Halloween. A holiday that has its roots in American history, a holiday that is celebrated almost universally, a celebration that some people love and some people hate, a holiday that has over the years developed quite a unique reputation. No matter where you go in the world, you can find some form of Halloween. It seems like every country as its own version of this holiday and, while it would be fun to delve into the Halloween habits of quite a few countries, there is one nation in particular that celebrates the holiday in a particularly strange way.
The Japanese take Halloween very seriously; in fact, it is their second most celebrated holiday next to New Year, with the majority of the population dressing up for it, trick-or-treating, going to Halloween parties, and engaging in other holiday-appropriate activities. While Japanese children still enjoy the holiday, it is more popular with adults, who see it as an opportunity to cosplay and indulge in wild antics. A typical Halloween in Japan does not become too wild, but it is a noted departure from the rigid decorum that is typical in Japanese culture during the rest of the year.
The Japanese are normally so focused on being respectful and adhering to old traditions that they don't often find time to indulge in anything else. While people do still find ways to express themselves, usually through cosplay or harajucu fashions, that is still greeted with a stigma; people who choose to express their wild sides are often looked down upon by the rest of the culture. But this stigma is mostly absent on Halloween, so many people use the holiday to their advantage; people who may choose to hide their wild sides during the rest of the year enjoy Halloween for the freedom it provides.
Halloween didn't become popular in Japan until a few years ago and it is still regarded as a co-opted American holiday that was only recently transported. That being said, the Japanese have definitely made the holiday their own by infusing their own culture into it. The Japanese value of respect is very prevalent during the holiday, anime characters and K-pop stars are among the most popular costumes, and everyone loves the holiday for the extra dash of strange it adds to a normally mundane week. Even people who are not too invested in Halloween will celebrate the holiday with a tradition called Jimi Halloween, literally "Mundane Halloween," during which office workers dress up in the most common, albeit silly, everyday outfits to see if their co-workers can guess what they are dressing up as. Some notable examples of this are office workers dressed up as person whose glasses fogged up from a hot drink, person who forgot to take out the trash, and person awakened by Amazon delivery. Every year many Japanese corporate offices host Halloween parties, giving their employees the chance to participate in Jimi Halloween.
As a whole, Japan's Halloween is very similar to America's in many ways, but at the same time it is totally different. When looking at both of them, it is fun to see how two completely different cultures have adopted the same holiday. Each country has its own way of life and has created a culture all its own, and its holiday traditions reflect that wonderfully. No two countries are exactly the same and neither are their holidays, even when the holiday is something as univesal as Halloween.
Even though Japan's Halloween is not primarily candy- and food-based, food producers have still managed to come up with quite a few spooky holiday-themed sweets and treats. Japan's children may not go door-to-door in their neighborhoods asking for these sweets, but there's nothing preventing them from buying these items at local stores or getting them from one of the numerous vending machines that populate the streets. Some of these candies are quite silly, while others are actually very good. I had the opportunity to try some of them when my October subscription box came, chock full of assorted Halloween paraphernalia. Perhaps the company that sends out these subscription boxes had a surplus of candy it needed to get rid of or maybe it was just being generous because of the holiday; whatever the case may be, the box I received seemed extra full and had a wide variety of treats in it. I'm super excited to try all of the sweets, and I will be reviewing all of them on this blog eventually. But I would like to keep this post from being too long so you can get back to your own Halloween candy. With that in mind, I picked out a select few pieces to write about now.Green Skeleton Candy:
I am not fluent in Japanese in any way, shape or form, so I have no idea what this candy is actually called. But I think my made-up title sums up this candy pretty well. As one of the first treats I picked out of the October subscription box, it caught my eye immediately. With its striking packaging and strange-looking contents, I was eager to try it. At first glance, the candy looked very similar to Konpeito, a well-known Japanese candy that is basically rainbow colored sugar drops; these have no real flavor besides food coloring and, after a few pieces, one is satisfied. And after initially trying Green Skeleton Candy, I discovered that it goes beyond resembling Konpeito; it actually is Konpeito. Colored a festive dark green shade and sealed in some spooky new packaging, this treat is a Japanese company's way of celebrating Halloween. While it doesn't have any lasting flavor and stains your tongue green for a few minutes, this Green Skeleton Candy was actually quite fun to eat.
Ghost Marshmallow:
This candy is exactly what it sounds like; it is a marshmallow, and I think that Japan's candy producers were trying to find a way to market their foodstuffs for Halloween. They must have looked at a regular marshmallow treat that they produced and said, "If we put the word 'ghost' on the package, it's automatically meant for Halloween!" They went through with the idea and, a production line later, The Ghost Marshmallow was being sold to children. (Once again, that is not its real name, but my alternative works.) This was another item in my subscription box that I was excited to try, even though it looked like a basic marshmallow. And I'm glad I did. The outside of the treat was, indeed, a basic marshmallow, but once I bit into it, I discovered that the inside was filled with a sticky, syrupy molasses. I couldn't quite figure out the flavor of this syrup at first, but after looking at the packaging again, I figured out that it was supposed to taste like orange soda. Even after realizing this, I didn't think the syrup really tasted like soda, but it was still good and a treat to eat; I wouldn't mind finding more of this in a pile of trick-or-treating candy.
Photo Credit: Pinterest, Rachel Hollenbeck
Jimi Halloween
Freedom Japanese Market
