Are you sick of Japanese snack subscription services yet? I know I’m not! It’s really exciting to see so many different subscription services pop up that are all about providing Japanese candies and snacks to people around the world. If Japanese treats are your game, you’ll be spoiled for choice: there’s OyatsuBox, Candy Japan, and now the aptly-named rookie Japanese Treats is joining the ranks!
If you’d like to see me ooh and aah over everything in their very first subscription box, check out my unboxing video above. Japanese Treats is $22/month, and since that price includes shipping anywhere in the world, it’s very competitive (Candy Japan and OyatsuBox are both $25/month). All up, this month there were 11 different items, which I think is very generous!
Like OyatsuBox, Japanese Treats provides a sheet which each order that says the name and a short description of each item. These “cheat sheets” are very helpful for those who can’t read Japanese and aren’t familiar with the different snacks, so I’m really glad they include them!
Now let’s take a closer look at each of the different items included in the box!
I just love character goods (if you haven’t noticed by now), so I was especially excited to see these Disney Pakuncho chocolate cookies. Not only is the box covered in Mickies (and a lone Donald!), but the cookies themselves have Disney characters printed on them!
These character rock-paper-scissor cutouts on the back of the box are super cute, too. As for the cookies themselves, I don’t expect them to taste much different from Koala’s March or Hello Panda, but I’m fine with that.
Now, I’m familiar with the delicious chocolate-covered biscuits shaped like bamboo shoots known as Take no Ko no Sato, but I’ve never seen them in this kind of packaging before! I love the design, and I know they taste good, too! One thing to note is that the sheet Japanese Treats provided calls them Kino no Ko no Yama, as it’s possible to either get these or the same type of cookie in a mushroom shape, which are called Kino no Ko no Yama.
I can tell these Japanese snack subscription providers really want to please the folks who are into the internet-famous Japanese candy kits, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise to see this Nigi Nigi Osushiya-san sushi gummy kit in my box. The peach and lemon-flavored gummies are meant to look like pieces of fish, and you combine them with the banana-flavored “rice” gummies to make little sushi! I actually bought myself one of these already, so I think I’ll include this one in an upcoming giveaway.
These may look like regular plain animal crackers, but I just love the package! Honestly, if the people behind these services just picked snacks with fun packages, I’d probably be happy regardless of what was inside! Maybe I should start a subscription service like that…
I just love a good pun, don’t you? Well, these calcium-fortified grape-flavored candies are called Ju-C! Hah! As you can see from the package, Ju-C has been around since 1955. They don’t show up very well in the photo, but I like the little animals circling the left end of the container. I can’t wait to try them!
Kyabetsu (cabbage) Taro here are flavored corn puffs covered in nori, which, funnily enough, do not actually have anything to do with cabbage. The frog mascot Taro looks pretty sharp in his policeman outfit, don’t you think? I’m told these are quite popular in Japan, but I’ve never actually noticed them!
I think this has to be the highlight of the box for me! At first I thought these were just soda-flavored hard candies, which is nothing particularly new or exciting, but they’re actually candies that you mix with water to make soda! As you can see from the package, there are five different flavors, and it encourages you to mix them to come up with even more. I think these are going to be a lot of fun to try, so I’ll definitely be doing an Apricotsushi Samples video for them!
These Chocobi chocolate puffs are actually Crayon Shin-chan themed, so that actually makes two character goods in this month’s box! They also come with one of 20 different stickers, which is always fun. I must admit I see these quite often locally and I’m not a massive Crayon Shin-chan fan, but I’m still intrigued to see how they taste.
Finally, we have Dondon Yaki, which I received in a previous OyatsuBox (they’re really good!), some pudding-flavored bakeable Kit Kats, and ramune fortune telling candies. The fortune candies actually look a lot like pills, but each one is labeled with something different (“sports,” “love” etc.). When you pop them out it tells you a your fortune. Japanese Treats has a blog post with translations of all the different possibilities so you can see how you fare!
I’m sure a lot of people would be really excited to receive the bakeable pudding Kit Kats, and believe me, I was too! My enthusiasm was only slightly dampened by the fact that 1. I bought 2 large bags a couple of weeks ago from Jlist and 2. my oven is currently not working. I like that they give you two so you can try baking one and have the other fresh if you desire. I’m so bummed that my oven is broken… I really want to try them!
There you have it! I’m really impressed with Japanese Treats, as they are not only very reasonably priced, but they ship their boxes quickly and offer a great selection. If they continue to offer 10 or more items for $22/month, this may make them the best deal out of all the Japanese snack subscriptions I’ve reviewed so far. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they develop over the next few months!
