Japan’s Finger Pants capsule toys are exactly what they say there are…and we’re not sure why

Honest marketing doesn’t always mean easy to understand.

Japanese capsule toy maker Tama-Kyu is no stranger to a little wordplay in promoting its strange gacha goodies, They’re the company that created protection-from-social-media-flame-war amulets with a fiery motif and surprising moving mountain figurines inspired by the Japanese expression “The mountain has moved.”

So when we came cross Tama-Kyu’s newest offering, called Yubi Zubon, we thought there might be some playful double meaning to the product name. Taken at face value, yubi means “fingers” and zubon means “pants,” but if you interpret those words another way, then maybe…

Actually, no, there is no other meaning to Yubi Zubon other than “Finger Pants,” and that’s exactly what they are.

“Even your fingers want to be fashionable!” says Tama-Kyu in a brilliant bit of marketing, because as far-fetched as that claim may sound, we can’t ever recall our fingers saying they don’t want to be fashionable. Maybe instead of letting out fingers flitter around nakedly, they’d be happier with proper pants. We can’t say for sure until we’ve tried them, right?

That may not sound like particularly sound logic, but if you think that’s ever been a prerequisite for our purchasing decisions, you must be new around here.

At just 200 yen (US$1.75) a pop, Yubi Zubon are more affordable than the average gacha toys, so we bought two pairs. It turned out, though, that Finger Pants is kind of a misnomer, because out of the five possible designs, two of them are actually skirts.

The complete lineup consists of a pair of jeans, shorts, hakama (billowy pants worn with men’s kimono), a pleated skirt, and a check-pattern skirt. On our two turns of the gacha crank, we got the hakama and the check skirt, and we wasted no time slipping them on.

Having never worn finger pants before, we don’t have any frame of reference for what the standards should be in terms of fit and functionality, but the material is smooth and soft, and our fingers felt comfortably relaxed. We did, however, feel a little self-conscious when we tried on the skirt, partly because the back of our hand felt topless, and partly because we were suddenly extra aware of the hair on our fingers.

Perhaps predicting that not everyone is quite ready for a look as avant-garde as putting pants and skirts on your fingers, Tama-Kyu says that the Yubi Zubon can also be used as clothing for figurines, so we drafted a pair of Sylvanian Family toys to serve as models.

While they kind of fit, they’re extra baggy and give off a very different feeling than the twee aesthetics of their normal clothes. So in the end, it seems like you really should use your Finger Pants on your fingers. As for whether you should slide them down before using Tama-Kyu’s Japanese-toilet water bottle cap, that’s a fashion/etiquette question we’re still not sure about the answer to.

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Japanese convenience store or Japanese supermarket: Which one is cheaper?

Popular drinks and snacks in Japan really do come with different price tags.

Compared to overseas convenience stores, where you know you’ll wind up paying more for products purely for the convenience, Japanese convenience stores, or “konbini” as they’re locally known, seem reasonably priced by comparison.

In fact, our Japanese-language reporter Mariko Ohanabatake doesn’t see anything wrong with shopping for drinks and snacks at her local konbini whenever she feels like it. However, this year, one of Mariko’s New Year’s resolutions is to save more money, so when she came across a magazine article that spoke about convenience store shopping being bad for your back-pocket, she decided to see if there was any truth to the claim.

So Mariko set out to purchase the exact same products at a convenience store and a supermarket to see what the price difference would be. Secretly, she was hoping any difference would be negligible, as she wasn’t ready to give up the bright lights of her local convenience store just yet.

The eight items she decided to purchase at both places were popular snacks and drinks that are widely available, namely:

・ Calbee Potato Chips — Light Salt Flavour
・ Glico Pocky — Chocolate Flavour
・ Morinaga Pino Ice Creams
・ Häagen-Dazs Mini Cup — Vanilla
・ Nissin Foods Cup Noodle — Seafood Flavour
・ Kirin Chu-hi — Hyoketsu Lemon (350 millilitres [11.8 ounces])
・ Coca-Cola (500 millilitres)
・ Oi Ocha Green Tea (500 millilitres)

She decided to shop at her local konbini first, which was a 7-Eleven, one of Japan’s top three convenience store chains. Placing the eight items in her basket, she headed over to the cashier, and actually took notice of the prices for the very first time.

“Pip!” Went the scanner, and Mariko discovered that Pino ice creams cost 140 yen (US$1.21).

“Pip!” Went the scanner again, and her Cup Noodle showed up as 184 yen.

“Pip!” So now Häagen-Dazs is 295 yen?

Looking at the prices, Mariko couldn’t help but feel they were slightly more expensive than she’d expected. And when it came time to pay, she found that the eight items she’d purchased — nine if you count the three-yen charge for the plastic bag — came to…

▼ 1,428 yen (US$12.37)!

Hmmm, that was slightly higher than Mariko had imagined, but she decided to put her judgement on hold until after she’d done her supermarket shop. For that, she decided to go to Seiyu, a good mid-range supermarket chain.

As soon as she walked in, Mariko had to stop herself from purchasing all the other items in the store that caught her eye. There were certainly many more temptations here at the supermarket, but she remained focused on the task at hand, purchasing only what she came for.

▼ Potato chips are 78 yen!? That was almost half the price they were at the konbini, where they cost her 147 yen.

Surprisingly, the supermarket didn’t have any 500-millilitre bottles of coke at the store, so Mariko had to purchase a 700-millilitre one, but at 100 yen, it was already cheaper than the smaller bottle at the supermarket, which cost 140 yen.

Heading to the register, she watched the prices appear with each “pip” of the scanner again, and this time the eight items, plus the plastic bag, which brought the items up to nine, cost…

▼ 1,021 yen! 

That meant the difference in price between supermarket and convenience store was 407 yen, which was a much bigger saving than she’d expected.

With a saving like this, she could afford to buy another tub of that pricey Häagen-Dazs ice cream, plus some more items, at the supermarket. Mariko now began to wonder how much money she’d wasted at the convenience store over the years, but before descending into a black pit of despair over it all, she remembered one revelation about her supermarket experience that surprised her.

▼ Supermarkets might be cheap, but they’re filled with many temptations!!

Special discounts, seasonal fruits, new products, limited-edition flavours — the supermarket has it all, which means if you go there to buy a few snacks, you may very well walk out with a full basket of things you weren’t expecting to buy, which means you might end up paying more in the long-run.

Still, if you want to save money, and you have the willpower to avoid temptations, the supermarket will be kinder to your bank balance at the end of the day. For Mariko, she says she’ll try and cut down on her convenience store trips in future, but when she has a hankering for some fried chicken or a quick pizza bun, she won’t resist the urge to step into the welcoming lights of her beloved convenience store.

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Wasp larvae bento: a traditional delicacy in the Japanese mountains

A local specialty best eaten with a side of courage.

Our Japanese-language reporter Haruka Takagi was travelling through central Japan recently when she came across an unusual sign at a roadside rest stop that read: “Hebomeshi Wasp Larva Rice“.

ヘボ, or “hebo”, refers to the larva of Vespula flaviceps, a wasp that kind of looks like the infamous murder hornet, but is slightly smaller and less dangerous, while めし, or “meshi” means “rice”, often a rice that has ingredients mixed through it.

Haruka had heard about this local delicacy during her travels, where locals had insisted she try it if she had the chance. Well, this was her chance, so she decided to take it, handing over 800 yen (US$7.03) to the kind saleslady, who presented her with this bento box containing her meal.

From what Haruka had been told, hebomeshi is a local dish that’s been handed down through generations in the mountainous areas of Nagano, Gifu and Aichi prefectures. The reason why there’s a culture of eating hebo here is because it’s a valuable protein source in the mountains.

According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, wasps are said to contain 16.2 grams (0.57 ounces) of protein per 100 grams, which is similar to mackerel (16.3 grams) and pork hearts (16.2 grams).

▼ Looking at the back of the bento box revealed the ingredients inside: wasps, soy sauce, sugar, mirin.

These are ingredients you don’t usually find in an everyday lunchbox, and if the sound of them makes you feel squeamish, it’s best you look away now, because things are going to become a whole lot visual…

.

.

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…are you ready???

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▼ Ta daaa!

Leaning in to take a closer look at the meal, Haruka found there were a LOT more insects in here than she’d expected.

Swearing to avoid making any biased judgments, Haruka held back her desire to scream and turn her head away. This was a local specialty, and a nutritional feast that’s sustained Japanese mountain dwellers for generations, so she was determined to eat the whole thing.

▼ It didn’t just contain larvae but adult wasps too.

▼ Haruka placed her hands together and said a nervous “itadakimasu!”

Keeping her eyes off the rice for her first bite, she found that it tasted…surprisingly delicious. The soy sauce and mirin in the rice imparted a light, sweet flavour to the meal, while the larvae popped and the adult wasps crunched between her teeth.

If she were to compare the insects to anything, she’d say that the larvae had a thick, creamy taste, similar to say, salmon roe. The adult wasps, on the other hand, were similar to prawns.

Thankfully, there was no bitter, insect-like flavour here, and if you can get over the look of insects in your rice, it’s actually a really tasty meal.

▼ The face of a woman confused by equal measures of deliciousness and discomfort in her brain.

Aside from the insects, one thing that perturbed Haruka the most was the fact that she was eating this bento cold. She couldn’t help but think it would taste even better warmed up, and so she took the meal home with her and popped it into the microwave for dinner.

This was much, much better. The heat helped to warm and soften the skin of the larvae, making them taste even less insect-like. The rice was also more plump and flavourful, and if you were to eat it blind, you wouldn’t even know you were eating insects.

▼ Keeping your eyes away from the rice helps to dull that part of your brain telling you not to eat it.

Haruka had never tried hebomeshi before, so she’s glad she was able to try it once to further her culinary knowledge of Japan. Whether she’ll try it again, well, that’s unlikely. She’d much rather return to eating sweet bean toilets and leave the insect-eating to our other reporters.

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Ghibli Museum becomes “Hot Wind Museum” for traditional Japanese range with No Face and Totoro

Spirited Away samue is the star of this collection designed by Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki.

Outside of being Studio Ghibli’s co-founder and producer, Toshio Suzuki is widely known for his love of two things — calligraphy and samue.

The 73-year-old has been showing off his artistic prowess in recent years, teaching us how to sketch Totoro and even holding a travelling exhibition that showcases his calligraphy, alongside a giant head of Yubaba and Zeniba from Spirited Away. Through it all, whether he’s working in private or attending press events, Suzuki often chooses to wear an indigo-dyed samue, the traditional work outfit worn by Buddhist monks, which has also become popular as casual wear in recent times.

So when the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo was looking for a new line of goods to create, they came up with the brilliant idea to combine Suzuki’s love of calligraphy and traditional style for a unique collection. The producer was happy to lend his artistic skills to the project, even coming up with the clever idea to rename the Ghibli Museum as the “Neppu Museum” for the new range.

The new name is a nod to the word “Ghibli“, which is an Italian word meaning “hot wind blowing from the Sahara Desert“. Suzuki replaced the word “ジブリ” (“ghibli”) with “熱風” (“neppu”), which literally means “hot wind”, for the new collection, essentially rebranding the Ghibli Museum as the “熱風美術館” (“Neppu Bijutsukan”), or “Hot Wind Museum“.

The first item in the range is an indigo-dyed T-shirt, which has “Neppu Museum” written on the front, in Suzuki’s handwritten calligraphic script.

The T-shirt also has “Ghibli Museum” written on it in English, along with images from the crest of the museum — a Totoro, a boar, and three hawks, in reference to the city where the museum is located, Mitaka, which literally translates to “three hawks“. Mitaka is also the inspiration behind the museum’s “Tri Hawks” bookstore.

Suzuki’s white script is far more prominent than the museum crest, which draws attention to the humorous new name.

On the back of the shirt is the word “kaikanchu” (“museum currently open“), also written by Suzuki. After being closed for an extended period during the pandemic, the Ghibli Museum is currently open, and it hopes to stay that way, with the help of donations from fans around the globe.

The next item in the collection is a Homaekake Kaban, which needs a little linguistic unpacking. The word “ho” literally means “sail“, while “mae” (“front“) and “kake” (from the verb “kakeru”, “to hang“), combine to mean “apron“. Homaekake, or “sail apron” gets its name from the fact that 15th century sailors in Japan used to cut old sails to make these aprons, which they would tie around their waists.

Today, these thickly woven cotton waist aprons are still worn by people working in traditional trades, like craftspeople and sake sellers, as the thick material protects the legs while the long straps to tie the apron support the lower back when lifting heavy objects like boxes.The homaekake has a very traditional and distinctive look, often using indigo-dyed material and straps with vermillion stitching, and the Ghibli Museum puts a new twist on the design by reimagining it as a “kaban” or “bag“.

This Sail Apron Bag features a couple of Totoros from the 1988 Ghibli movie My Neighbour Totoro, and beneath them are the words “Hot Wind Museum”.

The “family crest-style Totoro design” has been printed on thick and durable fabric woven by a specialist apron maker, so it’s designed to last a long time.

While the bag pairs well with traditional outfits, it looks equally good when worn with casual wear.

The final item in the collection is the Samue Kaonashi, which translates to “No Face Samue“.

According to the Ghibli Museum, this item was included in the range as an homage to Suzuki’s love for wearing samue. Unlike the indigo two-piece Suzuki normally wears, though, this one comes with some extra embellishments, namely the words “Hot Wind”, written in Suzuki’s hand, on the back of the top…

▼ …and an image of No Face on the front pocket.

The red kanji for “abura” is also included, as a nod to the Abura Bathhouse, the main setting in Spirited Away, the 2001 movie that No Face stars in.

Like the T-shirt, the samue comes with a “Hot Wind Museum” label stitched into the inside of the top.

Samue are worn year-round by Buddhist monks, and they can be worn year-round by laypeople too, with the lightweight cotton creating a breathable layer in the warmer months.

▼ During the colder months, the samue can be worn with warmer base layers underneath.

The samue is made in Kurume, a city in Kyushu that’s famous for high-quality cotton fabric production. This attention to detail and top-quality materials in the range are reflected in the prices — the T-shirt is priced at 4,500 yen (US$38.96), while the bag is 9,900 yen and the samue is 16,500 yen.

Though they’re considerably more expensive than other Ghibli goods, these items are designed to last a long time, and it’s not every day you get to purchase a Ghibli Museum item branded as “Hot Wind Museum”. If we had the money, we’d definitely be investing in the No Face samue, which, now that we think of it, is an apt garment for Spirited Away, given that the movie is filled with hidden Buddhist references.

Source: Ghibli Museum
Featured image:Ghibli Museum
Insert images: Ghibli Museum (1, 2, 3)
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We visit Osaka’s newly dubbed Koreatown for the first time and set our sights on all of the food

After viewing 60+ varieties of kimchi in a single shop alone, our reporter learns that she has much to learn about Korean cuisine.

While the Tsurubashi area in Osaka’s southeast Ikuno Ward has had a large presence of Korean and Korean Japanese residents for several generations now, it wasn’t until last year that three shopping districts banded together to brand the surrounding area as “Osaka Ikuno Koreatown.” With an official new name and website directory of shops and eateries, the locals are hoping to make Tsurubashi into more of a main destination for visitors to the city.

Our globetrotting Japanese-language correspondent Ikuna Kamezawa took this as the perfect opportunity to take a short trip to Osaka and share her findings with the rest of the team. After arriving in Osaka via Shinkansen from Tokyo, she then took a 15-minute train ride from Osaka Station to Tsuruhashi Station and began walking around.

Was this really the area around the front of a train station?! The fairly dim alleyways leading in all directions gave her a bit of a surprise. She was sure it would look different at night with bright signs lit up, but this still seemed too quiet for what she was used to. Despite being massive cities, it was interesting to compare how Osaka and Tokyo were different in many ways.

She thought that the area directly in front of Tsurubashi Station would be her final destination, but it turned out that she still had to walk about 10 minutes southeast to reach the newly dubbed Koreatown. Gradually, more and more shops selling Korean foods came into view.

Ikuna finally made it to an entry gate after walking through a quiet residential area. She knew that Osaka’s Koreatown would not be as large as Tokyo’s de-facto Koreatown in the Shin-Okubo district, so she decided to just keep walking because most places of interest would be concentrated on or near this main street.

By the way, the time she arrived was around 11:45 a.m. on a Tuesday.

To her eyes, she seemed to pass more people that looked like locals than tourists. She wondered if it were due to the time of her visit.

Now, Ikuna fully intended to have yakiniku (grilled meat) for lunch, but she wasn’t able to stroll past a shop called Tokuyama Shoten without stepping inside. An enticing aroma had lured her in…which turned out to be a massive egg-batter something!

Eggs sizzled on a hot plate as the woman behind the counter deftly cut the large rectangle into small squares. Ikuna was overcome by a sudden urge to yell out “Eomeoni!” (“Mom!”) in Korean even though she had never met this lady before in her life. There was no way she could leave without taking some of the delicious-smelling dish with her for 700 yen (US$6.00).

For sides, she also ordered a small bowl of tteokbboki (simmered cylindrical rice cakes) for 200 yen and dried squid gimbap (seawood rice rolls filled with vegetables and other fillings–similar to the look of makizushi) for 300 yen. She then proceeded to the dine-in area to eat it while it was hot.

▼ Tteokbokki in a spicy chili paste

▼ You can dine inside if you spend 300 yen or more.

Gazing down at her feast, she couldn’t help but feel that a homestyle warmth was radiating from them. Tteokbboki and gimbap weren’t uncommon in Japan, but she got the feeling that this style of shop didn’t really exist in Tokyo’s Shin-Okubo. It felt like an intimate Korean cafeteria and she suddenly wanted to visit Korea to find out if this was what all eateries felt like.

By the way, the egg batter dish turned out to be a delicious tilefish buchimgae (buchimgae is often called “chijimi” in Japanese and “Korean pancake” in English). She hadn’t realized that buchimgae could come without chives as an essential ingredient. She realized that there was a lot she had yet to learn about Korean cuisine.

Afterwards, she enjoyed leisurely visiting a variety of shops focused on Korean celebrities and cosmetics. Even while doing so, she got the sense that these kinds of idol and younger-generation-themed shops were purposely limited in number so that Osaka’s Koreatown could remain first and foremost a place for the locals to come and buy small dishes and kimchi. There weren’t as many places where you might take flashy photos of food to upload to social media as you would find in Shin-Okubo, but there were more places where you could simply enjoy traditional, homestyle Korean cooking.

▼ A few of Ikuna’s self-indulgent purchases

It was also way easier to walk around than in Shin-Okubo. This place was perfect for those who want to enjoy the Koreatown experience but don’t want to deal with crowds.

Before heading back to the capital, she wanted to stop at popular kimchi specialty store Yamada Shoten to buy some food souvenirs. The shop had had a constant line outside of it ever since the morning.

Yamada Shoten sold a staggering 60-80 varieties of kimchi on a regular basis.

Ikuna also realized her assumption that kimchi = fermented cabbage or daikon was hugely incorrect. Here she saw a dizzying variety of ingredients being used, from pickled bamboo shoots and myoga (Japanese ginger) as vegetable bases to pig’s feet, oysters, and sea cucumbers, among other meat products.

The possibilities for kimchi were endless.

She eventually selected scallop kimchi (about 1,000 yen for 190 grams [6.7 ounces]) and Japanese yam kimchi (about 500 yen for 300 grams). She had special plans for a certain someone to taste them once she got back to Tokyo.

That certain someone turned out to be none other than fellow SoraNews24 reporter Seiji Nakazawa! Seiji had actually grown up in Osaka’s Tsurubashi area and his parents still lived there. While they were ethnically Japanese, he had developed into the person he was while being surrounded by the familiar aroma of kimchi on a daily basis. How would he like the scallop kimchi from his home area?

“URMF!!” was all Ikuna could get out of him for his initial reaction.

“Hasn’t this gone bad?!” he eventually choked out.

The Shinkansen ride from Osaka to Tokyo was just under three hours. Ikuna had taken great care in the way that she had transported her food souvenirs, but had she accidentally let them spoil without realizing it? In that case, she would feel extremely apologetic to both Seiji and Yamada Shoten. She decided to take a bite of the dish for herself.

Their resulting conversation went something like this:

Ikuna: “Hey, this is totally delicious.”

Seiji: “Wait a minute, isn’t it weird that it’s so soft?!”

Ikuna: “Really? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?”

Seiji: “But somehow…it smells really fishy!”

Ikuna: “Well yeah, that’s because it’s scallops. From the sea.”

Seiji: “Sca–scallops?!!”

Ikuna: “Yup, scallops.”

Seiji: “I thought it was daikon…next time, tell me ahead of time! Hahaha”

Ikuna had initially neglected to tell him exactly what he was eating, so he decided to try the dish again with his new understanding.

Sure enough, now that his brain had the correct info he thought it was delicious.

And thus Seiji unexpectedly learned that he also knew next to nothing about kimchi–which was quite sad considering he had grown up virtually inside of Osaka’s Koreatown.

The taste of freshly made kimchi was dramatically more flavorful than the jarred kind you can buy at the supermarket. The aroma was also more permeating–the two fellow reporters felt that they had really been transported to Korea. Seiji actually confessed that he had gotten sick of its smell when he was young, but grew to like it again after moving to Tokyo.

And at least now he had learned the difference between daikon and scallops. He would have to bring back a new kind of kimchi for Ikuna the next time he visited his home city and let her try it without telling her anything first.

Reference: Osaka Ikuno Koreatown
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