Twentythree

Just take a beat and really think about it calmly.

Social media really is a great way for governments to disseminate information to the masses. Sometimes they have great tips, such as where you can find nice graffiti and how to turn a plastic bottle into a drink dispenser.

Now, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has posted a message that we also should pay close attention to.

“Regarding the distribution of toilet paper in light of the situation in Iran and other matters, toilet paper is almost entirely produced domestically. The raw materials are domestically collected recycled paper and pulp, with almost no dependence on the Middle East, so there will be no direct impact. There is also sufficient capacity to increase production, so we ask that you use sound judgment based on accurate information before buying any.”

イラン情勢等を踏まえた #トイレットペーパー の流通について、トイレットペーパーはほとんど国内で生産されています。原料は、国内回収古紙やパルプで、中東依存のものはほぼないため、直接の影響はありません。増産余力も十分にあるため、購買にあたり正確な情報のもと冷静なご判断をお願いします。

— 経済産業省 (@meti_NIPPON) March 19, 2026

The ministry also linked to a webpage with more details, stating that the advice was due to reports on social media that stocks of toilet paper had been disappearing in some parts of Japan, and confirmed by the Japan Household Paper Industry Association.

This begs the question: Why, of all things, is toilet paper what people in Japan scramble for whenever the proverbial poop hits the fan? To answer that, we’ll need to look at the country’s surprisingly long history of toilet paper and crises, dating back to the Oil Crisis of 1973, and it can all be traced to a single supermarket in Osaka. 

Back then, the global economy was upended when Middle Eastern oil-producing countries imposed an embargo on countries that had supported Israel, Japan among them. This resulted in mass shortages of oil and skyrocketing prices.

At the same time, much of Japan was still in the process of widespread urbanization, and many people were still using pit toilets where they could get away with using newspaper to wipe themselves with if need be. But for people living in newly modernized parts of the country, such as Senri New Town — one of the most state-of-the-art neighborhoods in Japan, made in the spirit of the upcoming 1970 Osaka Expo — flush toilets were standard but still a relatively new concept and very prone to clogging if the wrong things were sent down one.

▼ Senri New Town: A Living Artificial City (1968)

But even when the Oil Crisis first hit, these people still weren’t focused on toilet paper in particular. Rather, they were concerned about prices of everything skyrocketing due to the rapidly rising cost of logistics.

In the days leading up to October 31, 1973, the Daimaru Peacock supermarket in Senri New Town announced that they would be having a sale on that day, selling four-packs of toilet paper rolls for 138 yen each, down from the regular price of 200 yen. Such a discount on a daily necessity in the face of soaring prices ended up bringing nearly every housewife within a mile radius, some 200 in total, lining up around the block. It was far more than Peacock expected, and their stock was sold out almost instantly. As a result, they had to bring out other toilet paper that sold for the regular price of 200 yen.

The spectacle of so many people buying toilet paper at once caught the attention of the media. However, by the time a Mainichi Shimbun reporter came down to check it out, they only saw the regularly priced paper on the shelves. As such, they reported it as if people were hoarding toilet paper merely as a result of the Oil Crisis rather than just pouncing on a really good price. Whether that was a misunderstanding or done intentionally to make it a more sensational article is unclear, but the topical angle of the ongoing oil shock helped the story spread, and it became national news before too long. People hearing the news then began feeling that if it could happen there, it could happen where they lived too, and all across the country, flocks started securing their own toilet paper for fear there would be no more.

▼ A news report from 1973 about panic buying all over Japan. It had also spread to other products by this time, such as salt, detergent, and feminine hygiene products.

Thus began the great toilet paper panic-buying of 1973. The mass hysteria grew so large that it eventually became international news, and in a bizarrely ironic twist, Johnny Carson made a joke about it on the Tonight Show, forgetting to add the word “possibly will be” and making it sound like there actually was a shortage in the USA to his tens of millions of viewers. That ended up triggering panic-buying of toilet paper there as well. He later apologized, saying he didn’t want to be remembered as the guy who caused a fake toilet paper scare.

▼ I guess I’m probably not helping with that. Anyway, heeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny sparking a fake toilet paper scare!

Of course, the truth was that toilet paper was never in danger of running out in Japan or the USA. The massive spike in purchases did cause temporary shortages, but manufacturers at the time said they never had trouble making more.

And yet, the seed of paper psychosis had already been planted in the public at large in Japan, and from time to time, whenever it looked like things were about to take a turn for the worse, people still started inexplicably buying up toilet paper. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the first things to run out, possibly even faster than face masks, was toilet paper.

And now, as we look down the barrel of an even nastier oil shock, toilet paper is again becoming the canary in our economic coal mine. As the ministry pointed out, there is no issue with the supply of toilet paper in particular, but the reaction of other social media users felt otherwise.

“I’m buying it now because prices are going up on April 1!”
“Is there enough fuel for the machines that manufacture it? How about the plastic packaging?”
“What? People are hoarding toilet paper again?”
“I think the factories mostly use natural gas now, but what if that stops too?”
“And how do they plan to transport it?”
“You should probably put this info on the TV, where all the old people who were around in 1973 can see it.”
“Is the ministry planning on carrying all the toilet paper to us by hand?”
“People need to hear this. Today I saw four elderly people with 18 rolls each at the drug store.”
“I get that the toilet paper won’t run out, but won’t the cost of producing it go way up?”

And quite frankly, these people are all correct, too. Even the ministry was very cautious about their wording, using terms like “almost” or “no direct impact” and recognizing the fact that this current oil crisis will almost certainly affect prices at the very least.

But the important thing to remember is that this will basically affect everything, not just toilet paper. So, the ministry’s advice is sound in that we should take a deep breath and think carefully about how much toilet paper we buy, but mainly because we should probably buy lots of other stuff too before the cost of everything really starts popping off.

Source: Twitter/@meti_NIPPON, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Senri New Town Johokan, NIST
Top image: Pakutaso
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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie takes a delicious turn, complete with a Question Block surprise.

With less than a month to go until the 24 April release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in Japan, fans are getting excited. As it turns out, Krispy Kreme is getting excited too, with the announcement that it will be releasing a collection of special doughnuts in collaboration with the film, as well as some exclusive extras featuring key characters from the movie.

The collection begins with a series of four collaboration doughnuts, the last of which comes with its very own Question Block box.

▼ Mario Strawberry (388 yen [US$2.44] takeout; 396 yen eat-in)

Coated in bright red strawberry icing, this doughnut is inspired by Mario’s signature colors, with star-shaped sugar sprinkles evoking the galaxy feel of the movie, and a Mario hat pick as a final flourish.

▼ Yoshi Custard Egg (410 yen takeout; 418 eat-in)

Inspired by Yoshi’s egg, this oval-shaped doughnut is coated in white chocolate, filled with with custard cream made with Hokkaido milk, and topped with green chocolate pieces, creating a playful product that looks remarkably similar to the real thing.

▼ Luma & Blueberry Galaxy (410 yen takeout; 418 eat-in)

This colourful treat captures the galactic vibes from the movie, and puts key character Chiko (or “Luma” to Western audiences) in the centre of it all. Lashes of pink strawberry and yellow pudding-flavoured icing represent the wondrous world of the galaxy, while a white chocolate coating, topped with a juicy blueberry glaze, resembles outer space. To finish, silver sprinkles, reminiscent of sparkling stars, surround a colorful Luma-filled monaka wafer disc.

▼ Question Block Doughnut Box (540 yen takeout; 550 yen eat-in)

Mimicking the Question Block from the franchise, this box works in a similar way, as you won’t know exactly what it contains until you bust it open. It will definitely contain one decorated doughnut, though, chosen at random from the five below.

▼ Yoshi’s Egg

▼ Super Mushroom

▼ Fire Flower

▼ Ice Flower

▼ Red Shell

The surprise element will have us stocking up on these, and the beautifully designed boxes will be a fun addition to our interior decor as well.

If you want to grab absolutely everything in the range, then the chain has you covered with a couple of sets, namely the Galaxy Box (1,177 yen takeout; 1,199 yen eat-in), which gets you the three main collaboration doughnuts…

…and the Galaxy Dozen Half (1,825 yen takeout; 1,859 yen eat-in), which includes the three main collaboration doughnuts plus two original glazed and a Double Chocolate Crunch, served up in a limited-edition Mario-themed box.

Customers who purchase a Galaxy Dozen Half will receive a limited-edition sticker that can only be obtained during the campaign. The stickers, distributed randomly, feature three characters linked to the collaboration donuts:

▼ Mario…

▼ …Yoshi…

▼…and Rosalina & Luma.

To top it all off, the chain will also be selling an exclusive eco bag, with a Mario-themed design so you can “carry the world of the movie with you wherever you go”. Priced at 1,980 yen, there are only 4,000 of these available, so you’ll want to act fast as they’re likely to disappear as soon as stores open.

One store that looks set to be crowded on release day is the branch at Shibuya Cinema Tower in Tokyo, which will be transformed into a space that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into the world of the movie.

Various characters from the film, including Mario, Yoshi, and Princess Peach, will be adorning the interiors, and there’ll also be a special photo spot that brings the world of the movie to life.

While other Krispy Kreme branches around Japan won’t be decked out in special decals, they will be selling everything in the range, but only in limited numbers from 8 April, so be sure to get in quick so you can get a taste of the Mario Galaxy before it disappears.

Related: Krispy Kreme Shibuya Cinema Tower branch
Source, images: Press release
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One-coin lunches still exist in Asakusa, but now to find out if it’s money well spent.

In Japan, there’s a concept called the “one-coin lunch,” meaning a lunch you can buy for 500 yen (US$3.25) or less, since 500 yen is the largest yen coin. However, in recent years it’s getting harder and harder to find one-coin lunches, and depending on where in Japan you’re at and what you’re eating it can sometimes even be tough to find appealing lunch options within 1,000 yen, the smallest yen bill.

Even once ultra-affordable meals like ramen have been rapidly rising in price, and especially so in areas that get a lot of tourist traffic, especially if they attract a lot of international travelers. So imagine our surprise the other day when we were out and about in Tokyo’s Asakusa neighborhood, where the local Sensoji Temple is one of the biggest tourist draws in all of Japan, and stumbled across a one-coin lunch spot.

The stylized script on the restaurant’s main sign makes it kind of tricky to tell what direction the characters are supposed to be read in, but the intent here is らぁめん めん〇, or “Ramen Menmaru.” Arguably the most important part of the signage, though, is the smaller board saying 400えん, or “400 yen.”

Yes, not only does Menmaru offer a one-coin ramen, but you’ll even get change back if you pay with a 500-yen coin! This was an offer too tempting to pass up, especially since Menmaru is located on the Asakusa Hisago Shopping Street, just a two-minute walk from Sensoji and well within the radius of where businesses feel they can get away with premium pricing that tourists will put up with.

▼ The walk from Sensoji to Menmaru

To order, you purchase a meal ticket from a vending machine, and taking a look at the other options we saw that Menmaru seems to offer good value across the board, with even its large-size and extra-topping ramen coming in at 600 yen or less. But it was the 400-yen ramen that had drawn us in, so that’s what we ordered.

There’s counter seating inside, or you can grab a spot at one of the folding tables set up in front of the storefront. After we handed our meal ticket to the staff, we sat down and waited, feeling a little bit of trepidation that, what with it’s extremely low price, the 400-yen ramen would be such a sparse, low-quality version of the dish that we’d end up wishing we’d splurged for noodles at a more expensive place.

But these fears quickly scattered when we had our food in front of us and saw that he really did have a proper bowl of ramen for just 400 yen, with sliced chashu pork, menma (bamboo shoots), sliced onion, and nori (dried seaweed).

Tokyo’s traditional ramen broth is soy sauce based, but Menmaru’s take on it is surprisingly elaborate, as we also tasted some rich tonkotsu (pork stock) and torigara (chicken stock) notes, and there’s even some ginger in the mix too. Impressively, the resulting flavor doesn’t taste busy or messy, with all of the elements working in harmony for a remarkably straightforward deliciousness.

The noodles are thin and straight, and have a reservedly starchy flavor to keep them from getting in the way of the outstanding broth.

Rather than immediately knocking you over with how it tastes, Menmaru’s flavor gently builds as you eat, and by the time we were done, we could feel the ramen-delivered joy and comfort permeating throughout our stomach and psyche.

With quality and value this good, in hindsight it’s no surprise that Menmaru had plenty of customers even when we stopped by on a weekday a little before 2 o’clock. The customer turnover was speedy, though and we had less than a five-minute wait for a seat to open up, so we’ll definitely have to keep this place in mind the next time we’re in the mood to see the sights in Asakusa, but not in the mood for any tourist-price gouging.

Restaurant information
Ramen Menmaru / らぁめん めん◯
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Asakusa 2-15-2
東京都台東区浅草2-15-2
Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (weekdays), 9 a.m.-6 p.m. (weekends, holidays)
Closed Tuesdays

Photos ©SoraNews24
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Exciting new juice with over-the-top design features, can only be found in six prefectures.

If your algorithm is flooded with Japan content, then you’ll want to brace yourself for a new product that’s set to overtake your feed: Kakukaku Kajitsu Pixel Peach.

Created by Kyodo Milk Industry, Kayac Inc., and 7-Eleven, this new juice is impressive in more ways than one, starting with the packaging. Drawing upon the design expertise of Kayac, a company that specialises in creating game and anime content for entertainment purposes, the package looks like something that’s jumped straight out of the retro gaming world, with a pixelated peach on the front and the words “ピクセル” (“pixel”) and “ピーチ” (“peach”) instantly grabbing the eye in bold block font.

The drink itself contains pulpy diced fruit pieces, which are likened to pixels, hence the name. Kayac even enlisted the help of an illustrator to create a unique character for the drink, with the words “ゴクゴク” (“goku goku” [“gulp gulp”]) showing how you’ll want to drink it, and what can happen when you do.

▼ Drink the Pixel Peach and you’ll be drawn into the world of pixels, the smallest unit of the digital age.

The diced peach pulp provides you with juicy refreshment while delivering a satisfying sense of volume and texture. By carefully selecting the proportion and size of the pulp, or should we say “pixels”, you’ll experience maximum enjoyment as the chunky bits go down your throat smoothly, creating the sensation of eating a real peach.

▼ “カジツよ、とびだぜ” (“Kajitsu yo, tobi da ze”) translates as: “It’s fruit, bursting out“.

While the juice and the art direction is already ticking all our boxes, Kyodo Milk Industry is taking things one step further by serving it all up in a trademarked container. With a specially designed shape and a carefully positioned spout that gives you the “optimal inclination angle” for pouring, this design is said to create “ideal fluidity“, where the fruit pulp is delivered to your mouth in perfect balance with the liquid, ultimately upgrading the drinking experience, as the fruit pulp no longer remains at the bottom of the container.

▼ Kyodo Milk says the design eliminates the stress and frustration caused by fruit pulp remaining at the bottom of the container.

With so many clever design features, the Pixel Peach is no cheap gimmick. Only seasoned Japan pros will be able to find it, though, as it’s only being sold at 7-Eleven stores in six prefectures: Chiba, Saitama, Hiroshima, Tottori, Shimane, and Yamaguchi. Available from 24 March, each 250-gram (8.8-ounce) pack of drinkable pixels will retail at a recommended price of 228 yen (US$1.44).

Source, photos: Press release
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Why make butter in your kitchen when you can make it on your jogging path?

For home chefs, making your own butter can be a fun, and tasty, little project. And so it was that our Japanese-language reporter Natsuno Futon decided, on a recent afternoon, to whip up a batch. She wasn’t going to set foot into her kitchen to make it, though, and it’s not like she has a dedicated butter-making workshop attached to her home, either.

No, Natsuno was going to try making her butter out on the streets…or, more specifically, the jogging path.

Recently, Natsuno has been hearing buzz, originating in Korea, she says, that you can make your own butter by running with a pack of cream. Curious to see if it really worked, she decided to give it a shot. We should mention that while she enjoys going for long walks and occasionally playing volleyball, Natsuno isn’t a regular jogger, sprinter, or distance runner, so this experiment should give us an answer as to whether or not making butter by running with cream is something that the average person can do, not just specialized athletes.

To do the butter run, you’ll need just two ingredients: fresh cream and salt. For the cream, you’ll want something with a relatively high fat content, at least 35 percent, and just to be on the safe side Natsuno used some 45-percent stuff.

You’ll also need one (or maybe two) Ziploc bags. Ratio-wise, Natsuno poured 200 milliliters (6.8 ounces) of cream into a bag, then added a teaspoon of salt and closed the bag up without really trying to squeeze the air out of it first.

As for the size of the bag, you want something compact enough to carry with you as you run, but you also need to make sure there’s some space inside the bag for the contents to slosh about, since the motion is what, supposedly, is going to turn the cream into butter.

If you’re feeling brave, a single bag will do, but Natsuno was a little apprehensive about the possibility of running around with a bag that had sprung a leak and was spraying cream on her with every stride, so she decided to double-bag it by sticking the first Ziploc inside of a second one.

Then she put the packet of cream and salt into her cross-body pouch…

…strapped that on…

…and started running.

As you can see in the above footage, Natsuno was jogging at a decent pace, but not in a full-out sprint. Similarly, she had the straps on her pouch adjusted so that it would sway and slosh the cream around, but without hanging so loosely as to be flopping and crashing as she moved.

Tracking her progress with a jogging app on her phone, after she’d gone three kilometers (1.9 miles) she stopped to check on her package’s progress.

Oh, wow, look at that! Even after this relatively short distance, the contents of the bag were already starting to separate themselves out into solid and liquid parts. It still hadn’t solidified enough to be called butter, but with just three kilometers traveled, Natsuno had already succeeded at making whipped cream.

But it was butter or bust, so she took a deep breath and got back to running.

The weather, thankfully, was ideal: partly cloudy, warm enough for her muscles to stay nice and loose, but cool enough that she wasn’t roasting under the sun. There were patches of blue sky overhead, and patches of yellow nanohana (rapeseed blossoms) in bloom along the riverbank. Hearing the elegant chirping of birds as she ran, the combination of sights and sounds made for an emotionally cleansing and comforting atmosphere, and Natsuno couldn’t help feeling like all of the positive energy she was carrying her cream through was going to have a similarly positive effect on the results, sort of like when people talk about growing healthy plants while playing classical music for them.

At the five-kilometer (3.1-mile) mark, Natsuno stopped and pulled out the Ziploc once again, and now the contents were really starting to look buttery!

She decided to give it just a little more time/distance, and when she stopped for her third check at seven kilometers (4,3 miles)…

…she saw that she’d done it! She’d made butter by running!

But while she could proudly say “Mission accomplished,” she couldn’t say “Mission deliciously accomplished” just yet. To make that judgement, she had to head back home for a taste test.

Since there was sill some liquid in the bag, she used a colander to separate the butter from the buttermilk, after which she could determine that she’d made 80 grams (2.8 ounces) of butter on her run.

▼ The buttermilk, by the way, got saved for use in cooking Natsuno’s next pancake batch.

Seeing as how home-made butter-run butter is sort of an intersection of fancy and rustic elements, taste-testing it with some lightly toasted baguette slices felt very appropriate.

Taking a bite, Natsuno was happy to find that, for as unusual as the production method may have been, her butter-run butter was delicious! She was especially pleased with the texture, since it not being hard or chilled let the full creaminess of the butter really dazzle her taste buds.

But did the effort she’d put into making the butter also save her some cash? No, not at all. The 200-mililiter carton of cream had cost Natsuno 517 yen (US$3.35) and yielded 80 grams of butter, which works out to 6.46 yen per gram. Meanwhile, the regular store-bought butter she gets at her local supermarket costs 539 yen for a 200-gram stick, or just 2.7 yen per gram.

That said, while we’re talking weights and measures Natsuno doesn’t have even an ounce of disappointment or regret at how her butter run turned out. From a pure flavor standpoint, she can’t definitively say her butter-run butter tastes two or three times better than the store-bought stuff, but did she enjoy the whole experience two or three times more than just slicing off part of a store-bought stick? Yes indeed!

It’s often said that ultimately we get more enjoyment out of spending our time and money on experiences rather than things, and Natsuno definitely feels like that’s true here. Sure, she’s not going to start using butter-run butter for all of her butter needs, but as a fun, special-occasion. Fresh-air activity, especially on a day when the weather is as inviting as this? That’s something she’d be happy to do again, and she’s already thinking about inviting a friend along too so that they can compare butters at the end of their jog.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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