need any luck?

Posted by: plueonigiri on: January 26, 2010

In: food | japan | life | photos | tokyo | uni
5 Comments

it’s exam season now in japan, with junior high school students and high school students taking entrance exams to enter their desired high school and universities. and along with that, various confectionery companies have come up with limited edition snacks and sweets – most of which involves make use of japanese puns to rename the snacks into more “lucky” versions of the original name.

calpis candy. they’ve added the letter “u” in front the word “calpis.” in japanese, the word “calpis” is written as “カルピス karupisu” and by adding the letter “u,” it becomes “ukarupisu” – in japanese, “ukaru 受かる” means “to pass (an exam).”

caramel corn. you can see that they’ve renamed it “canael corn” instead. the word “canael” is written as “カナエル kanaeru,” which sounds the same as the word “叶える kanaeru,” which means “to come true.” they’ve also changed the packaging to a beckoning cat, to beckon luck for exams ^^

pocky. a new tag line for this season – they’ve played around with the words “ポッキ pokki” by turning it around into “キッポ kippo” – a play on the words “吉報 kippou” meaning “good news.”

another play on the word “受かる ukaru” XD i like how they’ve made the packaging to look like an amulet from the shrine hahah!

kit kat! in japanese, it’s pronounced as “kitto katto,” and a lot of japanese students eat this because it sounds like “きっと勝つ kitto katsu” which means “definite win” XD

koala no march. they’ve made a limited edition version with images of koalas studying on the biscuits, with the tagline, “even if they sleep, they will never fall off trees.” the reason why this works is because the japanese word for fall, “落ちる ochiru” also means “to fail (exams)” :p

toppo. they’ve renamed it to “トッパ toppa,” which has a similar pronounciation to the word “突破 toppa,” which means “breaking through (difficulties)”

we ate some of them together after class ended =w= i am unceasingly amazed by japanese marketing… this probably only works in japan because the japanese LOVE things that are limited. they love brand names too but that’s another matter altogether…