Most Recent J-List & NapaJapan Hauls

This time's haul is from J-List & NapaJapan. On the food front we have: Special Blend Cheese Doritos Twist [sic], Satsuma Imo (sweet potato) Pucca, Butter Salt Copan, "Garlic Lovers'" Habanero snacks & 3 types of My Cube gum - Ramune/"Blue Soda", Lemon Squash & Lime Cola. The Doritos tasted fairly good, they were really mellow & cheesy, sorta reminiscent of the "Winter Cheese" ones shaped like xmas trees that they released last year. There was something on the back about some sort of "cheese pro" adding her expertise to the flavoring, but really, how much "expertise" does cheese powder selection take?

The Pucca tasted like every other Satsuma Imo snack I've ever had. The package advertises that it uses some paltry amount of real sweet potato in each piece, and you can taste some small amount of real sweet potato, but overall it's slight. However, authentic potato taste aside, this Pucca flavor is pretty good.

Butter Salt Copan was kinda gross. Despite the package advertising a finely toasted, buttered bread, the product itself tastes like chalky, stale nastiness. The "butter" tastes somewhere between that Butter Buds crap you put on popcorn if you're too bereft of refrigeration to have real butter, and movie popcorn artificial butter flavoring. The Copan itself seems like it's covered in congealed butter/fat (ironically) or crayon wax. This is surprising because the Maple Sugar Copan flavor is probably one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. Though, I once bought Cream Cheese flavored Copan and they tasted eerily similar to these horrible Butter Salt concoctions.

"Garlic Lovers'" Habanero snacks from Tohato (my favorite snack company ever, now) were pretty amazing. If you've ever had Hot Fries, you basically know what they taste like, but these have amazing garlic flavoring. And I'm super picky about what constitutes "too much garlic" in any given food or dish, but these get the level spot on. Not to mention the really cool packaging with the Bakkun mascot as a shogun with a topknot.

Another thing I bought for the packaging, the My Cube gum, was actually quite good. The Ramune flavor was probably the worst of the three, tasting really artificial, almost like an air freshener. The "Lemon Squash" flavor was quite refreshing, and the Lime Cola cubes actually tasted like the beverage that they're named after.

From J-List, I also got a set of Mameshiba "Cosplay" Gashapon. It features 6 Mameshiba dressed as various things, like a superhero, chef, artist, etc. A really awesome frog clock that talks when it wakes you up. A Buddha pen which writes in red or black depending on which of his ears you press down. A really awesome Totoro plush with an ocarina that, when you press his mid-section, plays an ocarina tune from the movie. A tiny chirimen fabric frog & sakura diorama. And finally a set of mini Shichifukujin (7 Gods of Good Luck) on a wooden rice paddle.