You know when you go on holiday to some exotic clime and you think, “Oh I’ll buy a little something for the office from here. You know, just to be nice.” You do this and everyone in your office appreciates the kind gesture. What happens is Japan is, “Oh, I better not forget to buy something for the office or they will regard me as scum.”

Yes, in Japan buying a little something for the office is basically expected of you. You not only have to buy them when you go on a big holiday but also if you go on a weekend trip somewhere. I dunno about you but when I worked in an office I definitely did not expect random snacks every time someone went on a weekend trip to Margate.

These little gifts, known in Japanese as omiyage, can be just about any small foodstuff. Generally sweets, chocolates, cakes or jelly but can also include stuff like sake and cheese. Omiyage is what I blame for there being no Japanese version of Mars Celebrations, but that is another story.

Omiyage is also another example of not being able to trust anything your Japanese-English dictionary says. The usual translation for omiyage is generally souvenir. Don’t trust that definition for a second. The always useful Dictionary.com defines souvenir as:

“A usually small and relatively inexpensive article given, kept, or purchased as a reminder of a place visited, an occasion,etc.;memento.”

Sure, omiyage is generally small but souvenirs are supposed to be a reminder of a place visited. Many times the place that you have just visited may hold no special meaning for the person receiving the omiyage or, at least, none that you are aware of. This is it just something that you must give to co-workers/family/friends, simply because that is what people do.

The best meaning for omiyage I can think up is:

 ”A small gift (usually food) that you must give people after you have been on a trip, otherwise they will think you are rude.”

Omiyage is so ubiquitous that shops dedicated to the selling of it are at just about any location of vague interest. Anywhere even just a little bit touristy has these things all over the place. Worse is that in the many shinkansen stations and airports dotted around Japan there are now omiyage shops which specialise in goods from other regions. So, say a couple who live in Tokyo visit Kyoto for a weekend, they no longer have to bother with the difficult process of thinking of others while there. They can just buy some random stuff from Kyoto at Tokyo train station when they return. Even madder there are now companies that have “Omiyage catalogues” which deliver this stuff to your door. So you don’t even have to take the time to go to a shop.

To me omiyage seems to be a thing that people are expected to do rather than stuff given out of the goodness of their heart, which is kind of sad. But perhaps this culture of gift giving has lead to the BEST THING EVER MADE™.

I recently went on a trip to Yamanashi, the prefecture where Mount Fuji is. We went for a drive up to the base of the mountain and there I found something incredible, Mount Fuji shaped melon bread. Anyone who knows me will be aware that I think freshly made, bakery melon bread is the greatest of all Japanese food. Shaping it in such a cool Japanese way just perfects it. Not only that it was, hand on heart, perhaps the greatest melon bread I have ever tasted. Having sampled it for myself I realised that I had to share its greatness with others. So, I am telling you about it dear readers and I also bought a couple to share with my house-mates.

THAT was done out of the goodness of my heart, as they are British folk no omyiage is expected but this find is something that I just had to give them a chance to try.

To Japanese women just about everything can be described as cute. That boy, those clothes, that drain, those leaves on the floor, that lunch box, anything. This leads to a bit of a rejection to this word and all it stands for, as far as I am concerned.

Moe (pronounced mo-é) is Japanese term for super cute things, it is mired in geeky subculture. Especially stuff such as maid cafés, cat girls and anime. According to wikipedia anime moe character designs have:

Large eyes (1/5 size of face)
Small nose
Flat face
Tall iris
Body 5.7 heads tall
Thin limbs
Large head
Colourful hair
Fringe over eyes

And I don’t like it one bit.

When I see an anime or manga with intense moe styling I am usually rather put off and refuse to even give it a chance. This all changed though when I first heard about an anime series called Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

My relationship with this show did not get off to the best of starts, at first I was put off by the silly name and then I saw that it was a Magical Girl anime, the genre that brought us Sailor Moon. Finally I saw the character designs and they were as moe as can be. As a result I completely wrote off the show as something sickly sweet for little girls.

The show just wouldn’t go away though and I found various essays about it invading my internet browser. Most of these said that this show was something special and different. Suddenly things about it’s production started to jump out at me. While the frilly, frilly character designs were off-putting, some of the background designs I was noticing looked like the contents of a deranged fever dream and were very intriguing indeed. I also read that a former hentai director was one of the main creative minds behind it and that showed it may just be trying to do something different, so I decided to give it a go.

Things did not start too well, it seemed like it would be a very by the numbers TV show albeit with some funky dream scape sections. Just about as I was going to give up on it something unexpected happened that caused me to let out a gasp and the show revealed it’s true colours.

It is just so DARK….

…and cruel.

From here on in it begins to deconstruct what it is to be a magical girl and that maybe it is not all dainty outfits and lolly pops after all. Once you get into the mindset of the show you can certainly see where all the plot threads are going as they are introduced but it is fun to see just how far they push it.

Once the dust settles you realise that this is a landmark show. Much like Evangelion before it, it takes what has been done before and puts a new spin on things. Like Evangelion there will be hundreds of copycat shows appearing that don’t quite understand why this show was so successful in the first place. Unlike Evangelion however, it does not seem to have broken into mainstream consciousness and may remain something that only anime fans are really aware of.

It not a perfect show however, I do like that this series took my preconceptions of moe designed shows and threw them in the bin (and then stamped on it a bit) but it is perhaps a little too dark for it’s own good. Once you realise that nothing good will ever happen to any of the characters it all becomes a bit too depressing for it’s own good. It’s hard to tell if it even ended on a high note or not.

Madoka Magica has shown me that I should be a bit more open to media which has aspects that would put me off normally. God knows I get frustrated when people ignore the things that I recommend because of some silly reason, I had better stop doing it myself.

I really should give the K-Ons (more moe designs), Babylon 5s (can’t take another Star Trek style scifi), Battlestar Galaticas (same) and Bright Eyeses (I blame Jo Whiley) of this world a try because I just might end up liking them.

I really should have remembered the melon bread.

I’ve touched on the strangeness of sandwiches on this site before but sandwiches are not the only offbeat baked goods here. Bakeries carry the names Saint Marc and Vie De France, despite the fact that showing their products to a Frenchman would make them recoil in shock. I’m not saying the contents of Japanese bakeries is bad of course, just that Frenchmen are very proud of their bread.

One example of strange baked goods is the fried doughnut. If that isn’t odd enough the filling of the doughnut is usually curry (yes, CURRY). To be fair though its referred to as curry bread by the Japanese but it looks enough like a doughnut to give people who can’t read Japanese a big shock. On the subject of doughnuts, getting hold of a jam one is stupidly difficult. Azuki bean seems to be the flavour of choice here.

Azuki bean is also the filling for anpan. Which is a sweet bread with azuki bean on the inside. Anpan was the inspiration for the popular children’s character, Anpanman, who is made of anpan and allows people to eat his head when they are in trouble. Which is a pretty sick idea if you ask me.

Another bakery product here is the Mont Blanc, which from the outside looks like some kind of spaghetti covered monstrosity. In fact, the covering is some kind of coconut purée, it’s innards are a sugar, cake and more sugar. It’s too sweet for me.

Something which isn’t too sweet for me is the wonderful melon pan but then I’ve already discussed that at length. The Japanese seem to love their sweet bread, they have managed to turn sandwiches into a dessert. I’m not talking just putting Nutella in between the slices but strawberries and cream. I’ve even seen a whole fruit salad inside a sandwich. I didn’t try it, it looked a bit soggy.

Looking at the products doesn’t provide the only strangeness in a bakery. The other week, when buying a tasty curry bread and melon pan for lunch, I received a special free gift. The checkout girl thrust a single slice of bread into my bag. As far as free gifts go, it’s a bit of an odd one. I’m not complaining but she could have at least given me two slices. Then I could have made a sandwich.

I once asked one of my students, who had lived in England for a couple of years, what he missed about Japan while he was there. His answer was not too unexpected, replying “food” but in particular one type of food: melon bread.

Now I have been vaguely aware of melon bread since I’ve been here, mainly because the shape it is usually baked into reminds me of brains. Any food which reminds me of brains should best be avoided, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom taught me that lesson. However my student’s enthusiasm for it peaked my taste buds and I decided to put my prejudices aside and give it a try.

I wish I had tried it sooner, it’s fruity yet bready, sugary yet…… well it’s very sugary. The important thing though is that it’s tasty and I’ve been missing out on it all the time I have been here. This taught me a valuable lesson: be more adventurous with what I eat.

While I do like Japanese food, most of the local dishes I eat regularly are things that I first sampled at home such as sushi, ramen, okonomiyaki and the like. I have so far shied away from the more peculiar dishes. Despite my annoyance at the lack of open-mindedness to Calpis, I have yet dare to sample Pocari Sweat; Usually when I see a picture menu, I dodge the more unusual food for a familiar katsu curry.

Well no longer….

From now on “Remember the melon bread” is going to be my mantra. I will no longer avoid the strange freakish looking option and give it a try, cos you never know, it might be really quite yummy.