I live in Japan. Don't worry, this isn't one of those blogs -- rest assured that I don't find the country remarkably wacky or KEWL. But I do live here, for the time being.

I offer a caveat because this is a tale of Japanese snack food, and one that Japan fanboys back in the U.S. may find offensive. Put simply: stop lying to yourself. Pocky sucks. Eat Toppo.

If you possess absolutely no Japan-nerd cred, congratulations and here's a backgrounder. Pocky is a 6"-long cookie enrobed in a sweet coating, typically chocolate. It comes in packs of a dozen, and boxes of two or four packs. It has become the snack of choice for thousands of pockmarked geeks in America, and elsewhere, who like to wonder what Sailor Moon is like in real life. Its countless varieties are cataloged by said geeks with great tenacity, so an imported box of Pocky has become a calling card of sorts -- the more obscure the flavor, the more "in the club" you are. Sad to say, even I once kept a stash of white-chocolate Pocky in my dorm closet, whipping it out to wow the ladies. It is the culinary emblem of a thriving subculture.

And it sucks.

As I mentioned above, Pocky is widely admired for its dazzling, ever-changing array of flavors. But once you go beyond original chocolate Pocky, forget it. "Mousse" Pocky has a thicker layer of coating, so when you take a bite, you get a saliva-saturated mass of gummy artificial flavoring, leavened by woefully little cookie. Awful. Green Tea Pocky tastes like your local Starbucks farted in your mouth. And "don't get me started" on Men's Pocky, which every fanboy will claim tastes the best. You know what it tastes like? Regular Pocky in a green box. The name isn't a cute example of those crazy Japanese. It's an idiotic affront to cookie+chocolate-loving women and to the English language.

Despite its failings in the flavor category, Pocky's biggest flaw is one of ergonomics. In order to keep the Pocky user from getting chocolate all over his (or HER) hands, the last inch of a Pocky stick has no coating. It's just plain bland cookie, guaranteeing an anticlimax every time. And you get chocolate all over your hands anyway.

Why get so angry? Because Pocky doesn't deserve to be the standard-bearer of Japanese snack foods. It's not the best snack in Japan. It's not even the best stick-shaped snack in Japan. That trophy belongs to Toppo.

Just like Pocky, Toppo comes in packs of a dozen and boxes of two or four packs. But Toppo is an unsalted pretzel with chocolate inside it, thus solving the chocolate-on-hands problem. Plus, the pretzel tastes better than Pocky's shitty cookie. Toppo also honors the inviolable snack-food maxim that states: a sweet, chewy inside is preferable to all other innovations.

Toppo is the workhorse of cylindrical Japanese snacks, eschewing Pocky's paparazzi nonsense and concentrating on quality. It comes in three basic varieties: regular milk-chocolate Toppo, B2 Toppo (the pretzel is chocolate for you chocolate x 2 folks), and strawberry-cheesecake Toppo. I'll grant that strawberry cheesecake is an unorthodox "sidekick" flavor, but it delivers as a change of pace. Figure you'll want strawberry-cheescake Toppo about as often as you think, "Hmm, how about anal sex tonight?" (So chocolate Toppo equates to good old vaginal intercourse, or for my gay male readers, more anal sex.) I'm not saying that S-C toppo and well-lubricated anal penetration are correlated, but they are alike in that everybody will enjoy them occasionally if they just have an open mind and give them a try, darling.

The two products' websites pretty much sum up their respective attitudes. While Pocky relies on wind-blown babes with their pants on backward to hock product, Toppo's mascot is: a stick of Toppo. "Here I am," Toppo says. "Take me or leave me." I'll take you every time, Toppo.

Toppo, I think I love you.

Congratulations to Toppo. You are the Snack of the Day.

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posted by Johnny at 4:14 AM - Permalink

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