Tirol Halloween Box 2013 (product information)

As a former KISS fan, I associate protruding tongues with Gene Simmons. It's not that he's the only one who famously stuck out his (or her) tongue for the camera. There's a famous shot of Albert Einstein doing so which is a popular college poster and, of course, we all now know that Miley Cyrus can't keep her's from lolling out the side her mouth like some unfortunate roadkill.

Whatever the inspiration, Tirol has decided to give this year's Halloween box a tongue that you can pull out. They've made some lovely boxes in the past and, at least graphically, this one looks good as well, but the tongue thing is just gross. The box is supposed to convert into some sort of Halloween party covering that you can put over your head.

There are also four smaller packs of candy which include individual masks that only cover the eyes. All of them have the same types of candy as the boxes of years past. In fact, the little candy wrappers are exactly the same design. Though I am not a big fan of the pumpkin box, I still admire their dedication to design. In fact, I wish I could get a job working in one of their offices and apply my Illustrator skills!

Kanro Mojilu Halloween Candy (product information)

Image courtesy of Kanro.

I witnessed the "growth" of Halloween as a holiday in Japan during my years there. Like most foreign holidays, they didn't simply adopt it wholesale, but adapted it to their own sensibilities. Kids don't trick or treat at private homes, but some merchants or shotengai (shopping streets) will hold a special event in which kids can visit shops and get treats or participate in "stamp rallies" (getting a special stamp from various merchants to fill in a booklet or page). 

As the years went by, I saw more and more in the way of Halloween candy and decorations and confectioners got increasingly creative and involved. It started with imported candy or snacks with a Halloween motif, then Japanese snacks had a modest Halloween look and feel, and now there are things which are completely specialized for the holiday. To that end, you can't go any further than the Kanro Mojilu candies.

These packages, which contain bits of hard candy, spell out words in English and include punctuation. Incidentally, "mojilu" almost certainly is the katakana way of saying "module" as in, each letter is a module you can use to build messages. 

One point about this which I'm a little confused about is that this candy does not appear on Kanro's web site (I searched using their search engine as well as hopping around looking for it) and my information says that it's limited to 500 units. I can't believe they're only selling 500 of these, but I guess it's possible. I was released on October 10 and if any of my readers in Japan have seen it on shelves, please let me know. It's possible that this is simply a promotional item that will be distributed to shops and not for sale. Unfortunately, the information I found was pretty vague. This would be a pretty cool find if they are so limited.

Fujiya Halloween Goodies (product info.)

Click to load the full-sized version. All images are from Fujiya's web site.

When it comes to Halloween, Japan churns out all of the adorableness without any of the pesky trick or treat aspects. No one will come to your door and beg for candy. No one will egg your house or toilet paper your bushes, but you can still go out and find some of the most kawaii (cute) Halloween kit in the world. I've been keeping an eye on such things, while the rest of the world has been preoccupied with Burger King's pumpkin and black burgers. I'm probably jaded, but the thrill of, "oh, look, Burger King has piled some new weird crap on a burger," doesn't thrill me like it once did. It's not like every other country doesn't do the same thing, but somehow Japan seems to be a stronger focal point for such attention. A Belgian fast food place made a black burger to tie in with Star Wars, and the world's blogs weren't wetting their pants over it. I guess black food dye is less exciting than squid ink.

Before I get into talking about all of the nifty stuff that Fujiya is selling at present, I'd like to mention that this is a holiday which the Japanese are slowly transforming into one of their own. Instead of kids going door-to-door and pestering their neighbors, something which is really outside of their cultural norms, they are increasingly setting up a holiday in which kids can go to the shopping streets (shotengai) and get goodies from participating merchants. This provides a promotional opportunity as well as ensures that not innocent people are bothered by strangely dressed children in their genkan.

As for the Fujiya offerings, most of it is the same sort of deal that other snack makers are doing. That is, they offer the same basic foodstuffs, but wrapped in a Halloween motif. The difference with Fujiya is that their packaging is going an extra mile in some cases. It's not only a Halloween design on the plastic bag, at least in some cases. Some of it has nifty keepsakes which would make adorable souvenirs of Japan or lasting decorations to add to ones collection of plastic skulls and grave markers.

One of the coolest of such items is a Halloween bandana that encloses "Milky" candies. Fujiya recommends you use it to wrap gifts (like a furoshiki) or even use it as a napkin. The candy really isn't the best. I felt rather indifferent about it as it seemed like any old taffy-style candy, but I'd probably buy a bag of it just to get the cute bandana. This is 500 yen ($6.26), and yes, I realize that sounds expensive for a printed piece of fabric and a bag of taffy.

The Peko pumpkin, which is a little tin sphere which has Peko chan's face on it on one side and a jack-o-lantern on the other, is probably one of the least imaginative options, but I find the styling of the faces uniquely Japanese. The pumpkin face is so cute and joyful that you know that it had to have originated in a country in which people don't find being  happy to be uncool.

There is also a pretty cute mug that you can buy "purin" (pudding/flan) in. When I was living in Japan, the one thing I never had a shortage of was coffee cups. People seem to think that I'm clumsily breaking them right and left or they were utterly lacking in imagination and lazily just kept plying me with mugs. Even Peko Chan kitted out as a cute witch with a lolling tongue wouldn't get me to purchase this, but I have to admit that I'd be tempted as it would be a really nifty souvenir. For 390 yen ($4.88), it's a little pricey for pudding, but the mug is earthenware and probably a shade nicer than 100-yen-shop finds.

Finally, among the items I'm spotlighting, these a pretty nifty tin. Inside of it are milky candies, Country Ma'am cookies, lollipops, and Heart chocolates. I'm not sure how big the pail is, but it'd make an adorable trick-or-treat tin for a small kid, provided that kid was more interested in looking cute than collecting tons of loot. If you happen to be in Japan as a tourist right now, and this is actually a good time to be in Tokyo because the weather would have finally mellowed out from the hideous summer, these things would be much better than your average crap in the airport as souvenirs to take home.

For those who are interested in a cute wallpaper of Peko chan made up in a Halloween motif, you can download one in various sizes here. There are also seasonal calendar wallpapers on this page.

Random Picture #136

Both photos courtesy of BlogD (used with permission). 

It's nice to see that the Japanese merchants are really getting into the spirit of the season. That's the spirit of selling more stuff to people, of course. These are kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) cream bread which were on sale in Ikebukuro. The face is a chocolate cookie mixture, probably similar to the coating on melon pan. The bread is pumpkin flavored and inside is custard cream. I'd be happy to sample these if I were in Tokyo if it weren't for the fact that they look like a family that didn't look like cream bread created close enough to  Fukushima's nuclear plant to create some unfortunate results. These are actually very unusual in that they are rather sloppily made for a Japanese bakery. Usually, they're  more meticulous than this.

The cheesecakes in this picture are much closer to what one would expect from a Japanese bakery. They are "rare cheesecakes" (like New York style, except lighter, as opposed to baked cheesecake) and the stenciling is pretty perfect looking. Despite having pumpkins on them, they aren't pumpkin flavored, though those are mini pumpkin pies down below. I wonder if those pies are Japanese pumpkin (kabocha) or American. Yes, the taste is very different. I wouldn't buy one though as 845 yen ($10.65) is far too expensive for a tiny pie.

Random Picture #86

Click to see a larger image with more detail.

Halloween quietly passed Japan by, which is reasonable considering they don't actually celebrate it. However, they do know how to take advantage of a marketing opportunity and every year I see more and more items designed to get the Japanese into the Halloween spirit. Well, that's not exactly true. I don't think they know what the spirit of All Hallow's Eve is and I'm pretty sure that, if they did, it wouldn't really suit Japanese sensibilities. I'm not only talking about how knocking on strangers' doors for free candy would rub them the wrong way, but the "tricks" aspect would be viewed as troubling others in a thoroughly unacceptable manner. Besides, in a country that goes for the toilet paper in a crisis, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't feel great about wasting it TP'ing.

Among the plethora of cute Halloween-themed treats, I was especially enchanted by these pumpkin-shaped manju (traditional Japanese sweets). I even considered buying them, but three are more than I can eat in a short time and this is the type of thing best consumed fresh. 

Random Picture 34

Click this small picture for a larger one.

This is a display that drew my attention at a drug store I never shop at. If you can read Japanese, you already know this isn't what it appears to be. The English says "fruits candy" and displays a Halloween motif. This is actually a toilet bowl freshener that looks a lot like a candy display. If you really didn't know what it was, you might think that plastic rod in the center was some sort of lollipop stick.

It certainly works for drawing the eye, but it didn't persuade me to open my wallet. I won't be forking over 299 yen ($3.63) to make my toilet smell like a chemical factory that makes fake fruit-flavored candy.

Halloween Manju (Pumpkin and Sweet Potato)

I usually don't post on Saturday, but this is a special extra for Halloween. A few weeks ago, my husband and I picked up some fresh manju (cake filled with sweetened bean or other traditional fillings) at a shop near the local train station. They were cute, and we both like manju. The orange one is kaboucha or Japanese pumpkin and the brown one is sweet potato.

These sorts of sweets are made exclusively by one shop and cannot be bought just anywhere. They are, essentially, like the product of a bakery. That is why this is a special post rather than a real review. Not only can my readers not buy these unless they happen to visit the same shop as us (or the same chain), but the chance that this exact same treat will be around at this time next year is pretty low. Mainly, this is just a one-off for some pictures of the type of cute seasonal fare you can get in Japan.


The pumpkin one has a bean/pumpkin mixture. I thought it tasted strongly and pleasantly of Japanese pumpkin (like a butternut squash), but my husband couldn't taste the pumpkin element at all. He said it was pleasant and nicely sweet, but couldn't really pick out the pumpkin. I ended up eating half of his as well as all of mine (the sweet potato one).


The sweet potato one has a chocolate exterior and sweet potato mix interior. You can see little bits of mashed sweet potato in it. The outside coating was surprisingly intense in cocoa flavor and overwhelmed the sweet potato flavor at first, but it was revealed a bit more fully after the first bite.

Both of these were fresh, moist, and really tasty. I think the cake exterior, which is very moist and a bit gummy (which sounds bad, but isn't), is made from yam flour. If you visit Japan, this is exactly the sort of thing you want to try from local shops and eat while it's absolutely fresh. You really can't beat this sort of experience, and it's the type of thing that isn't nearly as good the next day.

Happy Halloween to all of my kind readers!

Variety Friday: Hello Kitty Halloween Tins

There are two "Family Mart" convenience stores within walking distance of my home. One is about 5 minutes away and the other about 9. I usually go to the closer one, but was in the mood for a walk and visited the other and discovered that all conbini of the same chain are not treated alike. One of them had a display of special "Hello Kitty" Halloween tins with Tirol chocolates and the other did not. I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that the one that is furthest away is a lot closer to a subway station on a major line.


The tins are 315 yen each ($3.46) and you get to choose 8 Halloween-themed small Tirol candies to put in it (not the premium ones which are larger and cost 32 yen (35 cents) each. The value of 8 of these small candies is 80 yen (88 cents), so you're really just paying for access to a small, extremely cute tin featuring Hello Kitty. The display box, incidentally, gives you instructions for exactly how to place the candies in the tins.



There are two styles of tins. One is a square-shaped house which doesn't seem nearly as Halloween-like (but has Halloween designs) and the other is the coffin. There were 3 designs for each style of tin and they were repeated on the packages of the chocolates (most of which are pictured above). There are only two kinds of Tirol candies to choose from and I have reviewed both of them before. One is "Bis", a bland little cracker-like biscuit covered in chocolate, and the other is a chocolate-covered roasted almond. Both of these are included in my previous review of a variety pack. Of course, one doesn't buy these for the candy. In my case, I didn't even buy this for the tin for myself. I bought the tin to send to someone back home as a gift. While I'm not immune to the extreme cutenesss of some Hello Kitty stuff, I'm not really enamored of her.

Family Mart is doing a full-scale Halloween campaign (detailed on their site in Japanese) and you are given a free papercraft Halloween bucket when you buy one of the items that is a part of the campaign. Image pilfered from Family Mart's site.

There are three colors and styles of buckets. The one I got is black. I'm not going to open it and put it together, but I did pinch a picture off of Family Mart's site which shows what they're supposed to look like.

Tirol Sweet Halloween Variety Box

Have you ever seen a more adorable or happy-looking skeleton?

I love bright, vivid, clean graphics. Even if I wasn't keen on the candy in this Tirol Halloween box, I'd want to buy it for the bold, clean look. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but parts of the box (the ghost and other creatures and the trees) are perforated so they can be popped up and the box can be used as a little Halloween decoration or display. As it turned out, my husband picked this up at New Days convenience store (for about 210 yen or $2), so the choice wasn't really in my hands.


This is the second of these bright, attractive boxes that I've reviewed (though there have been at least several others which I've passed on). The other one was the W Purin one, and it was actually quite good. I have much lower expectations of these flavors because 3 of them are repeats of flavors that have appeared in less slick variety packs in the past (and 1 was a former 'Premium' candy), and I have reviewed 2 of them before.


The 4 flavors are conveniently written in English: coffee nougat, almond, pumpkin tart, and "milk". Each candy is between 30-35 calories for its 2.25 cm (.9 in) square x 1 cm (.4 in.) tall size. Here are the reviews of each flavor:

coffee nougat:


This smells like milk chocolate even after it has been cut apart to reveal the firm nougat center. At first, you get the milk chocolate flavor, which is your average Japanese milk chocolate (which is to say, on the bittersweet side). The chewy coffee center comes in at the end very strongly when all of the chocolate has melted away and you chew on the toffee-like coffee center. The coffee flavor is similar to fairly decent quality instant coffee and not too strong. I wouldn't necessarily crave this, but I wouldn't mind it either. It wouldn't compel me to buy a box, but I'd certainly eat the ones that came with a variety pack as they are enjoyable enough for the calories.

chocolate almond:


This is the same almond as is included in other variety packs. Since I liked it before, I still like it now. It smells like milk chocolate or cocoa powder. It tastes like pretty decent milk chocolate with a super crispy deeply roasted and crunchy almond. There's a nice mix of almond and chocolate flavor but a bit of a bitter aftertaste from the chocolate.

Milk:


This is a milk chocolate shell with a "cream" filling according to the package description. One of the ingredients is "cream powder", but it doesn't taste much like cream and is similar to actual milk. There's an unusual taste to it, and I believe it is mirin (Japanese sweet cooking rice wine). It's a very milk influence, but it gives it a light liquor flavor. This is pretty good, though rather sweet. Some may find the mirin flavor off-putting or odd though.

Pumpkin:


When I reviewed the premium version of the pumpkin Tirol, it had the same pumpkin coating and cookie center, but it didn't have the "soy sauce" that this has on it. I mentioned in the former review that I thought the pumpkin needed some other seasoning to offset the sense of it being a very sweet squash flavor. It seems Tirol agreed since they added this sauce to the latest incarnation. The variety pack versions are usually smaller, but also simpler than the premium ones, so this sauce was a surprise. Soy sauce in candies often tastes a lot like maple syrup. It is thickened and sweetened and this seems to turn it from soy- and salt-flavored to maple syrup-like. This was good, but my least favorite of the bunch. It still seems like sweetened squash to me, but at least this has an added dimension.

This is a nice collection, and I really love the size of these. I like to have just a bite or two of something sweet after lunch and one of these generally does the trick without making me feel overly full or like I've just piled on more calories on top of lunch. This is a more desirable combination of flavors without any stinkers in the bunch than some of the other variety packs I've sampled. I'd definitely buy this again if it came around next year for Halloween. I only wish that I could find a reason to preserve the box and wrappers because they're insanely cute Halloween graphics.