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convenience stores

Five things you’d never expect to buy at a convenience store, but are actually really popular

Convenience stories in Asia are known all over the world for actually living up to their name. Whether you need an emergency swimsuit, want to grab pretty much any drink ever made, or just have a hankering for some Evangelion donuts, a nearby conbini will suit your needs.

But sometimes there are items available in conbini that don’t seem to make any sense… and yet people still buy them. Japanese netizens shared their most confusing yet surprisingly useful convenience store finds online, and we have them here for you. Would you ever admit to buying some of these?

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Tokyo train station and convenience store roll out otaku welcome for Comiket attendees 【Photos】

Just how big is Comiket, the dojinshi (independently produced comics) event held twice a year in Tokyo? Over the three days of the event, some 35,000 creative groups and roughly 600,000 fans are expected to attend. In terms of size, Comiket isn’t so much an anime convention as it is a temporary city that roles through the Big Sight conference center.

Comiket is such a large-scale gathering that it changes the whole atmosphere of the neighborhood on the weekend it’s held, and with this summer’s iteration right around the corner, the local train station and convenience store are looking a lot more otaku-centric, as these photos show.

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The fastest way to open an onigiri will only take one second 【Video】

There isn’t enough praise we can give to Japanese convenience stores because they provide exactly what their name suggests, convenience. They stock all sorts of snack foods, expertly pre-prepared meals, and a wide selection of delicious rice balls. Those tasty onigiri are the perfect snack, portable, tasty and with very little waste.

But sometimes you are just so hungry that you need to be eating that onigiri right then and there. You try to quickly open the package, but it all just gets mangled instead. Fear not! RocketNews24 will show you how to open an onigiri in only one second. You won’t want to miss this video after the jump.

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Sushi chef really shreds in this new skateboarding-meets-sushi ad 【Video】

Since its creation around 150 years ago, many people have dedicated their whole lives to the art of making good sushi, and we’re certainly thankful for that.

In fact, you could say the art of preparing good sushi is kind of like learning to do tricks on a skateboard, or at least it is if you have a vivid imagination. For those of you scratching your heads, it’ll make a little more sense after watching this entertaining sushi-meets-skateboarding ad. And hey, here at RocketNews24 there’s nothing we love more than sushi and entertainment.

But Japan’s top sushi chefs don’t really need to shred a skateboard park to make good sushi… do they?

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Japan Railways recently revealed ramen-style rice balls in its convenience stores

Walk into any Japanese convenience store or supermarket, and you’ll find a row of rice balls waiting. You can always count on the old standards, such as salmon, pickled plum, and spicy cod roe being represented, but each store also sets aside a bit of shelf space for unique, limited-time versions as well.

In the past, this form of carbohydrate-packed one-upmanship has given us such wonders as the bacon cheeseburger musubi and headscratchers as the fish butt onigiri (musubi being one of the Japanese words for “rice ball,” and onigiri the other). It’s always a flip of the culinary coin whether these outside-the-box rice balls are going to be a hit or a miss, but when we heard about ramen-style onigiri, we were immediately onboard.

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Mama duck goes shopping with her ducklings, takes over Lawson and Twitter with cuteness

On June 12 Twitter user @radio_skyblue12 tweeted about coming across a family of ducks during a trip to a neighborhood Lawson convenience store, uploading a photo along with the caption: “Look at these unexpected shoppers I ran into! What a surprise.”

This cute family duck photo quickly circulated around the popular social networking site, and became a hot topic among Japanese Twitter users. The post was in turn met with numerous replies, additional sightings, and other duck tales by fellow users, and has since been retweeted over 24,000 times.

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Transform your bottle of tea into Sailor Senshi with these cool Sailor Moon covers from Mini Stop

Heat and humidity are as much a part of a Japanese summer as festivals and fireworks. With the threat of dehydration always looming, it’s a smart idea to always carry a cool, rehydrating beverage with you, but if you’re sweating profusely, you can bet the plastic bottle your drink is in is doing likewise.

To keep the rest of the contents of your bag from getting damp, you could wrap the bottle in a hand towel. A more effective alternative, though, is to slip a specially designed cover over it, and if you’re going that route, why not use one of these cool Sailor Moon costume covers that you can get for free with a bottle of Japanese tea at Mini Stop convenience stores?

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Taiwan’s convenience store bags prevent bento turning sideways, solve all spillage problems

We’ve all been there. You run down to the convenience store during your lunch break, buy a delicious bento box, then dash back up to the office lunchroom, anxious to indulge in your cheap yet hearty meal. But then you open it up only to discover that you’ve been carrying it sideways the whole time, and everything has spilled over to one side, causing a jumbled, mixed-up mess.

It appears as though Taiwan has found the answer to this catastrophic problem: bags that make it impossible for a bento lunch to turn sideways, or any other direction that would spoil its deliciousness. How does it work? Watch the video and prepare to be amazed.

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7-Eleven really does sell everything in Japan, even Attack on Titan 3-D maneuver gear

As we’ve mentioned before, Japanese convenience stores are pretty awesome. Since so many people do their shopping on foot in urban and suburban Japan, convenience stores often function like small grocery stores for the immediately surrounding neighborhood, not just a place to buy junk food, beer, and dirty magazines (although they stock all three of those in abundance, too).

Because of this, Japanese convenience stores sell a lot of stuff that you might not expect, like a fairly extensive array of low-calorie dining options, or, as 7-Eleven is now offering, a life-size replica of hit anime Attack on Titan’s 3-D maneuver gear.

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FamilyMart’s iconic door jingle doesn’t belong to FamilyMart?! You can use it in your homes too!

We absolutely love Japan’s convenience stores, and even amongst the tough competition, the various brands have managed to create their own identity and each have their own strengths and specialities.

In most convenience stores, a short chime goes off when a customer enters or exits the store, and if you’ve ever set foot into a FamilyMart location, you might have noticed that they have a unique door jingle in contrast to the more common “ding-dong” sounding ones. The iconic chime has become so familiar, it’s almost synonymous with the FamilyMart brand, but did you know that the jingle is not exclusive to FamilyMart? You can have it in your own home!

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Lose five kilos in one month with a super easy convenience store diet!

Everyone is trying to get in great shape for the summer season and everywhere you look there is a new exercise or diet craze that guarantees quick and easy weight loss in only a month. Most of these are too good to be true, but some of them might just work for you! Introducing the “Chef Lawson Diet,” which involves eating only at the Lawson convenience store for an entire month. Actual user testimony guarantees* you will lose five kilograms (11 pounds) in just one month!

* On second thought, RocketNews24 doesn’t actually guarantee anything.

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For chivalry, Japanese man tells female store clerk “I aint got nothing to say to you!”

Japan has a reputation for outstanding customer service, and as such you’ll usually find courtesy and pleasantness on both sides of retail transactions. As polite as clerks are, most shoppers are just as respectful towards the hard-working individuals who’re ringing their purchases up.

Still, not every customer is a joy to deal with, and one young women working at a convenience store thought she was encountering an extremely rude male customer who refused to be served by her. As it turns out, though, the man she’d mistaken for a chauvinist was simply following his own particular code of chivalry.

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7-Eleven Japan opens first stores in Kouchi Prefecture, nationwide domination almost complete

Convenience stores are easily a part of everyone’s daily lives in Japan. So long as you’re in an urban area, you’re probably never more than a five-minute walk away from one. More commonly known as “conbini” in Japanese, they really are just as handy as their name suggests. Need to pay a bill or for an online purchase? Do it at the conbini. Want to print some photos or scan something? Get it done at the conbini. Late-night alcohol- or munchies-run? TO THE CONBINI!

While some convenience store chains can only be found in certain regions, others can be found nationwide. After opening its first stores on Friday, March 6 in Kouchi Prefecture, 7-Eleven only has three more prefectures to go until they’ve got the entire country covered.

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The madness ends now: How to conqueror impossible-to-open Japanese convenience store snacks

Oh Japanese convenience stores. Those bright, white-glowing oases that have everything you could ever possibly need inside of them, all wrapped up with a pair of chopsticks and a warm smile from the clerk.

Except for when you want an onigiri (rice ball) or sushi roll. Anyone who buys one of the items pictured above typically finds themselves suddenly engaged in a battle of wits matching human against plastic wrap. And the plastic wrap usually wins, resulting in a mess of rice, seaweed and tears of frustration.

But fear not! We here at RocketNews24 are here to help with step-by-step instructions so you will never lose to another conbini snack again.

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Fake 7-Elevens across Asia: you can hide, but we’re on to you

Take a quick look at the picture above. Notice anything strange? Perceptive readers may have spotted something out-of-place right away. If you didn’t, well, no worries, but you’ll probably want to facepalm yourself when you take a second look.

Like this Chinese “7-Twelve,” there are a number of fake, localized versions of popular convenience store 7-Eleven scattered throughout the Asian continent. They may think they can slip through the cracks, but perhaps it’s only a matter of time before a lawyer comes knocking at their doors. We have to hand it to them, though–they score high on creativity for coming up with some amusing names.

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Asses of love: 7-Eleven’s heart-shaped treats give new meaning to term “steamed buns”

Walk into any Japanese convenience store during the colder part of the year, and along with such welcome refreshments as heated cans of coffee and bottles of tea you’ll find a case of steamed buns. The orthodox version is stuffed with minced pork and vegetables, but curry and pizza sauce steamed buns are pretty easy to find, too.

Some convenience stores even offer sweet varieties, like 7-Eleven is doing now with its chocolate cream steamed buns. Since they’ve been released just in time for Valentine ’s Day, they’re even shaped like little pink hearts. Or, that was the plan at least, but to some people, they look more like little pink butts.

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From San-X to Attack on Titan, yummy cake rolls take over Bean-Throwing Festival’s sushi custom

Before you start obsessing over Valentine’s Day plans, let’s turn for a moment to another February whoop-de-do: the Japanese Bean-Throwing Festival or Setsubun. Celebrated on February 3 this year, it’s an intriguing blend of evil ogres and spirits, roasted soybeans, and chomping on a whole baton of thickly rolled sushi while facing in the proper direction. These somewhat disparate ingredients commingle on this day to assure good fortune and health for the year to come.

In recent years, western Japan’s custom of eating a special type of sushi called ehō-maki (恵方巻き, literally “blessed direction roll”) for Setsubun has spread across the nation due to marketing campaigns by grocery and convenience stores; what’s more, the sushi rolls have been evolving into scrumptious cream-filled Swiss rolls! Iconoclastic? Maybe. Delicious? Yes!

So let’s jump on the bandwagon and look into this holiday a bit before drooling over this collection of sushi and their sweet doppelgängers. And Yowapeda fans, I think I spy a Makishima-maki!

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Japanese convenience store FamilyMart inadvertently gives away pearl in pack of seafood snacks

In a lot of ways, convenience stores in Japan are more like miniature supermarkets. So while they still sell a lot of the candy and canned beverages their counterparts in other countries specialize in, you can also find plenty of edible, even gourmet-sounding food.

For example, the chain FamilyMart sells pouches of fried scallop meat, specifically the mantle, or part of the animal that attaches it to its shell. There’s a certain level of risk that comes with eating any mass-produced foodstuff, though, as one customer found out when he found what he felt was a foreign object in his pack of marine mollusks. And while generally the only thing you want to find in your food is, well, food, we suppose if we had to find something else mixed in there, we’d want what he discovered hiding in his snack: a pearl.

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Drinking sake just got more convenient with convenience store Family Mart’s new canned brews

Like with wine, there are variations in flavor between different types of Japanese sake. However, it can be kind of tough to pick up on the subtle differences unless you’re drinking them back to back. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for prices for anything other than the house sake at restaurants to start at about 800 yen (US $6.75), so putting together your own sampling set can get pricey.

But if you’re looking for a budget-friendly way to dip you toes in the wide, wonderful world of sake, convenience store Family Mart is here to help, with its new lineup of affordably priced canned sake.

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Looking for a job in Japan? Try a convenience store!

There are many “symbols of Japan”–from Mt. Fuji to Akihabara, the country has numerous faces to the outside world. But regardless of what comes to mind when you think of the country, there’s a good chance that you’ll stop by one of its many convenience stores on the way to your destination. In many ways, the army of small shops that squat on half the corners from Hokkaido to Okinawa are the perfect symbol of the country. But it looks like the convenience stores of Japan are now facing a serious problem: They can’t find enough employees!

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