Ah, the Japanese. Is there anything that they don’t create? We admire the Japanese people as a whole for being polite as well as creative, though there are some things in Japan that are just plain wacky. It’s not like the Japanese don’t know that we make fun of them online in more than one place — they seem to come up with wacky things just for us to be puzzled over.
Take soda drinks. Whether you call them pop or soda, one thing that they all have in common is the fizz and the sugar — though where that sugar comes from is often subject to debate as well as new creative outlets.
Here’s another fact — there are over 1,000 soft drinks that are introduced into Japan every year. As you might imagine, not all of them are tasty. In fact, most of them fail. Does that stop drink manufacturers from creating crazy things? Of course not!
We wanted to showcase this creative drive by showing you 7 wacky Japanese soda drinks that you had to check out!
1. Pepsi Ice Cucumber
Pepsi Ice Cucumber is the merging of two things that seem pretty innocent — Pepsi, and cucumber flavor? Now, we’re not against salad greens. Not at all. In fact, we’re making a salad right now, so we would appreciate that you tell our mothers that, okay? Mom doesn’t need to nag us about getting all of our greens anymore than she already does.
Still, there’s something chilling about Pepsi Ice Cucumber, and it’s not a refreshing flavor that we would love to drink. The Pepsi company introduced this little number to the Japanese market in 2007, and we’ve been spending the last four years figuring out why people find this drink so appealing. We’ll never understand it at all.
2. Hot Calpis, anyone?
This is a pretty terrifying drink. Let’s face it, when you hear about Hot Calpis, you think about that special toilet water in a cup — but no, it’s actually not that bad.
It’s actually a milk-based soft drink that is reported to have more of a yogurt taste. It even comes in fruity flavors, just in case you like your Calpis to be interesting.
However, this is not just a drink for the Japanese market: it’s also a hit in Latin countries. Imagine that, a multicultural soft drink!
3. Mother’s Milk
Now, around here, we’re pretty partial to boobs. Have you seen our article about 7 hot poker babes? Plenty of boobs there. However, we’re not really a fan of Mother’s Milk, if you get the idea.
We’re not really sure if Mother’s Milk is actually well, you know — mother’s milk (as in, right from the breast), but the naming similarities are really blowing our minds right now. Let’s just drink soda and get away from this mother’s milk fiasco completely, shall we?
4. Water Salad — Um…we’ll pass!
Isn’t this a crazy profit grab? Water Salad is salad-flavored water. As in, you are basically buying the mass produced version of making a salad and running it through the salad spinner a few times before draining the water out. The water that’s been tangling with your salad greens is what Cola-Cola is actually putting into aluminum cans and selling in Japan.
What’s even more interesting is that it comes in different flavors. So you don’t have to just settle for that generic salad taste — you can even get it in a nice citrus flavor too!
5. Diet Water
This is some trippy stuff — Diet Water is supposedly a drink that takes water to a higher standard, but we really have a hard time believing that. After all, there’s really no reason why you would drink special water to lose weight when water already doesn’t have calories. In other words, diet water…is still…wait for it…
Hold on…
IT’S STILL WATER, FOLKS!
Ahem. We’ll collect a cut of the money that you saved by not buying Diet Water, thanks.
6. Final Fantasy Potion
You know, the funny thing about the whole Final fantasy franchise is that the fantasy never really seems final. Even after all these years, Final Fantasy still has a pretty popular following. It’s better to go with a game that lets you escape reality for a while than just checking out of reality for good, but sometimes the fantasy world follows us around in ways that we least expect.
Take Final Fantasy Potion. It’s a wild drink that definitely is designed to appeal to the gaming culture in Japan — which is also pretty popular. It’s a great day to be a gamer in Japan, which is why so many gamers elsewhere dream about moving to Japan. It won’t give you god-like status, but hey — you’ll be able to at least try this crazy drink for yourself!
7. Kidsbeer
How strange can we get? Well, we can get pretty strange. The last drink on this list is known as Kidsbeer in Japan.
Now, it’s obviously going to be alcohol free, but this makes us think about candy cigarettes. If you’re too young to remember them, candy cigarettes truly looked like cigarettes — which gave kids a friendly association with cigarettes that had parents nervous — and even angry. Things changed for the better — you can’t produce things that would give kids a gateway into harmful substances. What’s next — candy cocaine for junior cheerleaders? Gotta keep that weight down early, girls! Yeah…right.
Overall, these are some wacky drinks. If you have recently been to Japan or heard about another wacky drink that we need to include, do not hesitate to sound off in the comments — we would love to hear from you!