If you ever wanted to know what a full year of ice cream looks like, here’s you chance!

We thought it was a big deal a few years back when you could get just one single free Azuki Bar. Little did we know then what incredible developments would happen in the world of free sweet-bean-flavored ice cream.

Japanese Twitter user @skayiri recently posted this photo, which quickly grabbed the attention of the envious Internet:

“Uh, it’s my fault for not really reading it, but isn’t this a ridiculous
amount of ice cream for one year?????”
(Click image to enlarge, translation below)

What happened was, @skayiri entered a contest run by Smart EX, an online service for reserving shinkansen tickets. There’s a friendly rivalry between two brands of ice cream, Sujahta vanilla cups (the dark blue ice cream in the upper left of the photo) and Azuki Bars (the red popsicles in the bottom right) since both are served on the trains.

To settle the rivalry, Smart EX picked some users in a lottery to win a year’s supply of both brands of ice cream, so the winner could sample both sides to their heart’s content. The only issue was, @skayiri thought that a year’s supply would be about 12 ice creams… not 367 of them!

Here’s what the letter says:

Thank you for using the Tokaido/Sanyo Shinkansen reservation service Smart EX!

You were chosen as a winner of the “Sujahta Ice Cream vs. Azuki Bar” prize. Congratulations!

Smart EX will now supply you with one-year’s worth of ice cream. Please feel free to compare the two flavors as much as you’d like.

Number of ice creams:

This time, we have sent you 93 ice creams.
Second batch: 88 ice creams (coming beginning of February)
Third batch: 93 ice creams (coming middle of February)
Fourth batch: 93 ice creams (coming beginning of June)

Yes, that’s right. The ice cream pictured above was only one fourth of the total that @skayiri would receive!

▼ Well, time to clear out the fridge… and probably buy two or three new ones.

Thankfully @skayiri had a plan of attack. Here’s what they said when people were concerned that they might end up not having space for the ice cream and throwing it out:

“I definitely will not be throwing any of it out! Luckily a lot of my friends have told me they’d be super happy to come get some, so we’re going to enjoy it together. It’ll be like an ice cream festival!”

A solid strategy for sure, though another winner of the same contest chimed in with advice of their own:

“We’re twins lol. Let’s do our best to eat all the Azuki Bars! 
If you heat them up, they make a great sweet-bean soup.” 

Here’s how Japanese netizens reacted to the seemingly-infinite ice cream:

“If I ate all those Azuki Bars, my teeth would fall out.”
“Why are they sending all the ice cream in just two months?”
“Yeah it would’ve been nice if they’d spread it out a bit more.”
“This kind of feels more like a punishment than a prize lol.”
“Ice cream in the middle of winter… the perfect prize!”
“You’re going to be so sick of ice cream by next year.”

That last netizen may have a point. But we suppose then it’s a good thing that Azuki Bars aren’t just ice cream: their legendary hardness also lets them double as very effective hammers.

Source: Twitter/@skayiri via Hachima Kiko
Featured image: Twitter/@skayiri
Insert image: Flickr/mirabelka szuszu