Ikea’s cheap lucky bag captures the true essence of Japan’s fukubukuro tradition

Take a look at what we received for 1,000 yen!

As part of our annual treasure hunt to find the country’s best fukubukuro lucky bags at New Year, we waited in line for 90 minutes at Ikea in Shinjuku on 2 January to purchase the two bags they had on offer this year.

After enjoying the contents of our 2,023-yen (US$15.52) bag, it’s time to take a look inside the cheaper 1,000-yen bag we also purchased. There were only 100 of these on offer, so we were excited to see what we would find.

Unlike the 2,023-yen lucky bag, which was blue and had the Ikea shark printed on it, the 1,000-yen lucky bag was much plainer. It was still a durable, reusable item, though, and part of the bargain bundle, as it’s usually priced at 199 yen.

So what did we get for 1,000 yen? Let’s check out the haul, starting with…

▼ …a collection of photo frames!

▼ Next up, we have two types of potato chips…

▼ …and a canned drink, with a design that made us think it might be a potato-flavoured drink, but it turned out to be organic ginger ale.

▼ Then there were paper napkins…

▼ … a wooden spatula…

▼ … a pack of freezer bags with a bear printed on them…

▼ …and an eco bag, in the same dotty design we received in the more expensive Ikea fukubukuro.

Tallying everything together revealed that our 1,000-yen bag contained nine items worth more than 1,713 yen.

This was a great return for our investment, and we didn’t even mind the fact that we now owned two identical shopping bags.

▼ We particularly liked the cute freezer bags and paper napkins…

▼ …and the photo frames.

We usually keep saved photos on our phone and don’t ever think to print them out to display them, so these frames gave us the nudge we needed to print out some memorable work moments for posterity.

Now these photos have a home next to the Ikea elephant and Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated Shiba Inu tissue cover.

It was a fun haul filled with items that we might not necessarily buy but wouldn’t say no to. That pretty much sums up the essence of the lucky bag tradition in a nutshell, and we’re already looking forward to continuing the hunt for Ikea’s lucky bags next year!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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