Japan’s randoseru school backpacks keep getting more expensive, so now parents can rent them

Lower cost isn’t the only benefit of Japan’s first randoseru subscription service, company says.

The Japanese academic year starts in spring, so it won’t be long until the new batch of first-graders head off to school carrying their boxy leather randoseru backpacks. It’ll be an emotional moment for many parents and grandparents, not just because it’s a sign that the little tykes are growing up, but because those backpacks can be very expensive.

According to the Japan Bag Association’s Randoseru Industry Department, in 2022 the average cost of a randoseru was 56,000 yen (US$415). That’s an increase of nearly 20,000 yen compared to 10 years ago, and prices are likely to continue to climb for 2023 as inflation and a weak yen contribute to rising materials costs, especially for the leather and metal fittings, which are likely to be at least partially passed on to consumers.

Virtually every elementary schooler in Japan is required to carry their books to and from school in a randoseru, so the bags represent a major family expense. So to help ease the burden, Osaka-based randoseru distributor Kokuho has introduced what it says is Japan’s first randoseru rental/subscription service, which it calls RandS.

▼ Video showing some of the bags available through RandS

The service allows users to choose from roughly 250 different randoseru designs. The first month is free, and monthly plans start at 990 yen a month after that.

Of course, the big question is whether or not this is actually cheaper than just buying a randoseru. With no calendar month completely devoid of school days, parents would need to rent a randoseru for 12 months a year, which would cost 11,800 yen under the lowest-priced plan, and with Japanese elementary school lasting six years, the total would appear to come to 71,280, slightly 15,280 yen more than 2022’s average randoseru purchase price.

Here’s the key point, though: If you continue using RandS, on the same plan, for three years, then whatever bag you’re using at that time is yours to keep. In other words, you can essentially buy a bag for 35,640 yen, which is 20,360 yen less than the average purchase price, and pay for it in monthly installments.

Another advantage to RandS subscription service is that you can periodically change the bag you’re using. At the lowest-priced plan, you can change bags once every three months, and higher-price tiers allow for more frequent switching. In recent years, there’s been a sudden increase in the number of randoseru colors and styles manufacturers are producing, and while that presents an opportunity for children to express themselves, kids’ tastes can change quickly, and RandS hopes that its service will help prevent situations where, say, a second-grader no longer likes the bag they picked out a year ago but has to stick with it until they move on to junior high.

Related: RandS
Source: Yomiuri Shimbun via Livedoor News via Jin, RandS, @Press
Images: @Press
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Less than half of Japanese people OK with bare hand-pressed rice balls, survey says, but why?

We call them “rice balls” in English, but the real-meaning of “onigiri” is something a lot of Japanese people don’t find appetizing.

In English, we usually call the food known as onigiri in Japanese “rice balls.” But should you have the pleasure of becoming gastronomically acquainted with onigiri, you’ll quickly discover that most of them aren’t ball-shaped. For example, triangular onigiri, like these ones, are extremely common in stores.

Even when onigiri are rounded, they’re more like thick discs than truly spherical balls.

That’s because the word onigiri doesn’t actually mean “rice ball.” It comes from the word nigiru, meaning to squeeze or press, and refers to the traditional way you make onigiri, by pressing the grains of rice together with your hands, with whatever filling you’re using placed at the center or the topping put on top after the onigiri has been formed. Linguistically, onigiri can be whatever shape you want them to be.

But remember how we said pressing the rice by hand is the traditional way to make onigiri? That’s because in the modern era of mass-produced onigiri, they’re often made by machine, and as machine-made onigiri become more and more common, part of the Japanese population has gotten squeamish about eating the pressed-by-hand variety.

Japanese variety program Abema Prime recently conducted a survey asking “Can you eat onigiri that someone else made by hand?”, and of the 50,000 respondents, only 46 percent said they were comfortable consuming bare hand-pressed onigiri.

An additional 42 percent said they were OK eating hand-pressed onigiri on the condition that a layer of plastic wrap had been placed between the rice and the maker’s hands. 10 percent, though said that even that isn’t good enough, and that they’re unwilling to eat hand-pressed onigiri entirely.

▼ The final two percent responded with “other,” but it’s unclear exactly what that means.

So why the strongly negative reaction to bare hand-made onigiri? A few theories spring quickly to mind. Probably the biggest hurdle is that onigiri is pressed after all the ingredients have been cooked. It’s one thing if a chef picks up a piece of meat with an ungloved hand and tosses it into a frying pan before it’s cooked and plated with a spatula. There’s no more heat being applied to that onigiri after it’s formed, though, so effectively someone is grabbing and squeezing your food, then giving it to you to pop into your mouth.

The increasing availability of onigiri at convenience stores is probably another contributing factor. Convenience store onigiri have become the majority of the onigiri many people eat, and since they’re machine-pressed, the concept of eating hand-pressed onigiri, let alone bare hand-pressed onigiri, is becoming increasingly removed from many people’s daily lives.

Along with machine-pressed chain store-bought onigiri becoming so prevalent, another factor to consider is that onigiri aren’t particularly common on restaurant menus. That leaves small, independent takeout shops and home kitchens as the two places you’re most likely to encounter pressed-by-hand onigiri, and in the case of home kitchens, you get into the question of how clean other people keep their homes and non-professional food handler hands, and the answer might not be as clean as you’d like.

Interestingly, pressed-by-hand nigiri sushi (which comes from the same nigiru as onigiri), the most common kind of sushi in which the fish or other topping is placed on a block of rice, doesn’t seem to trigger the same sort of negative reaction. Just like with onigiri, the rice in mass-produced nigiri sushi, such as at inexpensive revolving sushi restaurants or shops, is machine pressed, but at more expensive restaurants the rice is pressed by hand, with plastic wrap or gloves rarely used. Maybe the greater acceptance of bare hand-pressed nigiri sushi has something to do with the high-class image of sushi and sushi chefs.

In any case, though, it’s probably best to keep your reaction expectations modest if you offer someone an onigiri while telling them “I made it myself!”

Source: Sponichi Annex via Yahoo! Japan News via Otakomu
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: SoraNews24, Pakutaso (1, 2)
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We put weird food in curry to make it “un-curry-like”, find a killer secret ingredient instead

And it’s not something we would ever have thought to try!

You might not think of curry as Japanese food, but Japan has certainly developed its own version of curry, which has become a staple meal in most households. What’s more, some people even consider themselves curry maniacs, and our Japanese-language reporter Seiji Nakazawa is one himself. In fact, while experimenting with curry, he recently found an unexpected secret ingredient that brings your average store-bought curry roux to a whole other level.

The problem is, he only found it by experimenting with adding different ingredients to curry to see what would transform it into something that wasn’t curry. In other words, things you shouldn’t add to curry. The ingredients Seiji tested were natto (fermented soybeans), potato chips, azuki (red bean paste), cheesecake, and durian, a notoriously stinky fruit.

Yes, they’re pretty out-there ingredients, because Seiji was, after all, aiming to skirt the boundaries of appropriate ingredients. And yet, Seiji had no idea that one of these would work some cooking magic and level up his curry into something supremely delicious.

First, Seiji tried the natto, but the result was not surprising. Curry with natto was certainly still curry, which was to be expected since natto curry is an actual thing. Still, it was good to establish a baseline.

Seiji wondered next how the potato chips would affect curry, so he mixed some into a fresh bowl. The result was…still curry. Though no one would ordinarily put potato chips in curry, and eating soggy potato chips was a pretty new experience, they’re still made from potatoes, which are standard ingredients in most curries. As such, potato chips ended up being a pretty safe experiment.

Now was the time to toe the line a bit, because it was the azuki’s turn. Red bean paste is about the most farfetched flavor you could think of to add to curry. Likely no curry shop has ever offered it as a topping; in fact, Seiji would not have even thought to try it if not for this experiment. He could not fathom what it might taste like mixed into curry.

After adding the azuki and giving it a good stir, the curry got a little darker, but it still looked like curry. It did, however, have the obvious appearance of red beans mixed in. And how did it taste? Well, let us first say that the azuki Seiji used wasn’t no-sugar-added azuki; it was saccharine sweet azuki meant for making sweets. And with that in mind, Seiji tasted it…

…and it tasted like curry. In fact, the roux that Seiji used to make the original curry was just your average store-bought roux, but the addition of the red bean paste gave it a richness that reminded him of European-style curry. Seiji might have put a bit too much in, but even so, the curry was still just as delicious as usual.

Since the red bean paste melded well with the curry and even melted a bit (unlike the potato chips), it actually felt like a fairly appropriate topping. Besides, you can use the amount of azuki to adjust the spice level of the curry, so it’s actually a more useful ingredient than either natto or potato chips.

Though the azuki may have seemed like a strange ingredient, it actually ended up pairing well with curry. But if azuki beans, with their less intense “sweets” vibe, served to accentuate the flavor of curry, then would a more serious dessert–say, cheesecake–be too much?

Out of all the ingredients, it did seem like the most un-curry-like ingredient; on the spectrum of food, it had to be on the complete opposite side from curry. Mixing curry with cheesecake sounded like mixing ice and fire. Honestly, Seiji was afraid to try it.

After he mixed them together, the color of the cheesecake and the color of the curry blended to create a wholly unappetizing shade of putrid green. Well, he did put in a whole slice.

Filled with trepidation, Seiji lifted his spoon and slurped some up, and…

…it actually kind of tasted like butter chicken curry!

Seiji had used the same average store-bought curry roux, so it was meant to taste like standard homemade curry. But the addition of the cheesecake gave it a creamy, rich, deep flavor that was highly reminiscent of butter chicken. And, of course, it was definitely still curry.

This new curry had the same thickness as a standard homemade curry, but the flavor seemed like it would be better paired with naan than with rice. Rather than destroying the essence of the curry, the addition of the cheesecake brought out the best parts of both the dessert and the curry, honing the balance so finely it was like threading a needle of flavor. It was incredible how a simple slice of cheesecake could create something so beautiful.

So far, everything Seiji had tried had either hardly changed the curry at all or improved it tremendously. But now it was time for the last boss: the durian. For the sake of journalism, Seiji had to do the unthinkable before adding it to the curry.

He had to sniff it.

“It stinks!!!!!”

The pungent, traumatizing smell of the world’s stinkiest fruit slapped the coherent thoughts right out of Seiji’s head. “What does it mean for something to become ‘un-curry-like’ anyway?” he mumbled, stumbling away from the offensive smell. “What am I even doing this for? Nobody wants to know about this!”

We had to mix the durian in for him.

Only once Seiji had recovered his faculties and had enough sense and sensibility to taste the durian curry, we let him. It was…

…like any smooth, fruity curry.

“Curry is so amazing!!” Seiji screamed, leaping from his chair. (Okay, maybe he hadn’t quite recovered, but to be fair, the curry had pretty much erased the intense smell of the durian, which Seiji hadn’t expected.)

So, based on Seiji’s assessments, which one do you think is the super-powered secret ingredient? The answer may be obvious. It was…

…the cheesecake!

To be frank, other popular curry toppings like cheese or chocolate have nothing on cheesecake when it comes to enhancing curry. The amount of richness it brought to the flavor was out of this world. And to think, Seiji might not have ever discovered this amazing secret ingredient without experimenting with ingredients that would make curry “un-curry-like”.

Speaking of which, all of Seiji’s experiments failed! Which means he’s got to try putting even more bizarre foods in curry, a feat that seems far more difficult than expected, given curry’s surprising adaptableness. What should he try next? Don Quixote shiitake mushroom snacks? Or maybe chocolate fish? Hmm…the sky really is the limit.

Images © SoraNews24
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Uniqlo Japan offers custom suits for super affordable prices

You don’t have to break the bank to make bank anymore.

Whether you’re starting a new job in Japan or need some formalwear for an event, the price of a fitted suit can add up quickly. To alleviate the burden on your bank account, Uniqlo Japan is offering suit setups with fitting services, with some suit jacket and pants combos costing as little as 11,000 yen (US$80.60).

▼ The men’s lineup includes shirts, jackets, and pants.

▼ The women’s lineup contains the same style of items but with the addition of skirts.

The process for getting a Uniqlo custom-fit suit only requires three steps. First, go to a Uniqlo store that offers sample suit pieces. While you’re there, a staff member will take your measurements to customize the hem, sleeves, and waistline of your pieces. Finally, you place your order via the Uniqlo app.

▼ You’ll ace the looks department of any job interview with these bad boys.

Your fitted items will arrive at your doorstep anywhere from one to ten days after your fitting. Some pieces in the collection are great for hot and humid weather, made from quick-drying, anti-wrinkle, UV-cut materials.

▼ No more sweaty pits to dampen your vibe.

One of the best things about these Uniqlo suits is that all pieces can be washed and dried at home! You don’t need to add a dry cleaning bill to your suit expenses unless you want to.

▼ Why does he look so good? Because he’s saving money.

So if you’re in doubt of where to go to get a suit for your new gig, keep Uniqlo Japan in mind. And remember, even if you’re asked some inappropriate questions at a Japanese job interview, you’ll always look calm and collected in your fitted duds.

Sources and images: Press release, Uniqlo Japan
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Pompompurin hotel rooms coming to Tokyo, Hokkaido to make your stay Sanrio sweet【Pics】

After topping Hello Kitty in the Sanrio character popularity poll, Pompompurin wants to welcome travelers to Tokyo and Sapporo.

The Mitsui Garden Hotel Ginza Gochome and Mitsui Garden Hotel Sapporo West are already pretty great places to stay if you’re travelling in Tokyo or Hokkaido, respectively. They’re located right in the heart of their cities, and they’re each only about a block away from major rail stations if you want to check out sightseeing options in other neighborhoods.

And later this month if won’t be just their locations that make the hotels attractive, but the fact that they’ll be offering Pompompurin rooms!

The Sanrio pooch with coloring and physique reminiscent of custard pudding made his debut in 1996 and instantly become one of Japan’s most popular characters. In 2022, Pompompurin finished second in the annual Sanrio Character Ranking poll, four spots ahead of even Hello Kitty, and so Mitsui Garden Hotels have created not just one, but three different Pompompurin collaboration rooms, each filled with artwork and amenities featuring Pompompurin and his pals.

▼ The Pompompurin Hide and Seek Room invites you to play along by trying to find all the hidden characters peeking out at you.

▼ The Pompompurin Sweets Party Room is covered in pastel pastries depictions.

▼ And last, the Dreaming Pompompurin Room, exclusive to the Mitsui Garden Hotel Ginza Gochome, seems like it’ll have you sleeping soundly the second your head touches the pillow, what with all the illustrations of the Pompompurin pantheon snoozing on the ceiling.

Guests staying in the Pompompurin rooms will also receive a special souvenir pack to take home, with different designs for the different rooms. Each pack contains a drink tumbler, tote bag, hand towel, fluffy socks, sticker, and stuffed animal of Pompompurin dressed in a snappy bellman’s uniform.

▼ Pompompurin Hide and Seek Room

▼ Pompompurin Sweets Party Room

▼ Dreaming Pompompurin Room

Note that the stuffed animal is identical for all three rooms, but if you’re such a passionate Pompompurin fan that you’re looking to gather the entire line, odds are you can find a use for a spare plushie or two.

The Pompompurin rooms will be available to stay in from March 26. Reservations are open now and can be made though the Mitsui Garden Hotel website here.

Source, images: PR Times
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Netflix producing stop-motion Pokémon series, stars human concierge at resort for Pokémon【Video】

Creators of stop-motion Rilakkuma series turn their talents to traveling Pokémon in need of relaxation.

You won’t find many multimedia franchises whose media has multiplied into more forms than Pokémon. Video games, hand-drawn anime, and collectible cards may be its three major pillars, but there are also the Pokémon manga, CG shorts, a CG theatrical anime, and even the live-action Detective Pikachu movie.

But there are still media in which Pokémon stories have yet to be told, and so Netflix is going to be bringing us the first-ever Pokémon stop-motion animation series.

Titled Pokémon Concierge, the series is set at the Pokémon Resort. This isn’t a vacation destination where tourists come to frolic with Pokémon, though, but a resort Pocket Monsters themselves visit when they want to relax.

The teaser video shows a Psyduck walking across the soft sands of a tropical beach. As the most regularly stressed-out species of Pokémon, it could definitely benefit from some seaside tranquility, and the key art image released by Netflix shows it in the company of Haru, a human woman who works as a concierge at the resort.

The series’ stop-motion visuals are being produced by Japan’s Dwarf Studio, the same studio behind Netflix’s Rilakkuma and Kaoru stop-motion series that debuted in 2019 and got a second season last summer. Netflix has yet to give any release window other than “coming soon” for Pokémon Concierge, so for now fans will have to stay calm and patient, just like Psyduck is trying to do in the teaser.

Source: 4Gamer
Top image: YouTube/The Official Pokémon YouTube channel
Insert image: Netflix
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The top three ranking of hotel “poster cats” that Japanese travelers are most eager to meet

Besides being cute, these felines also lend a paw in running their respective establishments.

In connection with Japan’s Cat Day on February 22, travel information and news site Jalan News shared the results of a survey it conducted from January 10-12 about cats. It wasn’t about just any cats, however, but specifically the “poster cats” of various hotels, traditional Japanese ryokan inns, and other lodging establishments across the country. Ultimately, 1,078 participants collectively chose the top three cats that site users would most want to meet in real life while traveling. Let’s take a peek at the pawsitively purrfect winners, shall we?

Third place: Choco (“Chocolate”)
Sakihana Onsen Kahan no Yado Hekisuiso (咲花温泉 河畔の宿 碧水荘), Niigata Prefecture
Website

Our third place winner, Choco, enjoys meeting lots of new people every day at Sakihana Onsen’s Hekisuiso. In fact, he’s even tasked with welcoming and seeing off guests at check-in and check-out times. Whether he’s playing with children or posing for pictures, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Choco is a cat!

▼ Choco

Second place: Kiiro (“Yellow”)
Sarugakyo Onsen Dining Ryokan Higuchi (猿ヶ京温泉 料理旅館 樋口), Gunma Prefecture
Website

The older brother of a pair of siblings rescued two years ago, Kiiro is charged with greeting all guests at reception and taking care of them throughout their stays at Ryokan Higuchi. Even better, if you let the staff know that you’d like a personal visit, they’ll even take him to your room. Kiiro wasn’t taught how to do any of these things–he’s just a natural hotel manager at heart.

▼ Kiiro

First place: Rabu (“Love”)
Tsukikage no Oka Hotel Villa Katsuyama Avail (月影の丘ホテル ヴィラ勝山アヴェール), Chiba Prefecture
Website

The No. 1 hotel cat that survey takers would like to meet is Katsuyama Avail’s Rabu! Rabu gets his name from a heart-shaped marking on his back. Besides that amazing charm point, he’s extremely sociable and may try to climb up your legs if you ignore his meows for pets. He has even been known to not allow his favorite guests to check out on more than one occasion. Some guests voice that he’s definitely given them a boost for their love lives.

▼ Rabu

It’s clear from the survey results that Choco, Kiiro, and Rabu are beloved by hotel staff, guests, and locals alike. Why not try to hit up all three on your next travels? Or, if you already have a feline friend of your own, maybe you’d prefer to book a stay in another kind of cat-friendly hotel.

Source: Jalan News
Top image: PR Times (edited by SoraNews24)
Insert images: PR Times 
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Eating all the cat treats at Japanese convenience store Family Mart

This cute collection covers everything from paw to tail. 

Japan has a tonne of special days on the calendar, dedicated to everything from maids to twintails and retort curry.

Even furry animals like cats have their own special day, so when Cat Day rolled around on 22 February, we had our eyes peeled for a way to celebrate. A quick visit to convenience store chain Family Mart served up the perfect solution: cat treats!

Dubbed “Family Nyato“, as a play on “Family Marto“, using the Japanese pronunciation of “mart” and the Japanese word for “meow” (“nya”), these treats are for humans, and we grabbed all ten of them for a taste test.

▼ First up, we have the Bread That Looks Like a Cat Paw (150 yen [US$1.10])

This was an impressive bread to behold — not only did it look like a paw, its plump and fluffy texture made it feel like a paw too!

Being about the size of a human palm, this was a fun treat to eat, and the milk cream filling added an indulgent sweetness to every bite.

▼ Next up, we have the Milk Paw Pad Bun (130 yen).

This was closer to a real-sized paw, and filled with a white bean paste that complemented the milk-flavoured dough beautifully. Soft, supple, and slightly squidgy, this was a cute and tasty way to pay homage to the cute cat paw.

▼ Latte Chocolate Cookie (118 yen)

Sometimes simple classics don’t need to be messed around with, and that was certainly the case here, with a pair of cat ears adding just the right amount of cuteness to this deliciously soft cookie.

▼ Caramel Roll Cake (160 yen)

Like the cookie, this roll cake kept things simple, focusing on classic flavours while adding an adorable touch with brown stripes that resembled the tail of a tabby cat.

▼ Caramel Milk Cream Sandwich (145 yen)

This long bread roll also uses the cat’s tail as its inspiration, adding caramel milk cream in between the folds for sweet bursts of deliciousness in between bites.

▼ Baked Cheesecake (220 yen)

This adorable product has been produced in collaboration with Coony, an illustrator specialising in cats, who has created four different cat designs for the packaging on this particular sweet.

Upon opening the package, we couldn’t help but let out a little squeal at the cute cat silhouette awaiting us inside. It was gorgeous to look at, and fantastic to eat, delivering bagfuls of rich, creamy flavour despite its tiny size.

▼ Chocolate Brownie (198 yen)

This was another cute-looking morsel, shaped like a feline but filled with moist, chocolate flavour that was absolutely delicious!

▼ Mofu Sandwich (225 yen)

“Mofu mofu” is the phrase used to describe something fluffy and soft to the touch, like a cat, and “Mofu Sand” is a brand by cat illustrator Juno.

▼ This treat comes branded with one of four designs by Juno and each pack includes an original sticker by the artist as well.

Smooth on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, this was a tasty sweet filled with milk cream.

▼ Cafe Latte Soufflé Pudding (328 yen)

This soufflé was so moist and juicy that it let out a tantalising hiss when we poked into it with a fork. Layered from the bottom with latte-flavoured pudding, followed by whipped cream, caramel sauce and the latte-flavoured soufflé, this was one of the tastiest of the bunch!

▼ Finally, we have a drink called Caramel Cream Nyatte (228 yen)

“Nya” means “Meow”, and it’s the sound you might be tempted to make upon seeing the cute cat ears atop the beverage.

The ears definitely helped this drink stand out from all the others in the fridge, and the milky caramel flavoured latte inside made every sip worth the calories.

In fact, the whole collection was worth the calories, as there wasn’t anything here that didn’t appeal to the eyes as well as the taste buds. The only downfall is the range isn’t available year-round so we won’t be able to bite into any tails or paws again until Cat Day next year!

Photos © SoraNews24
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