Twentythree

Totoro is looking sweeter than ever.

In Japan, you don’t need to be in love in order to love Valentine’s Day, since the day is as much about chocolate as it is romance. So regardless of whether or not you’ve found your soulmate, you can make some sweet Valentine’s memories with a special someone: Totoro.

Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory, the Tokyo sweets shop run by relatives of Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, has revealed its lineup of special Valentine’s Day chocolate treats for this year. First up is the Small Totoro Pair Cake, a chocolate tart with a layer of creamy ganache at the bottom, above that a strawberry mousse with bits of strawberry mixed in, and then an enticingly shimmery chocolate glacage glaze. Sitting atop the cake is a happy Small Totoro couple made out of white an (sweet bean paste), accompanied by a chocolate ribbon that makes this both a mouthwatering and heartwarming gift, whether you’re presenting it to someone else or treating yourself.

While Shirohige’s illustrated diagrams are always cute, the actual tart is even more adorable.

As the bakery’s full name implies, though, cream puffs are Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory’s flagship temptations. While they’re always shaped like Totoros, for Valentine’s day they’re getting a special, all-encompassing coating of chocolate.

Two types are on offer, with the milk chocolate-covered Totoro cream puff filled with ganache and orange caramel, and the white chocolate one containing strawberry ganache and berry gelee. They also each come with a pair of acorn-shaped cookies.

If you’re looking for something lighter, but still sweet, to nibble on, there’s a three-piece Totoro cookie set, with Totoros in both standard buttery and chocolate biscuit forms, plus a raspberry-flavored leaf cookie (that looks like some forest dweller has already taken a little bite out of it).

And speaking of cookies, Shirohige’s Catbus sandwich cookie is also getting chocolatey for Valentine’s Day, replacing its usual butter raisin filling for one of ganache made from a blend of two types of chocolate.

Cute as they are, none of these will break your wallet’s heart. At 1,000 yen (US$6.50), the tart is as pricey as they get, with Totoro cream puffs and Catbus cookies 850 yen and the Totoro cookie set 500 yen. If you want to spend bigger, though, Shirohige has a Valentine’s assortment of various baked confectionaries for 2,500 yen, though aside from the one Totoro cookie, they don’t have any anime aesthetics to them.

All of the items are available for preorder (either in-person or via phone, as explained here) as of February 4, with possible pickup dates of February 11-14 for the chocolate Totoro pair tart and chocolate Totoro cream puffs. The window is a little wider for the cookies and baked confectionary set, which can be picked up between February 7 and 14. Oh, and if your Valentine’s dessert schedule is already so full that you can’t fit one more treat in until late February at the earliest, don’t despair, because the chocolate Catbus cookie will be available at Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory’s branch in Tokyo’s Kichijoji neighborhood through March 30.

Source: Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory (1, 2)
Images: Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory
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The fate of the first to board has long been a problem in Japan, but this could be the solution. 

A curious thing happens in elevators – once you’re in there, and someone who wants to board is about to miss the closing doors, you’re able to extend a gesture of kindness by pressing the “open” button so they’re able to catch the lift they otherwise would’ve missed.

In Japan, though, this act of kindness can work against you, because an unspoken rule of etiquette dicates that the person closest to the buttons is in charge of operating them for everyone, like some sort of unpaid staff attendant. That means when you let someone in after you, you’ll also be in charge of letting them out before you, as you hold the “open” button for others before stepping out of the elevator yourself.

▼ If you’re standing in front of this panel in Japan, you’re expected to press the open and close buttons as an act of courtesy towards others.

Generally, the lift operator is only mildly inconvenienced by this role, but there are times when it can be irritating. When you need to check out after staying on a high floor in a hotel, for example, you’re likely to find yourself holding the doors open for people who get on at lower floors, so by the time you reach the lobby the lift is so crowded you’ll be holding the doors open for everyone who gets out. That means you’ll be the last to line up and check out behind your fellow lift companions, despite being first in the elevator.

▼ What might be called the “fate of the first to board” is particularly painful in a hotel situation.

As a frequent hotel user, our reporter Masanuki Sunakoma has long pondered the inherent problems with lift etiquette, but has never been able to come up with any good solutions. The other day, though, something happened to him that that made him see the light…and it touched his heart as well.

The event occurred when Masanuki was using crutches due to a foot injury, and a friend of his drove him to Starbucks. After getting out at the parking lot, a car pulled in right behind them, and when a couple got out of the car and headed towards the coffeehouse, they naturally passed by Masanuki, who was moving slowly due to his impairment.

Masanuki didn’t mind – in fact, he was pleased that they’d passed him as he didn’t want to hold them up along the way. However, when he entered the store, he saw that the couple hadn’t gone straight to the register as expected. Instead, they were looking at tumblers and coffee beans in the general goods section near the entrance. As he glanced at them, they turned, bowed slightly, and said to him: “Please go ahead and order“.

The kindness of this couple took Masanuki by surprise, as he’d initially thought they were browsing the shelves for coffee beans. However, after they gestured for him to go ahead of them, they lined up behind him empty-handed, proving they were just lingering at the coffee beans, waiting for him to step through the doors so they could take their place behind him in line.

When Masanuki finished ordering, he turned and thanked the couple and when they went up to the register, the barista, who’d seen what had happened, smiled warmly at the couple as if to thank them for being so considerate to a fellow customer. It was as if this one small kind gesture rippled through the entire cafe, spreading warmth and kindness to everyone in the vicinity.

▼ Masanuki was so touched even his drink tasted more delicious.

This pleasant feeling was the complete opposite of Masanuki’s experiences in a hotel elevator, where he can’t help but feel slightly disgruntled whenever his lift companions queue ahead of him at reception. While he can’t hold it against them, it’s the way things happen, after all, here at Starbucks, this couple had not only seen him but made him feel seen – instead of taking advantage of his situation, or simply turning a blind eye to it, they acknowledged his place ahead of them in the queue and stepped aside to let him through.

Furthermore, the couple hadn’t made a big deal of things – instead of stopping in the parking lot or at the cash register, they held back and browsed in front of the merchandise, creating a cushion between them so he wouldn’t feel guilty or pressured by their actions. They made it seem natural and unfettered, in a way that acknowledged his situation without any sense of shame or pity.

▼ If only he could meet couples like this at the elevator.

While he’s conscious of the fact that this couple’s generosity was in large part due to his foot injury, Masanuki felt that this system of acknowledging the person ahead of you when the end goal is to queue, would work wonders for lifting everyone’s spirits in an elevator scenario. Though he admits it would be hard to put into practice, especially with a full elevator, if just one or two people considered the plight of a lift operator, especially in a hotel when everyone is taking the lift to queue, it could have a ripple effect that leads to more awareness of the “fate of the first to board” an elevator.

Starting with awareness is the first step on the path to change, so Masanuki plans to lead by example, vowing to step aside for the lift operator next time there’s a lineup at the end of the journey. And it’s all thanks to the kindness of the couple he met at Starbucks, whose simple actions have left an indelible glow in his heart. Even in a country where consideration for the group is everything, this couple showed there are new levels to how you can express kindness, and he will forever pass it on in their memory.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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The Brewers believe it!

There are all sorts of fighting skills that come in handy for ninja, from hand-to-hand combat to proficiency with throwing stars, explosives, or supernatural ninpo spells. But more than anything, the definitive shinobi talent is stealth. True ninja must be so adept at infiltration that they can suddenly appear anywhere, even where you’d least expect them…like at a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game.

We’ve still got a month-plus until the start of the 2026 MLB season, but the Brewers are already getting multi-hobby fans excited with the announcement of the team’s special theme nights for the year. If you’re a fan of the shonen shinobi saga, August 5 is the night you’ll want to circle on your calendar/ninja time-tracking scroll, since that’ll be Naruto Night, when the team will be giving away special Naruto Brewers jerseys!

The Brewers will be giving away this NARUTO-themed baseball jersey on August 5 vs. the Pirates pic.twitter.com/UjCMRnZo4S

— MLB (@MLB) February 3, 2026

The Naruto logo appears on the chest just below the left shoulder, and you get some stylish baseball and ninja iconography on the sleeves. The lower half of the shirt has layers of clouds rendered in the style of classical Japanese paintings in the Brewers’ navy blue-and-yellow team colors, and Naruto himself appears on the back.

▼ Under the normal MLB uniform family-name conventions, the back of the jersey should say “Uzumaki,” but they’re making an Ichiro-like exception for Naruto here.

Interestingly, the Brewers’ 6:40 p.m. home game on August 5 is against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who’d be a natural choice for fans of another shonen anime/manga mega-hit, One Piece to cheer for, but no collaboration between them has been announced.

While this isn’t the first time for Major League Baseball to join hands with a popular anime franchise, past partnerships have often involved teams/cities with higher media profiles, such as the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Miami Marlines have also announced that they’ll be holding a Naruto night too on May 22 when they take on the New York Mets, with a Naruto jersey of their own. So far only the Brewers have shown off their design, though, and they’re promising “anime-themed activations around the park” and a postgame laser show on August 5 as well.

That’s not the only Japanese pop culture event the Brewers have planned this summer, either, as August 19, when they face the Seattle Mariners, will be Hello Kitty Night.

“Hello Kitty is taking over American Family Field this summer,” the team says of its home stadium. “Fans can take home a Hello Kitty bobblehead with the purchase of a special Theme Night ticket and enjoy themed fun throughout the game in this adorable all-ages celebration.” And if it sounds a little startling to say that Hello Kitty is going to be “taking over” territory, remember that one of her personas is, after all, “Red Dragon Archfiend Hello Kitty.”

Tickets for the Brewers game can be reserved online here, and for the Marlins game here. Though not specifically mentioned in the American Family Field rules and regulations, it’s safe to assume that they will require Naruto fans to leave their real-world Flying Thunder God Kunai at home.

Sources: Twitter/@MLB, MLB (1, 2)
Top image: MLB
Insert images: Twitter/@MLB, MLB
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It’s time to go out and see the ume.

Pretty much as soon as the new year starts, people in Japan start looking ahead to sakura season, and with good reason, as the cherry blossoms are Japan’s most famous flowers. They’re not the country’s only beautiful flora, though, and if you want to head out and see some breathtaking blossoms without waiting for winter to wrap up, we’re getting into the best time of year to see ume, or plum blossoms.

Plum blossoms tend to start blooming in late January or early February, depending on the exact variety, with colors ranging from white to soft pink to a reddish purple. And while you won’t find quite as many high-profile spots for plum blossom viewing as you will for their cherry counterparts, there are a number of great places to see the ume, even as day-trip excursions from downtown Tokyo.

For example, there’s Hana Biyori, a flower park managed by the same company that runs the nearby Yomiuriland amusement park in Tokyo’s western Tama district. Though it’s less than 30 minutes from Shinjuku Station in the Tokyo city center, there are roughly 200 plum trees to admire on the Hana Biyori grounds, with their flowers expected to be at their most beautiful this year from February 20 to 27. That timing overlaps nicely with Hana Biyori’s nighttime Hana Akari light-up event…

…and there will also be plum scents added to the outdoor bath Hana Biyori’s on-site onsen hot spring facility, Kakeinoyu, if you want to rest and warm yourself up after around while there still might be a bit of a winter chill in the air.

▼ Hana Biyori, by the way, is also right next to Yomiuriland’s brand-new Poképark Kanto Pokémon amusement park section.

Heading in the opposite direction from downtown Tokyo will instead take you to Mukojima Hyakkaen, across the Sumida River and a bit north from the Asakusa neighborhood.

Hyakkaen, which means “Garden of a Hundred Flowers,” was created by a merchant who planted 360 plum trees on the property in the late Edo period, and became a gathering place for artists and poets.

So though the Tokyo Skytree, Japan’s tallest structure and a marvel of modern engineering, can be seen poking up behind the trees, Hyakkaen retains a traditional feel, and during its Ume Fetival, which runs from February 7 to March 1 this year, visitors can compose poems to leave behind for others to read, take part in a relaxed tea ceremony (February 14 and 15), and enjoy watching traditional dance performances (February 8 and 22).

For those willing to venture outside the Tokyo city limits, though, one of the best places to see plum blossoms in east Japan is the town of Atami, on the coast of Shizuoka Prefecture.

Atami Baien (Atami Plum Garden) boasts 468 plum trees, but the even more impressive number is that they represent 60 different varieties. So not only do they make for an immersive environment of flowers, because the different ume have different blossoming times, the viewing season here is especially long. As shown in the video below, Atami Baien kicked off its Ume Festival all the way back in the second week of January, but the flowers are still going strong, and the festivities, which include events such as open-air footbaths and free amazake sweet non-alcoholic sake, depending n the day, will continue until March 8.

Compared to the other two locations, Atami is a fair bit farther from Tokyo, but it’s reachable in less than 40 minutes if you take the Shinkansen, and once you factor in the delicious green tea culture attractions that Shizuoka also offers, it definitely starts to feel like a train ride worth taking.

Related: Hana Biyori, Kakeinoyu, Mukojima Htyakkaen, Atami Baien
Source: PR Times, @Press, PR Times (2)
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, @Press, PR Times (2, 3)
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Casual Japanese restaurant chain creates a new genre of pork cutlet bowls.

Broadly speaking, katsudon (pork cutlet bowl) comes in two varieties. There’s tamagotoji katsudon, in which the cutlet is sort of wrapped in egg…

…and then there’s sauce katsudon, in which a special sauce, tasting kind of like a sweeter Worchester, is drizzled over the cutlet.

But now, here comes Japanese restaurant chain Fuji Soba with a brand-new category of pork cutlet bowl: ice cream katsudon.

Yep, that’s a pouch of confectioner Lotte’s Coolish drinkable ice cream being squeezed onto the cutlet, and specifically the brand’s whipped cream flavor. We suppose you could argue that this makes the Coolish Whipped Cream Katsudon, as it’s officially called, a variation on sauce katsudon, but it also has the egg accompaniment that you’d get in a traditional tamagotoji katsudon, so this new dish really is an unprecedented hybrid.

If all this talk of Fuji Soba putting ice cream in unexpected places sounds sort of familiar, it’s because this is actually the chain’s second time collaborating with Coolish, as for a limited time in 2024 they offered vanilla Coolish-enhanced chilled soba noodles.

▼ It wasn’t a simpler time, it was just a time that was crazy in a different way than now.

Between the two of them, though, ice cream makes more sense as a topping for katsudon than it does for soba, since there are sweet notes to katsudon sauce, whereas soba broth is more of a salty/savory/fish stock kind of thing. Fuji Soba says that the addition of ice cream adds to the richness flavor and decadence of the meal.

The ice cream itself isn’t too visually shocking either, since its color sort of blends into the white of the egg.

However, since we’re in uncharted culinary territory here, Fuji Soba serves the katsudon with the pouch of Coolish on the side, so that you can add whatever you feel is the appropriate amount, as well as choose whether you want to squeeze the ice cream right into the bowl or add little dollops to individual morsels after you’ve picked them up with your chopsticks. The chain’s official recommendation, though, is to use half of the ice cream pouch for the katsudon, with the remaining half ostensibly to be enjoyed by itself as a dessert.

The iconoclastic nature of this dish, so crazy it might work or perhaps just so crazy, means that it’s only being served at a limited number of Fuji Soba restaurants, in limited quantities, and for a limited time. The 770-yen (US$5) Coolish ice cream katsudon is available from now until February 28 at the Akasaka, Ikebukuro, and Gotanda Fuji Soba branches, all in downtown Tokyo, with a total of 10 available per day at each location on a first-come, first-served basis.

Related: Fuji Soba location list
Source: Lotte
Top image: Fuji Soba
Insert images: SoraNews24, Lotte (1, 2)
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The green mermaid shakes up the menu with a limited-edition twist on a classic drink.

With less than two weeks to go until Valentine’s Day, Starbucks is vying for our attention with a new limited-edition beverage called Sweet Milk Chocolate. Specially designed to align with the Japanese custom of gifting chocolate on Valentine’s Day, this new offering is a drink you’ll want to gift yourself, with its three-layer construction creating beautiful hues…and multiple tiers of flavour.

Keen-eyed Starbucks fans might notice that the drink looks similar to another on the menu, and that’s because it’s actually a new twist on the classic Sweet Milk Coffee. Instead of containing coffee though, this new drink contains a rich and creamy base, made from fresh cream and white chocolate-flavoured syrup, which is then topped with milk, and finished with a creamy layer of cocoa.

The resulting three-layered beverage lets you enjoy the richness of cocoa and its mellow sweetness in alternating strengths as you drink it. The deliciously creamy, milk chocolate flavours are said to give the beverage a dessert-like feel that will give you the same satisfying sense of joy as biting into an expensive Valentine’s Day chocolate.

On sale from 3 February at Starbucks stores around Japan, the new drink will be sold in a Tall size for 579 yen (US$3.74) for takeout or 590 yen for dine-in, and will only be available while stocks last.

Source, images: Press release
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Some employers want to flip the script to indirectly get rid of workers they don’t want, company says.

In Japan, quitting your job can be psychologically complicated. Employment at many companies is indefinitely very long-term, without scheduled regular meetings to discuss whether or not to re-up the working arrangement, which also means fewer built-in opportunities to organically tell your boss, “I think it’s time for me to move on to something else.” Japanese culture also generally prefers to avoid direct conflict if it doesn’t offer any benefits over a calmer approach, and with most Japanese people not craving the position of being the center of attention, making a big-spectacle “You can take this job and shove it!” declaration in front of everyone in the office doesn’t hold much appeal, even to most pretty disgruntled workers.

That’s why the company Momuri got its start. A play on words with the Japanese phrase “Mou muri” (“I can’t take this anymore”), Momuri is a job-quitting proxy service. For a fee, generally between 12,000 and 22,000 yen (US$77 and US$142), Momuri will inform your employer that you’re leaving your position and also handle any associated paperwork or other correspondence. And to be clear, Momuri’s operations don’t include anything about setting you up with your next job. They’re just there to get you out of the one you currently have.

It’s an unusual service, but one uniquely suited to Japanese society and cultural values. However, while Momuri’s business plan is centered on being approached by individuals who want to quit their jobs, the company says that it also regularly gets contacted by employers who want to end their working relationships with their employees.

In a post on its official Twitter account, Momuri recently said:

“We regularly receive requests of ‘We want to make one of our employees to quit, so would it be possible to have you to contact them on the phone?’”

「うちの社員を辞めさせたいのでその社員に電話をかけていただきたいのですが、対応可能でしょうか？」

定期的に来ます。

— 退職代行モームリ (@momuri0201) January 31, 2026

Though Momouri’s services are designed to help workers navigate quirks of Japanese work culture, those same services could, in theory, also be beneficial to employers on the other side of the tricky situations. Downsizing because of an economic turndown is generally frowned upon in Japanese society, and firing employees for anything less than deliberate malicious conduct is avoided too. The result is that, unless an employee is a complete screw-up, employers often feel obligated to keep them on the payroll, even if the company’s overall performance could probably be improved by firing them and restaffing the position. Of course, all those stigmas, and any potential compliance bylaws about letting the employee go, disappear if the employee themself is the one making the decision to walk away from the job. So, in theory, if the management at Company X wants to get rid of an employee, but cultural or legal concerns make that difficult to do, having a job-quitting proxy float the idea of quitting to the unwanted worker could neatly solve the company’s problems.

Of course, there are all sorts of ethical issues such tactics would raise, not the least of which is whether an employer having a third party contact a worker to make them consider quitting their job constitutes a form of workplace harassment. It’s worth noting that Momuri does not say that it has ever performed this service for employers, simply that it’s been asked to do so, and so it seems that the company has stayed focused on its role as a job-quitting poxy service, nota a firing proxy service.

Source: Twitter/@momuri0201 via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
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