The site is going to be void of updates [save for a few Japanese Snack Advocate posts] for a few weeks as I get things together for heading back to Japan in November with friend, former roommate, and fellow blogger Harris Fish of the less than regularly updated Gaijin Bakemono dot com.
Till then, stay violent everyone.
~C.M. Privitera
Just saw this the other day on my way back from getting my hands on a copy of Dragon Quest Monsters:Joker 2. Located dangerously close to the Gundam Cafe [in Akihabara of course], the new AKB48 Cafe // Store is the newest marketing tool created to suck every last yen out of eerily obsessed otakus pockets.
Just what is AKB48? I’ll tell you this much for free: AKB is short for Akiba // Akihabara and there are 48 members. Here’s what they do:
Yup. You were probably right on the money with your guess. Walk twenty feet down Edo Dori and you will probably spot over a thousand pieces of merchandise branded with the group name or with the photograph of a particular member of choice. It’s weird, it’s obsessive, it’s very otaku and very Japanese. Don’t make the same mistake I did when I asked the line outside of the cafe, which wrapped was around the street and under the bridge mind you, “Hey, what’s an AKB48?”. Playing stupid is highly entertaining.
~C.M. Privitera
I spent tonight at the Hurley Space Tokyo Grand Launch party in Harajuku, Tokyo checking out some amazing music, entertainment, free booze // food, and some amazing art including a giant mural painted by the talented triumvirat of Bwana Spoons, KaToPe, and CHANMEN. Each artist also had a small wall gallery displaying some of their other works as well as a cart full of Kaiju and prints that Bwana Spoons had set up.
[Head behind the break for more]
Whilst on a late night bike ride from Akihabara to Shinjuku, I stopped into a 7-11 to get my hands on some soap and shaving gel. The last thing I expected to find was a Slurpee machine staring me in the face as I entered the store. A winner is me I suppose.
[Head behind the break for more]
Many of you are probably wondering what this “Aquarius” stuff I keep talking about is. For those of you who don’t know, Aquarius is basically the greatest sports water ever made and is the life force that keeps me biking, running, walking, and pretty much any other kind of movement, after a long night of drinking. Isn’t sports water just Gatorade? Not really.
While Gatorade is very similar to sports water, let me assure you that sports water drinks such as Aquarius and Pocari Sweat are more electrolytes and water than sugar and flavour as seen in most of your Gatorades and Powerades. While it may not taste as fruity, sweet, or juice-like as those drinks, Aquarius allows for ease of hydration by coming as close to the contents of sweat as drink science can get. Does it taste like sweat? No. It’s more of a grapefruit flavour with an obvious hint of electrolytes [salty little guys] which actually makes you feel hydrated without feeling as if you just drank a soda.
In short: Aquarius Sports Water is effing delicious and is one of the best sports waters on the Japanese market.
~C.M. Privitera
It’s not like we haven’t all seen this before. Neon Genesis Evangelion themed UCC Coffee cans are back in style and come in a variety of exciting new variants.
Strange that I couldn’t find an Ayanami Rei can amongst the various boxes that I dug thorough, but hey, there’s a Kaworu one. That’s something right?
~C.M. Privitera
I honestly didn’t know that you could eat the lotus. After grasping this concept I decided to grab a bag of Wasabi Lotus Chips to enter this new and exciting world of lotus eating.
I will keep this short and sweet: THESE THINGS ARE DISGUSTING AND TASTE LIKE CHEMICALS. DON’T BUY THEM UNLESS YOU FEEL AS IF YOUR TASTE BUDS DESERVE SOME SORT OF PUNISHMENT. I honestly regret buying these and probably always will.
~C.M. Privitera
Oh my god, my eyes. Bocchan Dango, the most colourful of the dango dumpling family. A treat made of mochiko, a type of rice flour, which is then coloured by three different means, red beans, eggs, and green tea, in order to create a beautiful triumvirat of colour and taste. I used to avoid these guys like the plague due to my irrational fear of red bean; however, I decided to grab a pack of them today after realizing that they contain no actual red bean. Thank god.
After shelling out 105 yen for these guys at a shop in Harajuku, I tore open the pack and dug right in. These things are INCREDIBLY sticky and as chewy as a wad of gum, but they taste amazing. Maybe it’s just my useless husk of a palate, but I honestly couldn’t taste a difference between any of the three colours. They all tasted great. Just a little sweet, and not too heavy. These things can’t be good for me. It’s a shame too because I could eat these every single day. My advice: grab these if you EVER see them.
~C.M. Privitera
On my way from Akihabara to Harajuku this morning I was craving a pastry of sorts in order to have some energy to burn on my long, and totally misguided bike ride from point A to point B via several other points that weren’t part of the original itinerary. While I could have gone with one of the old standards such as the cheese danish, melon pan, or dinner roll, I decided to get a little adventurous and grab one of the 7-11 “Premium” bagged snacks. The one I went with looked like a bag of tiny donuts. It was only 100 yen.
The word “premium” gets thrown around a lot these days for some reason. Do people honestly think that things that are labelled premium are better? I paid 100 yen for these. That’s like, a little over a dollar. It’s from a 7-11 folks. You don’t expect to get anything “premium” from a store that sells cigarettes, Arizona iced tea, and Corn Nuts. It’s just not realistic. Back on the topic at hand though. You would be shocked to find that a product that looks like a donut will most likely taste like one, and that’s exactly what we have here. Nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing “premium” by any stretch of the imagination. They are too sweet to be considered a good snack and I honestly felt awful after eating them. If you’re looking for a pastry snack to tide you over or give you a little boost during your day, look elsewhere. Even for 100 yen it’s a waste.
~C.M. Privitera
Somewhere between dirty water and ambrosia lays a bottled coffee that is unsurpassed in both flavour and texture. A coffee so amazing, so creamy, so melty, that it can only be called Melty au Lait. Suntory makes this product and puts it under the Boss label which has always been my standard for Japanese canned // bottled cafe beverages.
[Head behind the break for more]