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Sorry, Piplup. Starter Pokémon buddy or not, we’re still gonna eat you【Taste test】

Casey Baseel Jan 25, 2022
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At least there’s a small bit of mercy in the artistic design of these Pokémon sweets.

The key to the success of the Pokémon franchise isn’t just the staggering number of Pocket Monster species that show up in the games and anime, but that they’re all so cool and/or cute. But even by the series’ standards, some of the most lovable are the starter Pokémon you get to choose from at the beginning of the games, since they’ll be your companion from the very first step of your journey to become a Pokémon Master.

So when we spotted some adorable new merch for Piplup, the Water-type starter for Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, we knew we had to have it…but that also meant we had a problem.

Let’s start with the non-problematic part, though. When our order from the Burishai Fes Pop-up Store (“Burishai” is the Japanese fan nickname for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl) arrived, it was adorable, and we thought about just leaving it on our shelf as a decoration. But we’ve got a rule here at SoraNews24, and it’s to never turn down an opportunity to eat desserts, and that’s exactly what these are, since they’re the Piplup Meringue Cookies.

So the problem is that even though the whole reason we bought them is because we love Piplup, we now had to grab hold of our Poké-pal’s head and bite into it.

The Piplup Meringue Cookies do show a little bit of mercy for our feelings, though. There are four possible faces for the cookies: the smiling and “knocked out” ones we got, plus squinting and winking versions. In other words, there are now Piplup cookies where the Pokémon is looking back at you with two fully opened eyes, which helps to lesson the guilt just a little as you eat them.

In terms of taste, these are meringue cookies, which means the flavor profile is pretty much all sugar. While that simplicity might not be to everyone’s liking, if you’re of the soundly logical mind that seets should be sweet, they won’t disappoint. They’ll also leave your tongue incredibly blue, even more so than eating blue-syrup shaved ice or popsicles will.

You also get some traditional teardrop-shaped meringue cookies as part of the pack. While these have the same outer crispness to them as the Piplup ones, the teardrop cookies have a bit more of a bubbly moisture that emerges as you chew them, almost like Piplup used its Bubble Beam attack on them.

We paid 1,566 yen (US$13.60) for the cookies, but with the Burishai Fes Pop-up Store’s run having ended, we’ll have to wait for a re-issue in order to relive the complicated mix of emotions they provoked. In the meantime, for Piplup fans looking for undiluted warm fuzzy feelings can opt for the giant Piplup plushie instead.

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[ Read in Japanese ]