What’s inside these 7-Eleven lucky bags?

Only available when a new branch opens, the contents are sure to please lovers of Japanese convenience stores!

Just last week, our Japanese-language reporter Daiichiro Tashiro attended the opening of a brand new convenience store in the countryside, and as it was the first 7-Eleven to open in the town, the excitement was palpable.

As part of the opening celebrations, Daiichiro was able to snare a couple of lucky bags that were being sold in limited numbers. Lucky bags are known for containing mystery items worth more than the price of the bag, and seeing as 7-Eleven only sells these at the opening of a new store, he couldn’t wait to see what was inside them.

▼ Daiichiro purchased a small 1,000 yen (US$7.13) bag and a large 5,000 yen bag.

After keeping us in suspense over the contents of the bags, Daiichiro has finally prepared the grand reveal for us, taking the time to list everything, along with their retail prices, to let us know if it was money well spent.

▼ Let’s start by taking a look inside the 1,000 yen bag.

This bag contained the following 7 items:

• Almond balls
• Ippudo instant ramen
• Akamaru Shinmi Hakata Tonkotsu
• Beef curry medium hot
• Barley tea 600 millilitres
• Miso-simmered domestic mackerel

Not bad for 1,000 yen! According to Daiichiro’s calculations, these items would normally come to a total of 1,265 yen, meaning that he was able to save 265 yen. The saving wasn’t as significant as he’d hoped, but still, with rice, noodles, curry, snacks, and a drink included, none of these would go to waste —  in fact, it was a really well-balanced selection.

▼ Now on to the larger 5,000-yen bag.

This bag contained the following 20 items:

• Atarime (39 grams)
• Sugar Butter Tree (3 pieces)
• Sumire Sapporo Rich Miso
• Gold Moist Baumkuchen
• Seasoning Cabbage 2 servings x 2 bags
• Cup miso soup with lots of ingredients
• Pork miso soup
• Tempura soba
• Kitchen paper (50 cut x 2 rolls)
• Mackerel boiled in miso
• Dressing Japanese style onion
• Double-dipped shrimp mirin (6 pieces)
• Jackie Calpas (119 grams)
• Extremely fluffy bath towel
• Thick-sliced ​​potatoes Ishigaki salty
• Free smoothie voucher

Now this was more like it! The more you spend, the more you get, and Daiichiro was extremely pleased with what he got here. Again, the savings weren’t that significant — the regular retail cost came to a total of 5,483 yen, so a saving of 483 yen — but in addition to all the food and kitchen paper, it included an “extremely fluffy bath towel“, which has great reviews on the Internet.

▼ We initially thought this was a bag of bran, but it’s actually a bath towel!

Part of the joy of a lucky bag is the surprise of finding out what you get, and the towel was a totally unexpected item, so Daicihiro was a very satisfied customer. Opening the bags gave him the same sense of excitement that walking through the doors of the new convenience store did, and that’s something you can’t put a price on.

City 7-Elevens can keep their fancy floating hologram registers — for Daiicihiro, you can’t beat the magic of a countryside convenience store, especially after a grand opening!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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