Unchi-kun looks the part, thankfully tastes like something else entirely.
If you’ve seen much Japanese pop art, watched some cruder anime, or simple looked through the originated-in-Japan emoji on your phone, you’ll know that in Japan, illustrations of poo always show it in a neat spiral. As a matter of fact, the spiral is so neat that it often resembles the contours of a swirl of soft serve ice cream.
So perhaps it was only a matter of time before we got this.
The Sweet XO Good Grief cafe, located on trendy Takeshita Street in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood, has begun selling Unchi-kun Soft Serve Ice Cream. In case you’re not up on your Japanese toilet-related vocab, unchi is the Japanese word for “poop” (being softer in tone, though not necessarily physical consistency, than the harsher kuso/”shit”). Kun is a more casual version of the honorific -san, so the treat could also be called the “Mr. Poo Soft Serve Ice Cream.”
Served in a special container shaped like an Asian-style squat toilet, the Unchi-kun Soft Serve thankfully contains no actual fecal matter, and is instead a rich, flavorful chocolate. You can also customize your poopy-looking dessert with toppings and accessories like bunny ears and crowns, though not kernels of corn of other difficult-to-completely digest foodstuffs.
“Kids will enjoy it, and adults will be transported back to a feeling of child-like fun,” boasts the cafe, which developed the dessert in conjunction with Harajuku-based YouTuber Shinako.
Each toilet of Unchi-kun is priced at 650 yen (US$5.75), and can be purchased to-go. Surprisingly, Good Greif is actually headquartered in California, but the poop ice cream is only offered in Japan, making this a far-grosser example of an overseas sweets specialist adopting Japanese design cues than Krispy Kreme’s adorable Year of the Boar donuts.
Cafe information
Sweet XO Good Grief
Address: Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Jingumae 1-16-6, Harajuku 77 Building
東京都渋谷区神宮前1-16-6 原宿77ビル
Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Website
Source: PR Times via IT Media
Images: PR Times
Follow Casey on Twitter, where his first experience with the Japanese poo illustration was the P.C. Engine game Kato and Ken.
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