We had to wait a third of the year for this New Year’s fukubukuro, and now it’s time to find out if our patience was rewarded.
It’s truly a magical time of year right now, filled with anticipation and wonder as we get set to open packages and discover what happy, heartwarming surprises are waiting inside. What’s that? Christmas? Well, we guess that fits the description too, but what really has us excited right now is fukubukuro/lucky bag season!
Fukubukuro are blind-buy grab bags of assorted merch that are traditionally offered by brands and retailers as part of New Year’s celebrations in Japan. With lucky bags growing more and more popular, though, some of them become available in December, and the timetable can get moved up even farther for the most popular ones. Case in point: the 2025 fukubukuro for mega-popular character series Chiikawa had its pre-order period all the way back in August!
Our Japanese-language reporter K. Masami was still heartbroken about missing out on the 2024 Chiikawa lucky bag, so she’d made sure to register with an account on the franchise’s official website, and when she got a notice in August that the 2025 bag was ready for pre-orders, she put hers in right away. After a four-month wait, it finally arrived, shipping in a box decorated with illustrations of the cast dressed as delivery staff. Opening the lid, the first thing Masami saw was…
…snakes!
While the Chiikawa characters are vaguely hamster or rabbit-like in appearance, the cute little guys are technically non-specified creatures of some sort, and we’ve seen chimeras appear in the series before. However, the reason behind these serpentine costumes for Chiikawa, Hachiware, and Usagi is that 2025 is the Year of the Snake (like we saw with Disney Japan’s Eto Winnie the Pooh the other day).
Inside the box, and serving as the actual “bag” part of the lucky bag, is a cloth tote bag with the rest of the haul inside of it, starting with a trio of Chiikawa Year of the Snake plushies. As these are only going to be available at most once every 12 years, Masami was extremely happy to have three in the bundle.
The tote bag also has a charming little cloth snake decorative tab…
…and the backside has a clear plastic sheath, so that you can fill it with your own custom arrangement of Chiikawa plushies, pins, and pictures for a one-of-a-kind ita-bag.
Digging deeper into the bag, Masami found a smaller hanging-strap plushie of Chiikawa being lovingly constricted by a snake…
…and a pair of mini acrylic character standees, which are becoming one of the most poplar types of character merch these days since they’re less obtrusive than a full-on figure for displaying on a desk or shelf.
With Chiikawa having at least as many adult fans as childhood ones, the fukubukuro contains a number of practical items too, like a tray…
…blanket…
…and bandana.
An eight-character key holder is sure to be jangly, so Masami might end up using it to decorate the clear side of the tote bag instead of storing her actual house key on…
…and finally, rounding out the bundle is a booklet of 10 Chiikawa New Year’s post cards.
▼ Though it’s a safe bet that anyone who loves Chiikawa will keep at least one for themselves.
At 9,900 yen (US$66), this isn’t the cheapest fukubukuro around, but as a fan, Masami is fully satisfied. And while the pre-order period is now over, the official Chiikawa website says that there’s a chance that some lucky bags might still be sold at physical retail shops this year, and if so it’ll be announced through the site.
Related: Chiikawa fukubukuro official webpage
Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]