with one woman character and one man character on opposite sides of the same bottle, so you can turn the bottle to have the character of your choice to face the character on your Pocky box.
At first glance, it looks like Glico and Kirin have created something inclusive, and it’s really, really adorable.
At least until you start reading the copy.
I’ll Make It Myself!: A Bento is Not As Big As the World
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan, and The JET Alumni Culinary Group in LinkedIn.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
This is a companion piece to “‘Deeply Ingrained Advantages’: American Media Discovers Kyûshoku.”
At the same time as Japan’s school lunch programs got picked up by the media, there was a burst of articles about Japan’s other distinctive lunch: the bento.
Bento and the Cult of Cute
In the lead-in to Carlsen’s and Turner’s “In Japan, Food Can Be Almost Too Cute To Eat,” there is a slideshow showcasing the cuter side of Japanese food: tofu character goods, a kyaraben (character bento), and images of Anpanman in cartoon and pancake form.
