Ginza-based snack maker warns of potentially inferior quality.

Yoshiki, founder of legendary rock band X Japan, is a man of many talents. In addition to his skills as a composer, drummer, and pianist, he’s also shown aptitude as a fashion model, a kimono designer, and even a weather announcer.

We can now add accidental snack food marketer to that list, as Yoshiki’s on-screen fondness for maker Ginza Akebono’s cheese okaki rice crackers during a New Year’s Day TV program has caused demand for the product to skyrocket. Brick-and-mortar retailers sold out almost immediately, and now the crushing demand has caused Ginza Akebono to suspend online sales of all of its products.

As of 11:59 p.m. on January 9, the company’s online order page displays a message saying “We apologize for any inconvenience or other trouble this may cause. We hope to resume taking online orders for our products, though with a smaller variety than previously, on or around January 20.”

But even if you can’t buy cheese okaki in stores or directly from Ginza Akebono, that doesn’t mean they’re completely unavailable. Speculators who snapped up some cheese okaki before it sold out, or perhaps just happened to have some on-hand before Yoshiki gave it its unprecedented publicity, are doing a brisk business selling their privately held stocks online.

Even still, it can be hard to find, as a search of popular online marketplace Mercari, shown above, spits back dozens of already-sold results. As of this writing, there’s still cheese okaki up for grabs on Yahoo! Auctions, but Ginza Akebono wants people to know that these resales don’t have the snack maker’s endorsement, issuing a statement saying:

“We have confirmed that some parties have been purchasing and reselling our products. We cannot guarantee the taste, quality, or freshness of these resold items.”

In other words, Ginza Akebono would rather you wait 10 days or so, until it can once again supply you with cheese okaki directly. While this commitment to quality is admirably indicative of Japan’s best food and drink companies, we’re now left wishing we hadn’t blown through the entire pack of cheese okaki that we managed to obtain last week quite so quickly.

Top image ©SoraNews24
Insert image: Mercari