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Snoopy reborn as adorable Japanese sweets, lives just long enough for us to cut him up, eat him

Casey Baseel Aug 26, 2019
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Let’s eat some wagashi Peanuts!

There are two things our Japanese-language reporter Ahiru Neko loves: booze and Peanuts. And no, we don’t mean that he likes to snack on legumes while knocking back cold ones, and we didn’t capitalize “Peanuts” because we’ve been sneaking sips of Ahiru Neko’s 100-yen (US$0.93) canned energy drink cocktails and are buzzed enough to throw capitalization conventions to the wind.

Ahiru Neko is a big fan of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, so much so that when he found out there was a line of traditional nerikiri Japanese sweets coming out to salute the Peanuts cast, he asked if he could do an article on them. We said sure, but with one teeny condition, which we’ll get to a bit later.

▼ Nerikiri is a mixture of gyuhi, extra-soft mochi rice cake, and shiroan, white sweet bean paste.

The Peanuts nerikiri are available exclusively at convenience store chain Lawson, and priced at 259 yen (US$2.40) each. We’ve got a Lawson branch right across the street from SoraNews24 headquarters in Shinjuku, so Ahiru Neko was back from his shopping trip in just a matter of minutes with Snoopy, Joe Cool, and Charlie Brown.

The three are part of the Tabemasu series, which has previously included nerikiri versions of Rilakkuma, Mickey Mouse, and most recently (and terrifyingly) Kirby. There’s plenty of good old-fashioned wagashi attention to detail, like Joe Cool’s sunglasses, Snoopy’s collar, and Charlie Brown’s unassuming, slightly shy smile.

Ahiru Neko was thoroughly impressed with the sweets’ appearance, which was on par with decorative, non-edible figures. But remember how we said there was one condition we put on his assignment?

The condition was that he had to share, and the only way to make sure everyone got a fair portion was to cut the nerikiri sweets into pieces.

So after he was done taking photos, Ahiru Neko, with a heavy heart, picked up the office knife and solemnly faced the trio.

He started with Joe Cool, who, true to his name, didn’t even flinch as the deed was done.

An internal examination revealed that Joe Cool is filled with a salty vanilla cream, though the primary flavor here is still that of shiroan.

Moving on to non-Joe Cool Snoopy, Ahiru Neko executed a similar slice…

…and we could see that he’s filled with chocolate cream. We weren’t sure how well chocolate would mix with traditional Japanese wagashi sweets, but it turned out to be a surprisingly tasty combination, with the mix of Western and Eastern flavors feeling like an appropriate choice for a nerikiri Snoopy.

And then Ahiru Neko came to the last survivor, Charlie Brown.

Unlike Snoopy and Joy Cool, who were facing forward, Charlie Brown’s face is tilted upwards, and he was staring right into Ahiru Neko’s eyes.

Unfortunately for the smooth-headed Peanuts star, at this point Ahiru Neko was well aware of how tasty the nerikiri was, and so our reporter pressed on, though he did at least change the angle of his slice.

Inside of Chuck is an extra-rich custard cream. Again, it’s a mix of Western and Eastern flavors, but an extremely delicious one, and Ahiru Neko found himself craving a cup of hot Japanese green tea, despite the sweltering weather of the Tokyo summer.

All in all, it was an emotionally complex sweets session for Ahiru Neko. On the one hand, he felt a little guilty about consuming the characters he loved, but there’s no denying that they taste great, and it was still a better way to spend a day at work than waiting for pigeons to take a dump on him.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]