Six new designs unveiled in continuing series that salutes Japan’s natural beauty and cultural legacy.
No trip across Japan is complete without several stops at the country’s vending machines to quench your thirst, and recently Coca-Cola has been letting the bottles themselves become symbols of your journey. Starting in 2017, the company has been making periodic updates to its regional slim bottle line, with bottles bearing scenes from some of Japan’s most picturesque locates.
Next month six new designs will make their debut. First up is the bottle saluting Shonan, the Kanagawa Prefecture coastal community south of Tokyo. The Great Buddha Statue of Kamakura and Enoshima Island, famous for its dragon legends, shrines, and cave, both grace the bottle.
Next comes the bottle for Niigata Prefecture, which shows the Bandai Bridge stretching across Niigata City’s central Shinano River, with a geisha standing underneath the elegant draping branches of a willow tree.
Aside from serving as the inspiration for the rural scenes in hit anime Your Name and having some of the tastiest beef in Japan, the Hida Takayama region is known for its traditional thatched roof homes, particularly the ones in the preserved village of Shirakawa.
Osaka boasts architecture both traditional and modern with Osaka Castle and the towering Umeda Sky Building, and plates of takoyaki octopus dumplings have been powering the city’s boisterous population for generations.
Further west, Fukuoka Prefecture’s Hakata (as Fukuoka City is also known) gets its comfort food fix from its famous tonkotsu pork stock ramen, served by food stalls set up on the city streets.
And finally, since 2018 marks 150 years since the end of the Edo era feudal period, the last of the new slim bottles (representing Tokyo) is adorned with the crest of the Tokugawa samurai clan, whose shogunate dynasty ruled Japan for over 260 years.
All of the special slim bottles go on sale on their respective regions on October 1, priced at 125 yen (US$1.10) and holding 250 milliliters (8.5 ounces) of Coca-Cola. That makes them a little smaller than the company’s standard serving sizes, but their more compact dimensions mean they’ll take up less room in your luggage or on your shelf, making them great souvenirs to bring back from your next trip to or around Japan.
Source: Coca-Cola via Entabe
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Top image: Coca-Cola
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he is goal is to spend as much of every summer as possible in Shonan.