#Box review

[bokksu-vs-sakuraco]

Sakuraco Box #2 Review: Autumn Moon Festival

Theme: Autumn Moon Festival - same as Bokksu!

Arrived: September 27

# of Unique Snacks: 12 + 2 teas

Household Item: Tsukimi dish

Similar to Gliss, there's a special place in my heart for the Autumn Moon Festival, so I was very excited for this box! Let's get right into it.

Shipping timeline for this box:

September 14 - Shipping Email Received

September 20 - Box Arrived in US, West Coast

September 27 - Box Received in Mail, East Coast

The box arrived just in time for me to enjoy these snacks leading up to the Moon Festival (September 29th). It shipped around the same part of the month as last time, so it looks like I should expect boxes to arrive towards the end of the month in general.

Pre-Opening the Box

I was a little weary when I saw that the box was packed like this again

but I was actually pleasantly surprised when the label peeled off cleanly without any lifting or damaging of the box!

I think a major difference this time is that there's no additional packing tape on top of the bag? But maybe the box itself is a bit higher quality too because there's no semi-circle of lifting where I took off the sealing circle of tape.

I know I'm putting a lot of attention on this, but since saving and displaying these boxes was something I was greatly looking forward to, I really appreciate having that small boost in quality. Not to mention that I love the design of this month's box, and was hoping that I would be able to show it off!

Now let's take a look inside!

Taking everything out of the box and seeing so many cute rabbit snacks just made me more and more excited. Not only is it really fun to look at, but it also made me curious about what the unique character of each snack would be. (Note: There are 18 individually packaged snacks for a total of 12 unique snacks, and two teas)

The booklet is 23 pages and has information about the snacks and the traditions of Japanese moon viewing. I forgot to mention this last time, but the paper of the booklet is pretty nice, with a feel similar to a quality magazine.

Opening the flat white box in the back reveals a cute Tsukimi (moon viewing) dish!

The dish has a diameter of about 12 cm or just under 5 inches. It says it's both microwave and dishwasher safe.

Incidentally, if right now you're confused why rabbits play such a strong theme in this box, the booklet tells us it's because of a Japanese folktale, Tsuki no Usagi (Moon Rabbit), which the booklet goes on to share with us.

—

Ok, it's time to taste some snacks.

With Gliss's glowing comments about her White Chocolate Strawberry, when I saw this in my box I knew I would have to try it first. Opening the package, you get a fragrant aroma just like a ripe strawberry's; however, after taking a bite I found that the texture is more like chocolate. The smooth white chocolate flavor hits first and then the strawberry flavor joins in soon after. As a whole, I'd say the flavors are well balanced without being too sweet.

Next I thought I'd try the Usagi Pon Senbei.

Each package had 2 senbei in it. They had that classic umami flavor (from soy sauces), but ran a bit on the salty side.

Personal preference, but I've found that I enjoy lighter, crispier senbei more than the kind that's hard to bite into. In this one you can see how it's more light while still preserving that crispiness.

At this point, I had to open the Peach Jelly. I'd been eyeing it this entire time and couldn't resist any longer. (The Sakuraco boxes having jelly was a pretty big selling point for me. I didn't really try any during my recent trip to Japan because jelly was actually pretty expensive in comparison to other snacks.)

The two layers sort of separated when I popped it out of its container, but I don't mind. The clear layer of jelly was on top, and it had these little jelly leaves which I loved looking at. The darker layer with the red beans in it was on the bottom. The top layer had a refreshingly sweet, somewhat fruity taste, while the bottom layer was a bit thicker and more starchy, with a more pronounced fruit flavor. I'm saying "fruit" here because at first I thought it was maybe apple or pear, so I was a bit surprised to read that it's peach.

I could just be wrong, but mine also looks different from the picture, so I'm not sure if the jelly came in different designs or if I got a different jelly altogether? Either way, it was quite tasty.

Afterwards I went to the Black Okoshi.

It's a little like an Asian granola bar. There's some peanuts, karinto (deep fried puff) and black sesame seeds in here, all coated in an Okinawan brown sugar glaze. Crunchy, with a good ratio of peanuts to puff. A bit too sweet for me, but the serving size was small enough that I didn't grow tired of it before I could finish.

At this point I'd like to talk about the teas. Yes, plural! Last time we got two packets of the same type of tea, this time it's two different packets of tea.

The left one was like a barley tea while the right one was like a green tea. I think the green tea was this month's 'surprise', along with the next snack below. I don't usually drink tea so all I can say here is that they were pretty good, no complaints. I do want to point out though that in this month's booklet, they included brewing instructions!!

I did leave some feedback on their website last month that it would be nice if they included this, so it's really cool to see that they took that feedback seriously. Following the instructions, the tea didn't get bitter at all, letting me properly enjoy it while it's flavor was at it's best.

Ok let's continue with the snacks.

I didn't see this one in the booklet but scanning the QR code to check out this month's list of surprise snacks, I found it kind of looks like:

...Mame Mochi? Or at least this looked like the closest snack by far on the list. Reading the description made me slightly confused because I'm not sure I would describe the snack in my box as 'soft and fluffy'. It was more like puffed and crunchy. Biting down you get some crunch before the snack quickly disappears in your mouth and you hit those small black soybeans (?). It really was like eating a pocket of air and then finding you have some grain in your mouth.

Moving on, I was very excited to try the Black Sesame Mochi:

They came in a tray of 6, and were very cute. Although, after eating one I understand what Gliss was talking about when she said it was like tang yuan or the Chinese black sesame soup dumplings. (*Note: Bokksu had the exact same package of this snack in their box.) The black sesame mochi were bite sized and had the soft, chewy texture of mochi, with some smooth black sesame paste in the center. The main difference between the mochi and the soup dumpling is that the latter has way more filling and a thinner outer layer, whereas the mochi had a lot more rice cake. It was still pretty good, but my personal preference leans towards having more filling.

Going to another cute snack, the Usagi Marshmallow has a way of grabbing one's attention.

You can't really tell from this photo, but it actually has strawberry jam filling. If you've had marshmallow candy, then it basically tasted like that, plus some strawberry jam. Sweet and fluffy.

Continuing, below is the Chocolate Cream Danish.

This doesn't really seem like a traditional Japanese snack in any way.. But it sounded good so I was still interested in trying it. The pastry somewhat reminded me of a croissant, and the chocolate was very rich, like the coating you might find on top of a brownie (and of course, it was pretty sweet). The overall experience with this one was sort of a "huh, ok" for me.

At this point I really needed something salty to balance things out, so I decided to try the Peanut Arare.

And I'm really glad I did! Wow! Just one bite and I thought to myself "this is REALLY good." It had the perfect amount of crunch, a satisfying texture that was a little flakey and kind of melted in your mouth, as well as a savory flavor with some depth. The peanut didn't come through that strongly (at first I thought it tasted a bit more like a corn chip except less salty), but in retrospect it actually checks out that the depth came from the nuttiness of the peanuts. All aspects of this snack were a hit for me, and even when I finished what was given, I found myself wanting more!

The Anko Dorayaki was like a pancake with red bean paste filling.

The pancake part came through more strongly than the filling, but I like that they used yam flour in the dough to subtly add some more flavor. It was more light than I expected, and a tiny bit dry. Overall, I'd say this is the type of snack that pairs very well with tea.

Next, the Full Moon Cookie.

It tasted more or less like a vanilla cookie; thin, with a firm crunch that wasn't hard. It's not exactly a stand out snack in terms of taste (although fans of vanilla cookies would probably be delighted), but the design is indeed captivating and it wasn't too sweet.

Lastly, the Full Moon Soft Chew.

You can probably tell by now that I'm not a huge fan of candy (or anything that's too sweet). Not to mention that the designs on these are so cute that I would be ok with just setting them aside to look at them occasionally, but I should probably taste one for this blog.

They're definitely sweet, although I was surprised by the texture. It didn't really stick to my teeth and it had this granular quality to it that made this "ksh ksh ksh" sound while I chewed. This would definitely be a fun one for candy lovers.

—

Final Thoughts

So this box definitely leaned harder to the sweet side, with only 3 salty snacks and 9 sweet. Of the sweet ones, my favorite was definitely the jelly because of how unique it was and how it harmonized appearance, flavor, and texture to make an eminently enjoyable snack. Some of the other sweets might've not hit quite all the marks for me, but that's just personal preference.

Buying a service whose goal is to cater towards a wide variety of snackers, I'm content that so far each box hasn't had anything that I outright disliked, and even had a couple snacks that I absolutely loved (my favorite salty snack, or maybe even overall snack so far is definitely the peanut arare!).

Still, I think this box was very fun to open and explore, and it probably left a stronger impression on me over the previous box because of its theming (I'm an especially big fan of when Sakuraco does unique box designs! I feel like it sets the mood from the start). I do appreciate how the Okinawa box had a more balanced sweet/salty ratio, though I understand that it's probably more challenging curating salty snacks to have as much variety as the sweet ones.

I would say something along the lines of 'see you next month' here, but this month Gliss and I will be writing another blog that does a more in depth comparison between how Bokksu and Sakuraco handled the Moon Festival theme (since they happened to choose the same theme this month).

So, see you soon!!

—June

#box review #sakuraco #subscription box #japanese snacks #japanese food

[spdk1]

REVIEW: AEW - All Elite Crate Spoilers - July 2023

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#AEW #All Elite #All Elite Crate #All Elite Wrestling #Box review #crate review #Kansas #Loot Crate #pro wrestling #pro wrestling crate #Pro Wrestling Tees #professional wrestling #subscription box #subscription crate #Wrestling

[lasshoe]

POOR THINGS (2023) + Letterboxd Reviews

#poor things #yorgos lanthimos #emma stone #mark ruffalo #willem dafoe #margaret qualley #suzy bemba #poorthingsedit #filmedit #cinematv #letterboxd reviews #still thinking about this movie btw!!!! #me using the powers of repetitive subliminal messaging to make sure this movie is a box office hit...... 😇 #animlorelaioriginal #movies #1k #5k

[misslinala]

#Xin Tianya #Xin Tianya boxes #Xin Tianya packaging #Xin Tianya the best jewelry boxes #jewelry boxes #gift boxes #best boxes #best boxes for your products #best packaging for sale #best packaging for your products #boxes for your business #shenzhen xin tianya packaging #Shenzhen Xin Tianya packaging review #gift box review #box review #cute box #pretty box #gift box with flowers #jewelry box with roses #elaborate #elaborate gift box #elaborate box #style #beautiful box #top boxes #fine boxes #cute boxes for sale #jewelry boxes for sale #gift ideas #gift ideas for Christmas

[taurnachardhin]

Sanderson gave Kaladin Marsh's worldview with Kelsier’s charisma and then gave Moash Kelsier’s worldview with Marsh's charisma and I think that was very funny of him.

#this quip peer-reviewed by people i was chatting with at jordancon so now i'm sharing it on tumblr #cosmere #stormlight archive #mistborn #moash #kaladin stormblessed #kelsier #marsh #cosmere junk box #for legal purposes (not getting hate mail from whoever occupies the 'fuck moash'/'kelsier did nothing wrong' crossroads) this is a joke

[barksbog]

when you're a big dramatic collie but the neighbours ducks outside the fence refuse to listen to you so you have to throw a tantrum about it

#it's so tragic nobody takes him serious #even the local deer stopped caring about him barking at them from behind the fence #he also set of the kinda dubious doggy daycare up in the village. they have good reviews but before they put a huge wall up so nobody can #look in there anytime I walked by there were several dogs loose in locked in cars #and the pet food they sell is just relabeled stuff and the boxes with food just stand out there for days in the weather #idk maybe it's fine and i just still harbor negative feelings towards that house from when a guy #basically ran a golden retriever puppy mill in his backyard kennels

[torukmaktoskxawng]

pls tell us your opinion on Frontiers of Pandora when you get the chance. I bought it on sale, and have seen mixed reviews about it 🙏🏻

I'm glad you asked because I was about to share this small piece of the game. No technical spoilers:

(So'lek aside, I like Nor as well. This scene made my heart melt)

It's a beautiful game!! I preordered it, and due to jobs and the holidays, I haven't been able to play it very much (the scene above is close to where I left off today lol and that's not very far) but so far I love it!

I think so far, the only thing that's frustrating to me are the controls. To me, remembering controls is a struggle, but I haven't been much of a gamer until recently when I got a gaming pc, so I'm a bit of a newbie.

I've also been way too distracted while playing the game 🤣 there's so much to see and learn that I forget I'm in the middle of a mission unless I stumble into it. I'm too busy exploring.

We all know Pandora at night is beautiful, and the game reflects that! I can't stop looking around at everything at night.

Another thing I'm bummed about is the romance. You can't romance the characters 😭 If I had a choice, I would've jumped So'lek's bones so fast, especially after the most recent gift he handed me 👀 (won't specify due to spoilers)

To some gamers like my brother, FoP is too much like Horizon Zero Dawn (but for some people, that's all the more reason to play it!). And for someone who's never played HZD, it's a whole new game/concept to me so I don't have much to criticize/compare!

If you haven't played it, give it a chance! I also advise using it as a filler for the wait for the next Avatar movie in 2024 👍 we must consume as many crumbs as possible to quench our hunger and thirst

#ask anla #frontiers of pandora #avatar frontiers of pandora #nor frontiers of pandora #fop #avatar fop #nor avatar #nor fop #fop nor #frontiers of pandora nor #game review #so'lek #so'lek frontiers of pandora #ask anon #ask box #anon ask #ask

[arkiwii]

ok I'm about to pass out from exhaustion after pulling an all nighter and reading this ~140 000 words long event so allow me to scream a little bit before

AHEM SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE EVENT

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEARAAAA

WUEUERUEYTEEEEUEEE????GHHJGHHHGGGGXJJJhjhjwff,,

FUCKING EVAPORATES AND DIES. EXPLODES. IMPLODES. PERISHES ON THE SPOT. DIES A MILLION TIME.

ok good night this event made me cry so much im not alright anymore

#i would give a proper review i promise feel free to spam my ask box ill answer after eepy #im so so so not normal about this family #found family MY BELOVED #and silence and saria relationship was DELICIOUS CHIEF'S KISS #CONGRATULATIONS TO THEM NOW KISS #arknights being once again amazing with its writings #arknights

[jacksgreysays]

sorry but the image of itachi and shisui shotputting shikako at the hokage hat and running her campaign with or without her input is SO funny because. itachi? as the hokage?? glad even he knows that's a bad idea lmaoo also love how the nara are going to watch their heir's younger twin protest as she's hauled into power with utmost bemusement because WHAT are you doing little fawn?? why are you ambitious. what happened to being a lazy genius like the rest of us. but ok here's our vote i guess...

The idea that Shisui and Itachi looked at the clan elders complaining about wanting an Uchiha Hokage, looked at each other, looked back at the clan elders, then looked at Shikako and wordlessly agreed that throwing Shikako at the problem would be both efficient and more fun is great.

Itachi THEORETICALLY would be a good Hokage, Shisui would PRACTICALLY be a good Hokage, but Shikako would be the best Hokage.

I mean, this IS the universe in which six year old Shikako persuaded her dad to send a betrothal contract to the Uchiha, thereby adding a new clan to their multi-generational long three-clan alliance (not even the Sarutobi, who have traditionally acted as the mentors of the Ino-Shika-Cho are formally part of the alliance) and also, eventually, thwarting Councilor Danzo with soft power and very little effort on her own.

So, like, if anything the Nara clan are like: weird that she's so politically active, but very on brand that she went about it in a way that involved the least amount of personal effort.

#jacksgreyson #anonymous #review response #ask box advent calendar #down every road #dreaming of sunshine #shikako nara #itachi uchiha #shisui uchiha

[cadathecat]

✨exquisite✨

#box reviews #cats of tumblr #cada the cat #black cats #animals #cats #cats of twitter

[bokksu-vs-sakuraco]

Bokksu Box #4 Review: Hokkaido Wonderland

Theme: Hokkaido Wonderland

Arrived: November 16

# of Unique Snacks: 15 + 1 tea

Key takeaways: They have been using this theme every December box for the last three years and it shows, for better or worse.

The Shipping: Nov. 6: Shipping label created → Nov. 9: Made it the U.S. → Nov. 16: Made it to my house!

The Contents: 15 unique snacks (19 total individually packaged snacks) and one green tea pairing + the usual culture guide and postcard. I weighed the food myself this time, and for the curious, Bokksu's ingredient information applies to only single packages of the snacks. That means this box had 439 grams of food.

——❄️——

On the Theme...

Hokkaido Wonderland refers to Hokkaido, the northernmost prefecture of Japan, known for high quality dairy products. They also have hot springs and snowy winters, thus making them a reasonable choice for a winter-themed box. Now, I knew these details just from talking to June about Japan, but this is what the culture guide told us about Hokkaido:

Pretty neat.

They also seemed to slip in a lot more specific regional facts into the food descriptions this time, including:

Hokkaido milk is considered the best in Japan.

Hokkaido produces the most milk in Japan.

Langue de chat cookies are one of Hokkaido's most popular souvenirs.

The Ainu are an indigenous people of Hokkaido.

The haskap berry, a native fruit of northern Japan, is named from the language of the Ainu.

Since this is the first Bokksu theme I've gotten that focuses on a specific region of Japan, I appreciate the diversity of details provided and that they committed to making 7/15 snacks from Hokkaido. It's not that much more expansive than their previous culture guides, but I still did learn something new.

As for flavors, this box stayed solidly within the typical bounds of a Bokksu box while meeting the theme i.e. it was mostly sweets (only three savory snacks) with an overall cohesive flavor profile. The flavors this time were cream, white chocolate, and tart berries. As you may know from my sweets basket review, I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate so that wasn't my ideal utilization of the Hokkaido milk flavor, but it had its benefits, as we'll discuss below.

——❄️——

Snack Review

What's interesting is this box had a number of repeat snacks from previous boxes, just with flavor variations. That has its pros and cons, but one thing's for sure is that it helps to tell you what you may or may not like. If you haven't read the previous reviews, you can check them out here. But to mix up the review structure this time, I wanted to make some direct comparisons between these familiar snacks with my updated thoughts.

New Flavors of Old Snacks

Repeat #1. Tsukisamu Anpan: Kabocha Pumpkin / Previous showing: Bokksu Box #1 Review: Seasons of Japan, Tsukisamu Anpan Chocolate

I wanted to have this one first because frankly the last anpan we had was so mid, I wanted to get this out of the way while we still had liquid to down it with.

Luckily, this Japanese-pumpkin-white-bean-paste filling anpan was a significant improvement over the first "brownie" anpan we had, if only because it wasn't absurdly dry and completely overwhelming in bean paste flavor. The pumpkin flavor still didn't really come through (probably because anything mixed with bean paste will turn into a bean paste flavor), but it did make for a simple pastry bun snack. My opinion of the anpan improved this time around.

Repeat #2. Ginza Rusk: White Chocolate / Previous showing: Bokksu Box #2 Review: Full Moon Rising, Ginza Rusk: Chocolate

The fancy cube wafers are back! Only this time, instead of Ghanian cacao beans, they're flavored in white chocolate made with Hokkaido milk. The quality of milk in white chocolate is quite critical, given that white chocolate literally is just milk, sugar, and cocoa butter. Done wrong, white chocolate tastes like boring creamy sugar with a funky aftertaste. Thank goodness Ginza Rusk delivered yet another high quality cookie snack. Fragrant milk essence infused every bite with light but rich flavors, and the Hokkaido milk did not disappoint in its quality. For a snack that had the potential to be very basic, these have now twice been elevated by the high quality of the simple flavors they deliver.

Repeat #3. Hokkaido Haskap Gummy / Previous showing: Bokksu Box #3 Review: Cha Cha Tea Time, Nanko Ume Plum Gummy

This one raised my eyebrows in that we literally had this same brand of gummies in the previous box—but they were also a top-ten-ranking snack overall, so I'm not actually complaining....

No seriously, these are the superior gummies. Whatever they got going on with the texture, gumdrops makers across the world need to adopt ASAP. The flavor this time was haskap berry, "a native fruit of Northern Japan... known for its distinct aroma and sourness." I'm not usually one for sour stuff but hell yeah, I could eat a bag of these!

(I didn't though, my mom ate them all first, like I blinked and they were gone 😐)

Not An Exact Repeat: Hokkaido Haskap Langue de Chat (upper left)

3/4 of the boxes have had Japanese langue de chat cookies in them, and I got even more langue de chats in the sweets box earlier this year. So yeah, I've had a lot of langue de chats. They're probably among my favorite snacks to receive though because:

They're reliably good in their simplicity

Their variations standout from each other

The beauty of the langue de chat is that you can make many variations where a different center filling or cookie flavor still really pops, and yet you can still fall back on the reliable crisp double cookie with white chocolate base filling for an above average biscuit. These haskap berry flavored cookies used the tartness of the filling to contrast nicely against the buttery cookies.

——❄️——

Return of the Hokkaido Favorites?

Like I said before, Bokksu has done a Hokkaido Wonderland theme every year for their December box since at least 2020. Sakuraco did something different in 2022 but otherwise, has also been using Hokkaido for winter boxes, including their upcoming end of 2023 box. (Expect another comparison blog next month.) But focusing on Bokksu for now, I think this is the only theme where they don't mix it up with different angles on a similar theme (ex. Otsukini vs. Autumn Harvest), and thus we get some exact snack repeats. Here's the repeat snack types+makers we have from previous years:

Hokkaido Shimaenaga Milk Bouchée / 2022: exact same as 2023

Hokkaido White Raspberry / 2022: Snow Mimosa Cookie / 2020: exact same as 2023

Sekkasei Cookie: Rich Strawberry / 2022: Sekkasei Cookie (this brand is from Hokkaido)

Hokkaido Umami Cheese Potato Chips / 2022 & 2020: Potato Chips: Hokkaido Rich Butter

Just to be clear, I'm not knocking this repetition by pointing it out. There's something to be said for tradition, especially during the end of year, when traditions are a major part of food and celebration. But for people who may be thinking of renewing subscriptions for multiple years or maybe buying the December box as a gift, it's something to know, since they seem to generally avoid such explicit repeat themes during other months.

Now for a rapid review of the apparent Hokkaido favorites!

Hokkaido Shimaenaga Milk Bouchée: A dry twinkie. Would not have again. Cute packaging tho.

Hokkaido White Raspberry: The white chocolate and dried raspberry coating was not nearly as generous as pictured, but the puffy rye cookie was sweet & salty between the airy layers, and unexpectedly good! Would try again.

Left: 2023 cookie / Right: 2022 cookie. The description bragged that "Cosine Universe utilizes four kinds of Hokkaido milk products to produce a snack that will disappear on your tongue in twenty seconds!"

Sekkasei Cookie: Rich Strawberry: They were not kidding about the "melt in your mouth" texture. It's like if you bit into a super soft and dense shortbread cookie, but then half the thing dissolved into air on your tongue before you could get to chewing it. A little confusing but tasty once you get used to that. The real problem was the artificial strawberry flavoring that tasted like what they put in dental toothpaste. Would try the white chocolate flavor.

Hokkaido Umami Cheese Potato Chips: They smelled extremely cheesy, like a strong gouda, but the taste itself did not have that distinct cheese or milk flavor — that is, until you finished chewing and were left with a sweet yet somewhat buttery aftertaste. As the only cheese item in the Hokkaido box, I wish it went heavier on the cheese, but it's still a good snack. Also, the bag is huge but only comes like half full, probably to keep the extremely thin-cut chips from turning into dust before opening. Would have again.

——❄️——

The Remaining Snacks!

Left: Soft Sakura Mochi: I've always wondered what sakura flavor is supposed to be, and uh, I guess it is just the floral scent paired with sugar, huh? That said, we are still not mochi people.

Right: Sapporo Coffeekan Cafe Latte Chocolate: Mmm, like eating warm coffee ice cream with coffee nib sprinkles. If only it were more than a one-inch square.

(Anyone in the US interested in a similar, slightly darker chocolate should try the Kyoto Style Cold Brew Chocolate of the Chocolates of the World brand. I only say this because I happened to get a bar the next day and they're similar enough that it fills my desire to have a whole bar of these.)

Left: Koganeimo Golden Sweet Potato Cake: At some point, you have to ask why you're not eating an actual sweet potato instead of this oily imitation.

Right: Hokkaido Azuki Dorayaki: This "sweet red bean paste sandwiched between two pancakes" tastes exactly how it sounds, except slightly drier than you'd want.

Left: Curry Cashew Nuts: There were six fucking nuts in that bag. For a featured snack, I have to say: seriously? At least they didn't taste too special, just cashews coated in good curry powder, but god, you're not allowed to show a whole cup in the pictures and then provide six fucking cashews.

Right: Black Thunder: Shifuku no Butter: Good chocolate, good cookie, great "cultured butter from Hokkaido and France" which helped the whole thing melt into your tongue as you chewed. I would love a box of these!

——❄️——

And finally, one of the most memorable snacks of the night: Onigiri Senbei: Ginshari

"Oh but Glissando," you might be thinking, "I thought you weren't a 'senbei' person. You keep comparing them to Quakers' boring ass rice cakes but crunchier."

And I stand by that! For the previous senbei at least.

But these senbei, well, they were actually really good. A solid 8/10 from both me and my friend. Not only were the two senbei per package presented in an appealing triangle shape, they had depth to their outer saltiness that benefitted from the plain center, and the ratio of plain to seasoning was balanced enough to make you want to keep chewing and reach that perfect blend of warm rice taste.

Finally, I see the appeal of the senbei!

But you know what the most memorable part of this snack was i.e. the part that will ingrain it into my brain forever?

THIS FUCKING SPOT-THE-DIFFERENCE GAME ON THE SNACK PACKAGING.

Can you spot the three differences between the two images??? Because after staring at this triple-layered polypropylene under shitty cafe lighting for 15 minutes, my friend and I only came up with two differences and after checking the answers on the back of the bag, I am still pissed we did not get that last one on our own.

THE END

——❄️——

jk I still have the tea.

We didn't have the tea with the snacks this time because, ya know, one bag of tea served at 160ml, as per the Bokksu instructions, is not enough for two people to eat 15 snacks with. But I did end up having the Hon no Kimochi Green Tea on my own later and it was perfectly nice if you like green tea. It had that classic bitterness with a refreshing aftertaste that turned just slightly sweet by the end. It pairs nicely with sweets.

In my opinion though, this was definitely enough tea leaves to make a whole pot of tea. Steeping it in only one cup, as per Bokksu's instructions, made for an extremely strong flavor.

——❄️——

Final Notes

The stuff I usually put here, I already spread out through the rest of the review, so. Um. That's all, I guess.

See you next time 👋

—Glissando

#box review #bokksu #subscription box #japanese snacks #japanese food

[spdk1]

REVIEW: AEW - All Elite Crate Spoilers - April 2023

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#AEW #All Elite #All Elite Crate #All Elite Wrestling #Box review #crate review #Loot Crate #pro wrestling #pro wrestling crate #Pro Wrestling Tees #professional wrestling #subscription box #subscription crate #Wrestling

[this-is-cool]

We've just got our hands on a copy of the excellent The Art Of The Box from Bitmap Books. Please check out our review and preview book video - https://www.this-is-cool.co.uk/the-art-of-the-box-book-review/

#The Art Of The Box #Bitmap Books #Art Book Review #4K Book Video #this-is-cool #scififantasyhorror #sci-fi art #science fiction art #sci-fi artist #fantasy art #Retro Art #Video Game Art #Video Game Art Book

[heliza24]

I'm kind of confused about how you feel about Lydia, I didn't think there was anything negative about the portrayal. You say she was just there for a lore dump but the way I see it, she was talking about her own life, an adventure she'd been on before. I didn't see it as dismissing her as a character

The short answer is that there isn’t anything hugely wrong with that scene. But because it’s the only real scene we’ve gotten with her so far, and because she is the most developed physically disabled character in all of D20, it is not enough.

To expand on that: Sure, she was telling the Bad Kids about her life and her previous adventures. But let’s think about why she was doing that in that moment. She was there because the Bad Kids needed to know more about her embedded crystal/metaphorical chronic illness in order to solve their own personal mysteries. She is a (very) supporting character in their narrative. We don’t get to see her go on a character arc, or change, or learn more about her desires as a character. Her disability story, which is very interesting, is in the show only because it serves the story needs of the nondisabled PCs.

Now of course all stories need supporting characters/npcs, and I am happy some of them are disabled. The problem arises when there has never been a physically disabled PC in Dimension 20. So the only disability narrative we see is in service of nondisabled characters. The problem is not Lydia; the problem is that she is alone.

You might recognize this problem with other media and other marginalized groups. To use a kind of simple example, I spent a lot of my childhood frustrated that the only women seemingly allowed in fantasy or action movies were the romantic interests of male protagonists. These love interests existed to serve the story of their male counterpart (often by dying dramatically and sending the male protagonist on some kind of revenge quest). There are still plenty of movies and shows that follow these tropes, but it bothers me way less now in 2024 because we also have a ton of tv and movies with complex female protagonists. The abundance of representation is what has changed.

I think this problem is extra clear on Dimension 20 because they have gotten SO many chances to center a disabled narrative and have not. They get up to six protagonists every season, which is way more than most tv or movies get.

Compared to a lot of other pieces of media that try to add in disabled characters, Dimension 20 is doing a good job with Lydia. They haven’t hired a nondisabled actor to play her (super common in tv and movies unfortunately) and they’ve clearly worked with consultants on her. I really like, for instance, that her persistence with the crystal prevents her being magically cured, which is one of my least favorite tropes. However, there is a huge trend in Hollywood of hiring disabled consultants when they want to tell a disabled story but never actually hiring a disabled writer for a full time, credited writing gig in a writers room. The players on D20 are the writing room. Why has a disabled person never been invited there?

Imagine, for a second, that we got a Fantasy High prequel season. All the adults we know in Fantasy High are teens, and they’re PCs. Imagine a really talented performer, who uses a wheelchair, playing Lydia. Imagine the emotional scenes we would see! Imagine the insight into her psyche we would get, the way her relationship to the Crystal would be developed. That’s what the scene with Lydia in Junior Year made me long for.

(I do have some frustration about the way Kristen reacted to Lydia, and the way that fandom reacted to Kristen. I did find Kristen offering empathy to Lydia in the form of the help action sweet, but being nice to a disabled person doesn’t deserve outsized praise, because we are not objects of pity. I also think the way that Kristen touched Lydia’s neck without permission is reminiscent of the way many wheelchair users are touched and pushed without permission, which is very violating. I don’t think Kristen would have had that same reaction to Sandra Lynn, for instance. Kristen is really Going Through It right now, so I’m not particularly mad at her for doing that. But it is irritating to see fandom singing the praises of the help action without acknowledging the touching without consent that followed).

Thank you for the question! I appreciate the opportunity to have a dialogue about this.

#dimension 20 #d20 #my meta #my crip media reviews #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high #d20 fhjy #ask box #dropout tv #dropout

[thecryptidart1st]

So I am claiming ownership over FNAF now

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf movie #i just got back from watching it #and all i got was the regal cinemas exclusive pizza box #summary: #i was giddy through the whole thing #the animatronic puppetry was *sublime* #abby was surprisingly sassy #josh hutcherson is my mike #matthew lilliard: *chefs kiss* #if i had a nickel for a cleaning up the restaurant montage in an animatronic horror movie i would have two nickels #thank god there was no confirmed mike x vanessa #but also #I #FUCKING #CALLED #IT #fnaf movie review #also i’m calling it now that i was right about mike schmidt and michael afton being one and the same #WILLIAM’S REACTION TO MIKE’S FILE WAS EXACTLY WHAT ONE ESTRANGED FATHER WOULD REACT TO SEEING THEIR SON IN IDK HOW MANY YEARS #AND VANESSA BEING AN AFTON IS MY CANON #MIKE AND VANESSA HALF SIBLINGS CONFIRMED BITCHESSSSSS

[koifsssh]

Welcome back bestie! Always happy to see you (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

SCURVY! HELLO! always a pleasure seeing you! Hehe, I've been messing with markers in my absence!

It's very fun! I'm glad I found them earlier this morning!

Markers... my beloved...

(These two drawings I really liked... or well... technically three!)

(Hehe, Maverick belongs to @thatthirstyweirdo !)

#chit chat #there are many things that have happened while i was away! i wonder if i can review it all... #revived my love of markers... ohh how i missed them... #i really need to get all my art supplies together! maybe i should put it all in a box... #art box... #i do really have quite the collection now... #hehe! #ah! im rambling hehe... i hope you are doing well scurvyyyy! #(remember to eat oranges...)