We try our luck by spending 100 yen at a mystery capsule machine in a Chiba souvenir shop

How much will we spend to get the top prize this time?

In Kashiwa, Chiba, a little ways northeast of Tokyo, there’s a shop called Fusa no Eki, where we occasionally like to shop for interesting wares.

▼ Fusa no Eki sells an abundance of local specialties and souvenirs

On a recent visit, we couldn’t help our attention being drawn to a certain capsule machine that we’d never seen before. It stood on a table at the end of an aisle with a hand-drawn illustration of the Fusa no Eki mascot surrounded by various Chiba specialty products. It was quite eye-catching.

A closer look further piqued our interest, because, as the sign says, for just 100 yen (US$0.68) per turn, you can win “something from Fusa no Eki”. What exactly is that something? Obviously, we had to find out, so we gave it a try.

Clatter clatter clatter…Plonk.

The capsule that popped out was strangely light.

When we opened it up, there was a little laminated card that said “Slightly luck” (or 小吉 in Japanese), with instructions to bring it to the register to exchange it for a prize. The mystery of what we could exchange it for had us almost running to the checkout counter to find out.

As it turns out, it was a free scoop of ice cream!

We got to choose whatever flavor we wanted, so we chose the recommended “Peanuts King” flavor. It’s based on a Chiba food souvenir called Peanuts King, a cookie with whole, Chiba-grown peanuts on top. It was a rich, full-bodied ice cream that tempted us to order another scoop.

Ordinarily one scoop is 300 yen, and though it was a bit on the small side, getting one for just 100 yen was rather a nice discount. Since even “Slightly luck”, which we presume to be one of the lowest level prizes, comes with a pretty good value, we figured “Daikichi”, or “Excellent Luck,” should come with a seriously good prize!

Since we still haven’t learned our lesson from other mystery capsule machines with premium prizes, we decided to give it a couple more spins. After digging in our wallet, we came up with five more 100-yen coins. Five tries should do it…right?

What we got was two “Good Luck” cards and three more “Slightly Luck” cards.

We felt a slight sting of disappointment, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy to get “Excellent Luck.” It was nice that we got “Good Luck,” but…that “Excellent Luck” was calling us.

So we scrounged up another 500 yen and, after putting a coin in, turned the dial. C’mon…C’mon…

“Uncertain Luck.”

What…what is this? What does it mean? The Japanese characters included “房” (“fusa”) from the shop’s name, which meant “房吉” should be read as “Fusa Kichi, implying that it was “luck” (“kichi”) directly related to the shop. So…what do we get for it?!

Putting that thought to one side for a moment, we popped another coin into the capsule machine and turned the dial. To our surprise, out popped “Excellent Luck!!”

This was great, but the sudden appearance of the unknown “Uncertain Luck” sort of eclipsed it in terms of impact.

In the end, we didn’t have to spend the last 300 yen, so after our very first turn that yielded a free ice cream, we got, in total, three “Slightly lucks,” two “Good Lucks,” one “Excellent Luck,” and one “Uncertain Luck.” Somehow we managed to get all of the available options with just 700 yen (which is considerably better than previous attempts at capsule machines).

What’s more, according to the clerk, “Excellent Luck” only appears once a day, if at all, so we were surprisingly lucky this time.

Now began the business of exchanging the cards for prizes. We started with the three “Slightly Luck” cards, which earned us three more free scoops of ice cream. We opted for “Unrivalled Strawberry Beauty”, “Max Coffee”, and the sister of Peanuts King, “Peanuts Queen.” They were all rich and delicious, and 100 yen for each scoop was a bargain.

Next, we offered up our two “Good Luck” tickets, which we could exchange for ohagi, which are sweet rice cakes coated in sweet flavorings. Ordinarily they cost 200 yen apiece, which was oddly less than the scoop of ice cream. Nevertheless, we’d only spent 100 yen on each of the tickets, so it was still a bargain.

Next, we flashed our rare “Excellent Luck” ticket. This we could exchange for a 14-pack of Peanuts King cookies.

Ordinarily this box costs 1,200 yen, so we got it for a major steal! These crunchy cookies are super tasty, by the way, with whole Chiba peanuts nestled on top. They’re a great way to experience the charms of Chiba produce, so we were plenty pleased with this prize.

Now then, though we were fully satisfied with our prizes thus far, we had one more ticket to exchange: the mysterious “Uncertain Luck” ticket! It had to be something cool. We were super excited to see what it could be as we handed it over to the clerk.

What we received several moments later was…

▼ “Here you go.”

…a manju, a steamed sweet filled with red bean paste!

We had to laugh a bit at the sheer mundanity of it. It was a perfectly ordinary manju, though it was perfectly tasty.

It didn’t quite match up with our expectations, but we still had fun, so in the end, we called it a win. Especially since for 700 yen, we got all this stuff!

With a price point of just 100 yen per turn, this was an extremely affordable capsule machine experience that sparked a generous amount of excitement and entertainment for us. If you happen to be visiting Kashiwa, perhaps to check out the 18th century French chateau there, then definitely make a stop at Fusa no Eki to try out their “Something” capsule machine. Apparently the prizes change, so you might win something totally different!

Shop information
Kashiwanoha Fusa no Eki / 柏の葉 房の駅
Chiba-ken Kashiwa-shi Wakashiba 227-1 Kashiwanoha T-Site 1F
千葉県柏市若柴227-1 Kashiwanoha T-Site 1F
Open daily 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Website

Images © SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Credit: