All that is gold does not glitter.

Village Vanguard is a popular chain of novelty goods stores often found in Japanese shopping malls. It’s a fun place to browse through, but not really a place to go for daily necessities unless yours include things like ouija board shoulder bags.

Village Vanguard is also a terrible blight on our office, as every year they send us free fukubukuro lucky bags full of various merchandise. That might sound like a great thing, but their lucky bags are quite unique in that they tend to be filled with junk that seems to defy you to make any use of.

▼ We got some popping tubes a while back. They’re like regular tubes, but noisier.

This year, they sent us seven of them, each with unknown contents and identified only by a color coding scheme. The job of opening these bags each year falls on our writers P.K. Sanjun and Ahiruneko because they always lack the reflexes to shout “Not it!” before anyone else.

For this article, Ahiruneko will be taking on the Gold Lucky Bag, which sells for 11,000 yen (US$70) and is tied with the Black bag as the most expensive. The Gold Bag is also by far the heaviest bag we’ve ever gotten from them.

Normally, such a high-priced bag and voluminous bag would be an exciting treat, but Village Vanguard has burned our writer so many times in the past, Ahiruneko honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a bunch of stone garden gnomes.

Let’s see what he got this year…

Ahiruneko stood aghast at what he saw. Everything looked suspiciously sober and, dare he say, useful even.

A lot of the bag’s weight seemed to have been caused by the weight-sensing coffee grinder Hakaru. It’s a great machine for conveniently getting some fresher coffee in the morning, and Ahiruneko checked the product online to find it had good, legitimate reviews and sells for… 14,800 yen?!

The value of this item alone exceeded the price of the entire bag. If Ahiruneko had one complaint, it’s that it’s a little too big, but by Village Vanguard standards, this is like finding a Faberge egg.

Upon closer inspection, the other items weren’t as good as they first appeared. There was a takoyaki maker that had an extra-large cup to make a “giga-takoyaki” with a diameter of 10 centimeters (4 inches). Regular-sized takoyaki are tricky enough to make properly, so the idea of making a giant one seemed more like a chore than a fun activity.

Then, there was a hot sandwich maker, but there always seemed to be a hot sandwich maker in these bags. They’re fun for the first day or so, and then just seem to fade into obscurity.

The floor lamp looked really nice in the box, but it also had to be assembled from scratch.

This reminded Ahiruneko of art class, and by showing him the inner workings gave him a deeper appreciation for just how mediocre a product it really was.

There was also a portable light that could be worn on the head or attached elsewhere. It was quite bright, and Ahiruneko didn’t have an immediate need for such a thing, but it was a good addition to his disaster preparedness kit, so it was a plus too.

It was a good bag overall, which gave Ahiruneko an unsettling sense of hope. Maybe Village Vanguard are finally changing their ways, or perhaps they know that giving us endless waves of trash will ultimately make us desensitized to it. By giving us just a small taste of a brighter future, it makes the hurting always feel fresh and visceral.

▼ Lucky Bag Verdict: Decent (i.e. Outstanding by Village Vanguard standards)

There were still more bags to open this year, however. Time will tell if a truly brave new world awaits this new year, or if it’s just more of the same old junk.

Photos ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]