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‘Tis the season to be jolly and blow a load of streamers on all your friends
The last couple of years have been benchmark ones for Halloween in Japan. What was once a holiday marked mostly by the infrequent sighting of a handful of mildly embarrassed-looking, costumed foreigners on the Yamanote Line train has grown into a massive industry.
In fact, Halloween has become just as much a holiday about 20 and 30-somethings dressing up as sexy nurses, sexy zombies, sexy superheroes, and other sexy-choose-a-nouns as its American counterpart. But while those costumes were no doubt getting plenty of attention on Shibuya Crossing last night, the Japanese Internet had already decided the undisputed Queen of Halloween was this far more conservatively dressed “once-in-millenium beauty”.
There are two types of people that, no matter how much they love the culture, are ultimately going to have a bad time in Japan: Vegetarians, and teetotalers.
Basically every meal in Japan has some type of meat in it, and the more strict you are with your vegetarian/vegen diet, the more difficult it’s going to be to find something to eat. Even supposedly vegetarian options sometimes contain pork or chicken broth or other sneaky animal product additions. And when it comes to those who choose not to drink, or can’t because of medical conditions, it’s almost as hard to get by, if not harder.
Thankfully, Suntory is here to help. Sort of.
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