Tennis star makes a surprise appearance in a bag filled with snacks and sweets.

After winning the U.S. Open against her idol Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka had a whirlwind of a year in 2019, appearing in commercials for Nissin and Nike, and shutting down reporters who kept asking her to speak in Japanese.

So it’s no surprise that a New Year’s lucky bag would want to pay homage to the 22-year-old tennis champion. However, rather than popping up in a fukubukuro for a sports company or one of her many brand affiliates, we ended up discovering Osaka in an unlikely place: inside a lucky bag for sweet store retail chain Okashi no Machioka.

With bags starting at 1,000 yen (US$9.25), Okashi no Machioka is one of the most popular places to buy fukubukuro at the start of the new year. When we arrived at our closest branch to pick one up, there was a huge line outside before the store’s 11:00 a.m. opening.

By 11:03 a.m., 50 of the 100 lucky bags available had already sold out, so we were glad we arrived early. After paying for our purchase, we brought our bag back to the office and found it was packed with a heap of popular sweets and snacks.

▼ There was a big bag of 36 Lotte mini chocolates, containing dark, milk, and Crunky varieties…

▼ A pack of Tsubuyori Komochi rice crackers

▼ Some Mike Popcorn

▼ Ritz Crackers

▼ Yuki no Yado rice crackers…

▼ Glico Caplico Minis

▼ Glico Tomato Pretz

▼ Meiji Pucca Chocolates

▼ Meiji Strawberry Chocolate

▼ Fettuccine gummy candies…

And, finally… Naomi Osaka in action on a stationery file to promote the “10-second charge” Weider in Jelly energy drink, which is the best-selling nutritional jelly drink in Japan.

All these treats, plus a surprise appearance from Naomi Osaka, meant each item was priced at less than 100 yen, which makes for a great value-for-money fukubukuro.

We highly recommend stopping by Okashi no Machioka to pick up their fukubukuro at the start of the year, but you’ll have to get in quick because, like the Mister Donut lucky bag, this is one of the quickest to sell out year after year!

Photos: ©SoraNews24
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