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Japan’s new old-school Dragon Quest sweets are Slime-like in more ways than one【Taste test】

Casey Baseel Mar 31, 2022
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Maybe we should have been eating Slimes instead of fighting them all this time.

The appeal of mobile game Dragon Quest Walk is how it blends the real world with the Dragon Quest one, with special missions that players can complete by walking around real-world locations using their phone’s GPS function. Of course, while you’ll see fantasy monsters from the beloved game series appearing on your phone’s screen, Dragon Quest Walk can’t make the creatures actually appear in the real world…except for special exceptions like the one we’re looking at today.

Dragon Quest Walk occasionally teams up with local confectioners to highlight their community’s special regional snack souvenirs. The latest partnership is with Aoyagi, a maker of uiro from Nagoya.

Uiro is a kind of mochi, but it’s also sometimes called “Japanese rice jelly,” since it’s a particularly soft and quivery type of rice cake. Of course, since we’re already talking about Dragon Quest, odds are as soon as we said “soft and quivery” you got a mental image of a Slime, and yep, Aoyagi is now offering Dragon Quest Slime Uiro.

These things went on sale on March 12, and they weren’t easy to come by. We were emotionally ready to make our purchase on Day 1, but the heavy traffic to Aoyagi’s online store made it hard to access, and the whole day’s stock was sold out in five minutes. We got lucky on Day 2, though, and after two weeks’ wait for our order to be filled and shipped, it arrived.

The uiro Slimes come three to a pack for 864 yen (US$7). As fans can guess, the different colors aren’t just cosmetic differences, as Slimes’ sub-species have their own special powers depending on their hue.

The standard blue Slime is the standard uiro sweet mochi flavor. The orange She-Slime, meanwhile, has the taste of mikan (mandarin orange), and the green Slime, called a Lime Slime in the games, is, surprisingly, actually kiwi-flavored.

▼ The adorable Slime face is actually a sticker applied to the uiro’s wrapping.

Opening the paper covering for the uiro doesn’t make them look any less like Slimes.

As for how they taste, they’re delicious. Aoyagi has been in business since the 12th year of Japan’s Meiji period, which works out to 1879, so they know a thing or two about making tasty desserts. However, that long history also ties in to another important point, which is that uiro, as a very traditional Japanese dessert, isn’t super-sweet by modern standards. It’s a mature, sophisticated sweetness, not cloying or sugar rush-inducing. That does, though, make it a near-perfect snack to leisurely enjoy while sipping a cup of green tea, and since it doesn’t scream “CANDY!” to your taste buds, the more low-key, natural-seeming sweetness really does make it feel like you’re actually eating a Slime, you could say.

As with previous Dragon Quest walk tie-up sweets, there are ways to earn free Slime uiro by completing in-game missions, but you can also skip the quests and order them online here.

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