Fill yourself with “Sparkling Energy” from a couple of pretty anime girls.

With so many similar products on the market in Japan, companies are always looking for creative ways to stand out from their competitors. One way to make sure you get noticed is to incorporate cute anime images into your packaging, and if you really want to get customers to open their wallets, you could throw in a surprise twist that makes everyone’s eyes bulge out from their sockets.

That’s the marketing plan behind the new Ojosama Seisui Sour alcoholic enzyme drink from Rivaland, a Japanese manufacturer that specialises in food and drink products designed to enhance health and beauty. The name of their latest beverage immediately commands attention, as it literally translates to “Princess Urine Sour“.

The sour in the title here refers to a common cocktail in Japan that’s made with a shochu (distilled alcohol) and soda water base, and usually mixed with juice or soft drink.

Rivaland first made news back in 2015 when they introduced their first “Princess Urine” enzyme drink to the market. Behind the bizarre concept of drinking urine from a princess was a beverage marketed as an energy drink, containing 117 different all-natural, beauty-enhancing ingredients made from fermented plants.

The drink proved to be a hit, prompting the company to expand the “Princess Urine” range in December last year with a new alcoholic version that packs in 8-percent alcohol content in each 275-millilitre (9.3-ouce) bottle. There’s also a whopping 107 different natural ingredients used, and two anime-girl designs to choose from, to help “awaken the goddess within you.”

▼ Since its release, a number of popular social media users have been helping to promote the product online.

The long list of ingredients contained in a bottle of Princess Urine Sour include fermented extracts from plants like lotus root, lily bulbs, gourds, edible chrysanthemum, and bamboo shoots. There’s also a whole lot of fruit used, like loquats, grapes, prunes, persimmons and pears, along with things like brown rice, barley, oat, millet, and beans thrown into the mix. To top it all off, you’ll find wasabi and seaweed in there as well.

A half-dozen box of bottles from their website will set you back 1,980 yen (US17.50), while two-dozen bottles retail for 7,920 yen. The carbonated drink is said to be a tasty blend of enzymes and alcohol, which promises to taste nothing like the leftover bathwater drink we tried last year.

Source, images: Ojosama Seisui Japan