One of Japan’s most covered lucky bags, and with good reason!

New year, new stuff! Welcome to the latest installment of the 2021 Fukubukuro Roundup. Today we’re opening up a lucky bag from Japanese burger chain Mos Burger. This is no ordinary year for lucky bags at Mos Burger, however; 2021’s bag has them teaming up with with the popular lazy bear character Rilakkuma to offer a delightful bag of adorable goodies!

Now, Mos Burger releases a bag every year, but it’s not always in collaboration with such a popular character. Still, it’s Mos Burger, not a popular character merchandise shop, so we assumed it wouldn’t be too hard to get. The bags, which sell for 3,000 yen (US$29.05) each, were made available for preorder on December 26, so we decided to head over to the nearest Mos Burger chain around mid-morning on the day, thinking we were probably ahead of the game and had plenty of time to order it.

We were dead wrong. Our local Mos Burger was already sold out of Rilakkuma lucky bags! Suddenly worried this was going to be hard to find, we immediately proceeded to the next closest Mos Burger branch…which was also sold out.

We really should have expected this, given the popularity of Rilakkuma and its cute, round shapes and lazy life. Other Rilakkuma goods are generally just as popular, especially if they’re limited-edition. Realizing this, we were half ready to give up when we ventured to a third shop, near Higashi-Funabashi Station in Chiba, just outside of Tokyo. The line of people out the door made us nervous, but we took our place, waited our turn, and…somehow managed to get a reservation ticket. Phew!

Now the New Year is upon us and our bag has been delivered, so let’s open it up and see what’s inside!

Of course, the first item is the Mos Burger coupon sheet that comes in every Mos Burger fukubukuro, which is likely what every Mos Burger fan hopes for in their bag. This year’s contained six coupons worth 500 yen each, for a total of 3,000 yen in discounts, which already equals the price of the bag.

But you’re probably here to see the Rilakkuma goods, right? There’s plenty of those, too. The first item that caught our eye was this Rilakkuma blanket.

Measuring 90 by 60 centimeters (35.4 by 23.6 inches), it’s a good sized lap blanket, perfect for keeping warm this winter while working at a desk or watching TV. The yellow blanket features all four characters of the Rilakkuma world (Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, Chairoikoguma and Kiiroitori) outlined in white in different poses, so it would definitely be a hit with the bear’s fans.

The next item in the lucky bag was a forest green eco tote bag.

It looked tiny folded up, but when we unraveled it, it turned out to actually be huge! At 36 by 36 by 10 centimeters (14.2 by 14.2 by 3.9 inches), this bag can hold plenty of groceries, and will save you having to pay the surcharge for a plastic bag on shopping trips. Plus, with its outline of Rilakkuma and friends cuddling together, it’s adorable, too, so it’s a win-win-win.

After that, we found an item that has become newly indispensable in 2020: a mask case.

Meant to keep your mask from getting tangled and dirty while you’re not wearing it, this has become 2020’s most must-have item, after the masks themselves, of course. And with head shots of each of the four Rilakkuma characters lining up at the bottom, we can’t deny the appeal of this particular case.

And lastly, there was a sticky memo pad in the shape of Rilakkuma’s head! Who doesn’t need one of those?!

These were all excellent, useful, adorable items that Rilakkuma fans will love! In fact, the goods are already listed for sale on marketplace apps, and not for terribly unreasonable prices either.

For some people, however, the biggest appeal of buying a Mos Burger lucky bag is simply for the coupons–though they always include some form of Mos Burger goods, like the bento box of 2017, that are usually well worth the cost of the fukubukuro. Those people might not get much use out of the Rilakkuma goods, and on the contrary might have been annoyed because it was much harder to get ahold of the bag this year. But for Rilakkuma fans…this bag is a dream come true!

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