NIPPOPHILIA

I am, as you probably know by now, a bit of a Japanophile: not only, but not least,

because of the food.   And sometimes it seems to me that the Japanese are pulling some strange confidence trick on the West.  Sometimes I think maybe they’re not really as weird as they appear, they’re just pretending to be weird in order to confuse and tantalize us.  So far it’s working pretty well.

I mean, the maid cafes:

The transvestite maid cafes:

The cat sushi:

The cappuccinos, this one’s by “foam artist” Kazuki Yamamoto:

And most recently this – a box of chocolate nipples:

I thought at first this might be the dreaded “fake news,” or perhaps not real food but some kind of conceptual art – though the information comes from the RocketNews24 website who are generally reliable.

According to them:  “A new brand of chocolates manufactured by the Mme KIKI company will be hitting the shelves next year in Japan in the form of women’s nipples. The “CHOCONIP” set will be sold with eight different nipples representing the transformation from a young girl’s nipple to the mature age female nipple.

         “The Mme KIKI company … has said the idea came to them suddenly when they thought ‘Why don’t we make chocolate in the shape of young girls’ nipples?.’”

         Creativity, it’s such a mystery, isn’t it?  They also say it’s got something to do with the Jison-in Buddhist Temple in Wakayama, which celebrates “motherhood” – by depicting lots of boobs. Who knew?  

 And might I suggest that a European or (especially) an American producer of the chocolate nipples of young girls might very well find himself in jail for making these things?  And who’s to say they shouldn’t be?

Meanwhile in my own little corner of Japanese oddness, my pal Marco has returned from a trip to Osaka with these: ramen noodles dried to form a snack food:

It’s not bad at all, a bit more savory and less sweet than a lot of Japanese snacks tend to be.   And let’s face it, it’s not really all that weird at all.