Japan is currently celebrating ‘Golden Week’, a consecutive string of national holidays that all occur in quick succession. One gang of San-X characters, called Sumikko Gurashi, want to ensure that it’s the sweetest Golden Week yet with a new line up of sweets inspired by both Japanese and Western dessert traditions.

The Japanese-inspired offerings have been made in collaboration with ‘Tabemasu’. They specialise in detailed ‘wagashi’ (traditional Japanese sweet) depictions of popular characters, rendered entirely edible. They’ve even teamed up with companies such as Sanrio and Disney before, to create versions of characters such as Hello Kitty and the Toy Story Aliens.

The sweets are made of ‘nerikiri’, a type of traditional Japanese sweet made out of white bean paste and mochi dough. This malleable food can be easily coloured, moulded and carved into various shapes, and in this case, particular attention has been paid to recreating the characters’ cute, round eyes and plump figures. The chosen duo is Shirokuma and Penguin?, sold in a set of two. Shirokuma has a milk flavoured filling and Penguin? has an apple flavoured paste inside.

On the ‘Western’ side of things, rare cheese tarts are also up for grabs with adorable pastel character designs on the plastic films.

The tarts went on sale from 28th April for 213 yen each, while the wagashi duo can be picked up for 410 yen from 3rd May in selected Aeon stores.


By - Jess.