Family Mart’s lineup includes actual Hachimi Drink, collaboration also features “magic” clear files.

“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” is one of those expressions that isn’t really meant to be taken literally. However, right now Japanese convenience store chain Family Mart is offering us the chance to eat like a horse, or at least to eat like a horse girl, with their celebration of the fifth anniversary of the release of Umamusume: Pretty Derby.

Family Mart has prepared five food and drink items for fans of the anime/video game franchise, several of which recreate or draw inspiration from in-game events. We got our hands on several of them for taste-testing, and started by digging in to the 158-yen (US$1) Tracen Academy Honey Bread, as seen in Tokai Teio’s in-game training scenes.

A pair of soft, fluffy buns, the Honey Bread is filled with honey gelatin and salted margarine, giving you a delicious and invigorating mix of sweet and salty sensations that we found extremely enjoyable during taste-testing.

Also making the leap from the game/anime world to the real one is Umamusume’s Hachimi Drink (228 yen).

This one also features honey (hachimitsu in Japanese) and lemon, a popular combination for athletes in Japan said to have revitalizing properties. Even they we hadn’t just finished running laps around a race course, the Hachimi Drink’s mix of sweet and tart notes tasted great and provided a nice mid-day energy boost. It also comes with three different cup designs, so we’ll need to go out and get a few more to stock our fridge with.

We’ve talked before about Japan’s popular hockey puck-shaped cakes that have a whole bunch of different names. In the Tokyo area, they’re most commonly called Imagawayaki, but for the Umamusume collaboration Family Mart is calling these ones Manmaruyaki (manmaru meaning “round”). Filled with a generous amount of custard cream, this 250-yen snack is satisfyingly rich and filling, and between the six possible Umamusume who appear randomly on the cake itself, the three different wrapper designs, and the 12 stickers (one of which is included with the Manmaruyaki), there’s a lot of art for fans to appreciate.

▼ Our Manmaruyaki came with a Neo Universe sticker.

The last treat we tried is the most abstract in its design.

This is the Island Training Log Chocolate Roll Cake (195 yen), a rolled cake made with alternating strips of chocolate and coffee-flavored sponge wrapped around a filling of chocolate cream with chocolate chips. It’s meant to symbolize the logs used in the game’s Design Your Island event, and while the theming may be a little light here, but the cake still tastes great, with a more subdued, mature flavor profile thanks to the coffee element.

As for the fifth collaboration item, we sadly didn’t have room to try the Umamusume Pretty Derby Chips (225 yen), but they’re lightly salted potato chips that come with one of six character artwork cards.

Buying any two or more of the five items in the lineup also gets you some special exclusive Umamusume merch, given to you right there in the store. Currently, you’ll get one of four clear files with an illustration of characters from the cast standing in front of a Family Mart while cherry blossoms bloom nearby.

These aren’t just regular clear files, either. Family Mart calls them “magic files,” because they have a two-layered design that lets you slide in another sheet to use as a background instead of the Family Mart scene, if you want your horse girls to be hanging out somewhere else.

Come March 24, Family Mart will change over to a new set of prizes for customers purchasing two or more of the food/drink items: “can badge”-style character pins.

As is always the case with limited-edition anime merch, though, all of these items come with a while-supplies-last clause, so fans will want to take their cue from the horse girls and dash to Family Mart as quickly as they can.

Photos ©SoraNews24
Illustrated/promotional images: Family Mart
Umamusume ©Cygames, Inc.
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