Dagashi Box – September 2018

Dagashi Box is a monthly selection of Japanese dagashi sweets and snacks, plus small toys and exclusive items. It costs $39 per month (around £29) and shipping is free. Dagashi are rather like pocket money sweets or penny candy.

It’s called Dagahi box, but I was surprised to see everything inside a jar! It look pretty good though.

Also included in the box is a little package of papers.

There is a menu, though it’s not comprehensive, it’s just the larger items. The style and illustrations look great!

Usefully there’s also an allergy guide, though again it doesn’t show everything in the box, just things with the standard allergens. As a note, I’m allergic to seafood so I always take particular notice of allergens.

There’s a paper game board, a fun retro design.

Finally you’ve got a couple of stickers, a badge (that subscribers get with their first order) and a fun retro collector’s card.

And there was a die on the top of the jar!

I should say now that I don’t know exactly what all of these items are as the menu doesn’t list every single item. I’ll name the ones I can, but there are quite a few sweets that can be guessed from the pictures, but I don’t have the actual names. They’re also in a slightly random order, as I photographed as I went along.

First out was a little plastic toy bird whistle.

This is Sanritsu Genji Pie, a sweet heart shaped cookie a little like a palmier.

Strawberry Mochi (soft sweet rice cake.)

Little fruit candies in a wafer bowl.

Plum Chewing Candy. I’m not sure if this is gum or just chewy, but from the packaging I suspect it’s a sour plum flavour!

Four little hard candies in various flavours.

Mini Sour are tiny tablet candies with a string sweet/sour taste. The come in a little plastic tube.#

I think these are dinosaur-shaped candies!

Himesamano takaramono, which as far as I can tell is some kind of filledpastry or biscuit snack.

Two little jelly pots, orange and apple.

This is Baby Star Ramen, a crunchy noodle snack. This bag is a slightly different design to the one on the allergen list, which shows only soy as an allergen, but the picture of this looks like squid.

This is a senbei and peanut snack mix. I’m not sure of the flavour, but it could be spicy, judging by the look.

These are listed as Kotubuko though I can’t find any reference to them on the internet. They look like crispy fried senbei, which are delicious, though I’m not sure what flavour they are.

This is a package of sandwich bicsuits,

These are Coris Whistle Ramue Candy, little ramune (Japanese soda) candies that you can blow through. In the little box there is also a mini toy.

Little Bobdog are strawberry candy sticks. They are described as candy cigarettes on the menu, which is rather outdated but I remember we used to call them that when I was a kid!

Wrapped chocolate candy and little dragees in a monkey package.

On top is, I think, a grape chew, and underneath is Akabe Kurobe Gum in a cute Halloween package!

This is Skeleton Ramune Candy, which is little bone-shaped ramune candies in a plastic coffin shaped box. I remember something very similar from my childhood, though I haven’t seen them for years. Fun!

A old favourite, Umaibo. This is a crunchy corn puff stick, in vegetable salad flavour, and does taste remarkably like creamy salad dressing.

This isn’t on the menu but it’s a kind of  sweet potato candy, Yaokin Yaki Imo Youkan. Sweet potato things are very popular in Japan.

Kappa Ebisen are crispy sticks flavoured with shrimp.

These Calbee Potato Chips don’t have a flavour listed, though they come up and the allergen list as containing shellfish. From what I can tell from the internet, this is actually Consomme Punch Flavour, which doesn’t contain any shellfish. But as I can’t read the packaging myself i’m not going to risk it! I’m slightly sad about that because I love Japanese potato chips!

Top to bottom: I have no idea; Yakiniku Karubi Taro, which is a dried squid snack, and Nagoya MisoKatsu, another squid snack with katsu flavour.

Finally, what I think is another toy, a Rilakkuma sticker sheet and bookmark. Rilakkuma is a very poplar Japanese kawaii character.

Well, wow! So many snacks!

First of all, I would warn that the allergen list, while welcome, is not comprehensive. For example, the two squid strip snacks above are only listed as containing ‘fish’, whereas squid is actually a shellfish allergen.

Because all these snacks are straight from Japan, anything which isn’t listed on the menu isn’t going to have much in the way of explanation beyond pictures. Unlike the imported snacks you find in Asian stores in the UK, there’s no labels in English. Though if you read Japaneseyou’re fine!

So there are a few things that I personally can’t eat, but I managed to figure them out.

Overall, I think this is brilliant! Tons of variety, lots of little items (great for portion control) I think 34 snacks and candies in total. When I was unpacking the jar it took forever, there was always something else left inside!

I would suggest if you have allergies to tread carefully, look things up and avoid anything you’re not sure about. But if you’re planning to share this with anyone (if you must share) then there are lots and lots of new and fun things to try.

Japanese candy also has wonderful packaging, which I really enjoy, it makes trying everything even more fun. I really like the presentation too, the jar is a really fun idea.

It costs around £29 per month, which isn’t super cheap but it includes shipping, and it’s coming all the way from Japan. These are items that you are unlikely to find anywhere else, so you’ve got a huge exotic factor. It’s a lot more interesting than your average pick and mix! And the little toys are a nice bonus.