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Universal Studios Japan made our Frieren fan cry, and she’s very OK with that.

The original concept for Universal Studios was to give theme park visitors a taste of Hollywood movie magic, but many of the biggest draws at Universal Studios Japan are its Japanese video game and anime partnerships. The latest entry into what’s collectively called Universal Cool Japan just kicked off and it gives fans a chance to step into, and walk around in, the world of fantasy anime Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.

The main attraction of the collaboration is the Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Story Walk: Journey of Remembrances. This is a walk-through environment in which you’ll retrace Frieren’s steps, visiting scenes and locations from the anime recreated through dynamic lighting, sounds effects, voices, and projection mapping. Aside from the titular heroine, you’ll encounter other members of the cast including her traveling companions Fern and Stark.

Our Japanese-language reporter and passionate Frieren fan Marie Morimoto recently took this journey and was thoroughly enchanted. Some of the scenes are funny, some are touching, and the final stop on the journey was so moving that she didn’t just get choked up, she actually shed some tears.

▼ Video preview for Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Story Walk: Journey of Remembrances

After Marie wiped the tears from her tears, though, it was time to attend to her stomach, so it was off to the Restaurant of Remembrances, as Universal Studios Japan’s Lost World restaurant has been renamed while it’s occupied by the Frieren franchise.

The vibe here is that of a fantasy tavern where adventurers can grab grub while reminiscing about their most recent adventure or planning their next. The menu includes such hearty fare as the Frieren Beef Plate with Red Wine Demi-glace Sauce, with, as Marie learned when she took a bite, features delightfully tender meat. There’s also an Eisen and Heiter Hamburger Steak and Fish and Chips Plate, and as a salute to Frieren’s soft spot for sweets, the Freiren Cherry and Blueberry Parfait, which includes an elegant butterfly-motif spoon to take home with you.

To drink, Marie opted for the Fragrant Flower Frieren White Soda. In Japan, the term “white soda” usually refers to a fizzy soft drink with a mildly sweet yogurt base (basically Calpis/Calpico, but from a different manufacturer), but the Frieren White Soda has a dash of sky blue color to, matching the hair color of the hero Himmel.

And of course, this wouldn’t be a proper collaboration without some special exclusive merch, would it? On that end, Universal Studios Japan has cute character hair bands with Frieren and Himmel plushies attached, and also plushie straps/key holders.

If you want to get more romantic, there’s a Pair Necklace so that you and your sweetheart can wear complementing accessories.

And there are also gacha/blind-box key chains and standee props.

▼ Though we’d call magical rods of this length “staffs” in English, the box’s text calls them “wands,” and actually in fantasy anime/video games they’re pretty much both called tsue in Japanese.

▼ A cool design point on the collaboration’s key art illustration is that the gate behind Frieren is the entrance to Universal Studios Japan.

In addition to all this, the Frieren crew are also part of Universal Studio’s Hollywood Dream the Ride roller coaster, with one of the selectable audio tracks now being a tale of Frieren encountering some mythical feathered beasts.

Universal Studios Japan’s Frieren collaboration is going on now and continues until January 11.

Related: Universal Studios Japan
Photos ©SoraNews24
(C)山田鐘人・アベツカサ／小学館／「葬送のフリーレン」製作委員会
TM & (C) 2026 Universal Studios. All rights reserved.
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How to buy the new viral convenience store coffee that locals are raving about.

Ever since 7-Eleven introduced coffee-making machines at its branches in 2013, the chain has cemented itself in the convenience store landscape as the place to go for coffee. What became known as the “Seven Cafe” brand soon expanded to include other products like freshly brewed tea and smoothies, but now its coffee is back in the spotlight, after the chain released a super creamy version that locals have been raving about on social media.

Called the Creamy Iced Cafe Latte, this new drink is only available at select Seven Cafe stores – so-called as they’re equipped with machines that dispense the branded drinks – and you’ll know if you can purchase it if you see the option for “creamy” after pressing the “cafe latte” button on the machine. When we headed out to try it, we had to visit four stores before we eventually struck gold, and as the golden brown liquid formed in our cup, we could see that it lived up to its online reputation for being super creamy, thanks to the extra generous portion of milk.

7-Eleven prides itself on the “Extra Rich Milk” used in its lattes, as it contains milk, skimmed condensed milk, and cream sourced from Hokkaido, Japan’s premier dairy region. With a richer flavour and aroma than regular milk, it’s said to be the perfect pairing for the chain’s freshly ground coffee, offering a gentle, natural milk flavour while maintaining a clean, refreshing aftertaste.

The extra creamy latte contains way more extra rich milk than a standard version – the coffee-to-milk ratio appeared to be about 2:8 – so we were very curious to find out how it would taste.

After taking a sip, we were immediately sold on the texture and flavour. It was incredibly rich and almost entirely made of milk, with the aromatic taste of freshly ground coffee appearing after the fluffy, smooth dairy parted ways on the palate, like the sun peering through clouds. It was incredibly full-bodied, and the gentle sweetness came entirely from the milk so you don’t even need to add any sugar. Despite the rich sweetness, though, it had a surprisingly clean aftertaste.

The extreme creaminess might not be for everyone, especially espresso lovers with stronger tastes, but for people who appreciate what milk brings to a cup of coffee, and those who like the frothy visual appeal, this is likely to become your new go-to order.

It’s also surprisingly good for times when you’re hungry, as the drink turned out to be very filling due to the high milk content. So you might want to start off by sticking to a regular size instead of a large for now, as that will leave you with a little more room in your belly for the chain’s new chocolate chip yokubari and sakura bread fruit sandwiches.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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Hello Kitty and friends imagined what their perfect hotel would be like, and they’re inviting you in.

Sanrio fans planning to visit Tokyo later this summer will want to make sure to include the Hotel Floria in their plans. You’ll notice though, that we’re not saying that you should stay at the Hotel Floria, because it’s not actually a hotel, at least not in the traditional people-can-spend-the-night-there sort of way.

Instead, Sanrio Characters Exhibition Hotel Floria Tokyo is an immersive art event where visitors can tour the rooms of a hotel dreamt up by Hello Kitty and friends including My Melody, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, and Pompompurin. After checking in at the event’s font desk, you can receive keys that grant you access to explore guestrooms reflecting each different characters’ personalities and aesthetic tastes, as well as a garden area and ballroom.

▼ Hello Kitty’s room, decked out with roses and apples

View this post on Instagram

Each of them promises to be an adorable, fashionable photo space, and the vives look to be especially cozy in the pink sunset room, which has an actual sand floor for you to sit on while you relax with Kitty-chan.

Hotel Floria is produced by Seoul-based digital design and art company D’strict, and while fans in Korea got to experience the exhibit first, this summer it’ll be making its Japanese debut. And yes, there’s an attached merch shop with exclusive items, many of them featuring the event’s character room keys as their visual motif.

Sanrio Characters Exhibition Hotel Floria Tokyo runs from July 15 all the way to May 31 of next year, so you’ve got some time to figure out how to slot a visit into your itinerary. The exhibition will be held inside the Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, near Shinjuku Station in downtown Tokyo. Adult admission is 2,400 yen (US$15) on weekdays or 2,600 yen on weekends and holidays, with kids tickets ranging from 1,000 to 1,800 yen and children 3 and under admitted free. Reservations can be made through online ticketing service Eplus here.

Related: Sanrio Characters Exhibition Hotel Floria Tokyo official website
Source, images: Press release
Images ©2026 Sanrio Co., Ltd. (approval no. P180519-3)
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Japanese convenience store food, like you’ve never seen it before. 

If you’re looking for value-for-money on your next convenience store run, then Lawson is the place to go right now, because the chain is holding a special “Super Happy Too Much! Challenge” campaign, where select products are being upsized for free.

This is the second week of the campaign, which brings us a new lineup of 10 larger-than-usual products, and the standouts for us turned out to be two products in the bread aisle.

▼ The 51-percent upsized Shrimp Crackers with Sweet Rice Wine got a second look from us as well.

While we ended up bypassing the crackers, we couldn’t resist purchasing the Too Much! Menchi Burger (387 yen [US$2.41])…

▼ … and the Curry Bread and Minced Meat Cutlet (192 yen).

These wildly inventive creations have been causing a buzz since they were released on 9 June, and when we saw them in person, we immediately understood why.

Firstly, the Too Much! Menchi Burger is visually stunning, as the weight of the menchi katsu (miced meat cutlet) has been increased by more than 51 percent compared to the regular version.

▼ The cutlet is now so big it juts out the sides like a meaty moustache.

While the menchi-to-bun ratio is now drastically outweighed, the taste remains outstanding. Since it’s prepared in-store, as part of Lawson’s “Machikado Kitchen” prepared food lineup, the menchi katsu comes out hot and crispy, with an irresistible, freshly fried crunch.

▼ The inside of the cutlet is plump and generous, with onion adding extra flavour to the juicy meat.

Next, we move on to the curry bread, which has a Japanese name that translates as: “Too Much Pairing! European-Style Curry Bread & Jutting-out Menchi Katsu“.

Curry bread, or “Kare Pan” as it’s known in Japanese, is usually served on its own, as a rounded morsel of battered, fried bread with a curry filling in the centre. This new product, however, changes everything we thought we knew about curry bread by using them as buns, and sandwiching a fried meat cutlet between them.

▼ A triple-fry burger, with a menchi katsu jutting out from the centre.

Despite the fry-heavy elements, this “burger” was actually less greasy than we thought it would be. Both the curry bread and the menchi katsu did have strong, distinctive flavors, though, so there were moments when we found ourselves thinking, “Wait, what exactly am I eating right now?” To be honest, the combination is so intense that it can leave your taste buds feeling a little overwhelmed as the two main ingredients compete for your attention, and it’s seriously filling so you might want to eat it in two sittings.

▼ The curry bread and cutlet were a full-on pairing, so it lived up to its name.

While Week One of the campaign went overboard with drinks that were extremely salty and extremely sweet, our choices for Week Two challenged our bellies and our preconceptions of what convenience store food can be.

We learned that too much menchi katsu can be well matched for a burger, while the too-much pairing of curry bread and menchi katsu can be too much for the taste buds. In the end, though, we were left with full bellies and a new appreciation for Lawson, who dared to take convenience store food to new realms with such bold, attention-grabbing creations.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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Grand theft arbor.

In this age of social media, it can be easy to get swept up in the lives of others and feel a pang of jealousy for those who have nicer things. Nevertheless, when it comes time to choose a plant to spruce up your home, it’s important to get one that fits your budget rather than splurging on the kind of high-end greenery all the famous celebrities are flaunting these days.

But for one 26-year-old man in the city of Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, the allure of a really nice little tree in a local home center was, unfortunately, too powerful to resist. In the late afternoon of 7 June, the man was eyeing up a particularly premium potted plant selling for 275,000 yen (US$1,700). Averse to parting with so much money, he instead took a price tag from another item valued at 3,980 yen ($25) and replaced the plant’s one with it.

The plant in question is rather rare, so rare in fact, that it doesn’t even have a normal name and just goes by its scientific one of Operculicarya hyphaenoides in both English and Japanese. They’re native to Madagascar and are related to cashew trees. This type is also known as a caudex because of its fat trunk that stores water. These kinds of plants are quite popular for houseplant enthusiasts, partly because they have a natural bonsai feel to them.

▼ This video gives us a really good look at some.

However, when he attempted to purchase it, the cashier luckily had a keen eye for foliage and suspected something was wrong, refusing the purchase. The store had an incident involving someone swapping price tags the previous month, and was on high alert for it.

The man decided to leave without causing a scene, but the store contacted the police, who reviewed security camera footage. The video contained enough evidence to identify the man and implicate him for the houseplant fraud, resulting in his arrest on 8 June for the most recent incident.

The rareness of this particular plant also seems to have confused the media in Japan, which referred to it as a “cactus,” likely because it was in the cactus section of the home center where it was sold. Naturally, upon reading the news, many people online searched the plant’s name and were further confused by the mislabeling.

“It cost that much, and it doesn’t even look like a cactus?!”
“It looks like a baobab tree.”
“I have no idea what is good about that plant.”
“It’s got a strange shape, but the leaves look cute.”
“Cacti prices have really gone up, haven’t they?”
“They say it’s easy to grow cacti. He should have tried that.”
“That staff member knows the prices well.”
“He probably just wanted to sell it online.”

Police are currently investigating the man’s motive and whether he was involved in any other related crimes. If he did plan to sell it, he would have had a hard time of it. Given the rarity of these plants and the fact that each one tends to have a distinct look, it would have been pretty easy for police to spot it as soon as it appeared online.

So, chances are he just likes plants, but lacked the patience and discipline to save up for one himself. Let that be a lesson to all of us who have heard that devil whisper in our ear, seducing us into committing felonies for really nice houseplants. It’s just not worth it.

Source: TBS New Dig, Itai News
Top image: Pakutaso
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These Japan-exclusive beverages are harder to get than most.

Starbucks might have originated overseas but Japan has refined its offerings and taken them to a whole other level. Case in point is the chain’s Tea & Cafe stores, which only exist in Japan, at 30 select locations.

These stores specialise in tea-based beverages made with Starbucks’ Teavana brand teas, and serve exclusive drinks you won’t find at regular Starbucks locations.

This summer, an exclusive duo of drinks will be released, based around the theme of “Urban Oasis“. The star ingredient at the centre of this oasis is Pineapple Kona Pop, a new Teavana tea blend that combines sweetly tart pineapple notes with the subtle sweetness of apple and plenty of rose and marigold buds and petals, making it a refreshing treat for summer.

Said to have a vibrant and fragrant flavour, the new blend is being featured in the Pineapple & Coconut Frozen Tea Float (933 yen [US$5.82]) for takeout and 950 yen for dine-in), and the Craft Iced Tea Pineapple Kona Pop (628 yen takeout; 640 yen dine-in).

The Pineapple & Coconut Frozen Tea Float is constructed in layers, with a juicy pineapple pulp jelly and orange marmalade at the bottom of the cup, a frozen Pineapple Kona Pop, layered with creamy coconut cream, in the middle, and a topping of vanilla ice cream and coconut chips. According to Starbucks, this is a drink that can be enjoyed like a parfait, so you can enjoy the layers separately, or mix them together for full-on tropical flavour.

The Craft Iced Tea Pineapple Kona Pop is an exquisitely made drink, with baristas brewing the Kona Pop tea fresh for every order. The tea leaves are strained with a tea strainer and then rapidly chilled over ice to maximise the pineapple flavour and enhance the brightness of the rose and marigold botanicals, ensuring every cup contains a delightful, vibrant aroma.

After getting a taste of the Pineapple Kona Pop blend, you might find yourself falling in love with it, in which case you’ll be able to pick up a box to enjoy at home.

▼ Each 80-gram (2.8-ounce) box retails for 2,350 yen.

While the tea leaves will be available year-round as a standard product at Starbucks Tea & Cafe stores, the new drinks will only be on the menu for a limited time from 17 June. If you’re unable to visit a Tea & Cafe branch, then the chain can still satisfy your summertime fruit cravings at other retail outlets, with fruit gummies, muscat tea lattes, and a Banana Affogato Frappuccino.

Related: Starbucks Tea & Cafe
Source, images: Press release
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Bringing futuristic solutions to historic streets.

Upon coming to Japan and exploring the cities, I soon came to one of many realizations: the country has a near-complete lack of public trash cans. While it’s technically possible to call into one of the many convenience stores to unload your pockets of snack wrappers into the store’s waste receptacles, there are almost always signs asking you to refrain from doing so, and you could potentially face criminal charges for dumping garbage from products not purchased in-store.

Instead, it is socially expected for any and all trash generated from snacking to be carried and disposed of at your house or hotel, so much so that it’s quite normal for people to carry around small plastic bags in your handbag or backpack to hold onto accumulated wrappers and napkins until the end of the day. As such, for those who are accustomed to having public trash cans being easily accessible, they can often end up with pockets filled with sticky waste and crumb-filled backpacks when they go sightseeing.

This cultural difference has been exacerbated considerably due to the post-pandemic boom in tourism, with millions of enthusiastic travelers flocking to sightseeing hotspots, like Kyoto, seeking to delve into the region’s charming history and food, which naturally increases the volume of sidewalk snacking. When you’re wandering through the picturesque streets of Kyoto’s Higashiyama ward, miles away from your hotel, the last thing you really want to be doing is holding the wrapper from your mid-morning Family Mart fried chicken snack for the rest of the day. So, the few trash cans available tend to fill up quickly and potentially overflow.

Fortunately, Kyoto has started tackling this problem with some high-tech efficiency. On May 27, two futuristic, eco-friendly smart trash cans called SmaGO, made by Forcetec, were introduced near the busy southbound Kiyomizu-michi bus stop, a highly traversed area for anyone looking to explore the area’s streets and temples.

The SmaGO units run entirely on solar power and feature an automatic trash-crushing mechanism that compacts waste down to just one-fifth of its original volume. They also connect to the internet to report exactly how full they are in real-time, allowing collection crews to swoop in before the trash starts to overflow and propagate to the nearby vicinity.

While these are the latest two units of a total of 34 throughout Kyoto, these eco-bins were actually donated to the city by the famous Kiyomizu temple and the nearby Rokuharamitsuji temple, with the Bank of Kyoto stepping in to provide the installation location, in the hopes of creating a more comfortable and beautiful city for both citizens and tourists.

So, the next time you venture into the historic former capital of Japan, you can rest assured that waste management will be one less thing to factor into your travel itinerary.

Source and images: PR Times
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