Pizza Hut's cute bear/dark superhero campaigns

All images are from Pizza Hut Japan's web site.

Pizza Hut Japan is offering something for two very different demographics. The question you have to ask yourself is "cute cartoon bear" or "raspy-voiced superhero?" This question is slightly complicated by the fact that neither looks particularly happy, though I'm guessing one would be marginally less creepy to invite to dinner than the other. The choice of which is the less savory number to share your pizza with really sort of depends on the kind of person you are. I'm sure that such a choice would yield some insight into the soul of the chooser, but that is between you and your mental health professional.

Click to load a large image. 

If you choose from column A, you'll have to buy a bowl of overpriced soup. With the purchase of  corn potage or minestrone soup, you can get yourself a "free" Rilakkuma bowl. The soup is 420 en ($4.91), and the bowl is made of plastic and not particularly exciting. The site says that the bowls are only available while supplies last and, NO, you cannot choose the color you want. Take what they give you and shut up.

Click to load a larger image.

For those who choose column B, you can get what look like Dark Knight (aka Batman) paraphernalia which looks like it has been worn for several years by someone else. The hat is torn around the edges and the shirts look like someone slept in them for the last 6 months and ran them through the washer several times. Note that getting these items (including a blu-ray disc of the movie or a "journal") requires one to collect points, not merely purchase a food item. Clearly, Batman plays a lot harder to get than Rilakkuma, but then again he does have crimes to fight and can't just sit around being your "relax bear" toy.

Finally, Pizza Hut seems to be riding the iberico ham bandwagon which was in full swing while I was in Japan earlier last year. It's supposed to be monumentally popular, which goes to show that some food fads really don't die fast and easy, but linger on well over a year. At the very least, it'll give the three puppets in the Pizza Hut ads work for a few more months. 

Random Picture #105

Rilakkuma, the "relax bear", is starting to outpace "Hello Kitty" as Japan's most desirable corporate shill. It's no surprise that it's easier easier to find the lazy bear at your local convenience store than the silent feline. He's encouraging Japan to mellow out, eat some gelatin and have a "happy holiday picnic". It'll only cost you 398 yen to have it out of a keepsake mug ($4.80) which probably would cost you a buck or less if it was sold without the added cost of gaining the rights to the cartoon bear's image. Obviously, I did not buy this. While the prospect of lemon gelatin is certainly somewhat appealing, I'd rather buy it from a plastic container for 200-300 yen less than this, but I am trying not to acquire new possessions to cart back home to America.

Tirol Rilakkuma Variety Pack

Since I'm not one to be obsessed with all things cute, I was relatively unfamiliar with the character of Rilakkuma until I started reading Shibuya 246. The character is the blog's unofficial mascot. To me, Rilakkuma seems like the next in a long line of cute Japanese characters that take people by storm. In my uneducated (about cute characters) mind, the cuteness crown was first worn by Hello Kitty and then passed on to Pikachu, and now is being worn by Rilakkuma. I seem to see more and more merchandise bearing the little bear's likeness everyday.


I haven't bought a Tirol variety pack for a long time because I've been so disappointed in them as of late, and I didn't buy this one either. This was given to my husband as a gift after he shared some KitKats with a student. Gift-giving in Japan is a lot like that. You give people things and they feel they need to balance the scale. I'm not sure what this cost, but a pretty good guess would be 100-150 yen ($1.12-$1.68) for 9 candies that are about 1 inch (2.54 cm) square.


The packet shows three flavors on the front: purin (custard/pudding), mitarashii dango (a type of Japanese sweet) and hot cake. This mix is typical for these variety packs in that there is one new and appealing flavor, hot cake in this case, and a couple of repeat flavors from the past. You have to get a bunch of flavors you've already had or don't want to get the one that you do want. I've seen the hot cake flavor (which is a new one) in other similar variety packs as well.

If you look at the picture above, you'll see that there are 4 chocolates cut in half and three of them are the same. Despite the fact that I opened 4 differently designed packages (one of each in the bag), I got mostly mitarashii dango flavor, one hotcake, and no purin. The packets have different cute pictures on them, but the flavors are not marked so I'm guessing that either by design or by random chance, I got almost all of one flavor.

I had sampled the mitarashii dango flavor before, and this time it seemed rather worse. Maybe it was my disappointment at getting so many of it and it being a flavor I reviewed before. It was identical in terms of texture. It had a gummy center with some dark sauce surrounded by white chocolate. I thought it had a very strong soy flavor mixed with intense sweetness whereas I detected bitter orange last time. It's a very strange mix and not very pleasant.

The hotcake is a white chocolate shell over a biscuit with a little syrup that has been absorbed by the cookie. It was very sweet with a very fake butter flavor and a lot of white chocolate. There was not much of a maple or syrup flavor. The cookie adds texture, but no taste.

I would review the purin, but there weren't any in the package.

I liked the hot cake one, though I'm not sure that I'd buy it even if I could get 9 or 10 in a package by itself. It's very sweet. The entire pack gets an unhappy rating because of the poor balance of flavors which constitutes false advertising and because I wasn't very fond of the mitarashii dango flavor. If you're a super fan of Rilakkuma, you might want to pick this up and keep it intact for the packets and their cute designs. Otherwise, I'd recommend giving it a wide berth.

The hot cake chocolate was also reviewed at Snack Love by ebidebby.