Sour Apple / Mystery Flavor Chewy Candy

I know, I know, Japanese snack week done been over for a while now, but I still have a ton of leftover snacks which need reviewing, so just sit tight and enjoy the backlog (ayo). Anyways, this is one pack in a series of different fruit-flavored chewy candy snacks. The consistency is similar to Laffy Taffy, but each piece has little bubble tea-like balls all up in it for a sort of flavor / texture bonus. The sour apple flavor is spot on, but the Snack Attack staff was all perplexed as we attempted to identify this flavor:



My second or third guess ended up being right, but we were all over the taste map trying to nail it down. Leave your guess in the comments section and I'll reveal the answer later.

Taste (9) Smooth, fruity, and mysterious.

Packaging (7) Really dope - Smiling fruit, good colors, great type, and awesome subtle printing on the silver candy wrappers.

Overall snackability rating (7) Sour apple is awesome, mystery flavor is very good, but nothing unbelievable.

Giant Pocky

DUDE, THESE THINGS ARE HUGE!!!

So much more enjoyable than straight up regular Pocky. Almost as good a conversation piece as Pocky Men's, but these are by far the dominating force in the world of chocolate-covered stick-related snacks. Seeing as I normally eat Pockies by the two or three, this is basically like cutting to the chase. Giant Pocky is much more satisfying and sumptuous than regular Pocky, they're cooler looking, each one is individually wrapped, and it's just a superior snacking experience.

Taste (9) Delicious. The same flavor as Napoleon-sized Pocky, but just bigger. There's more substance here.

Packaging (7) Huge box, great presentation. No weird or funny graphics, but you don't really need it here.

Size (FUCKING HUGE)

Overall Snackability Rating (9) Damn right.

GABA (or something else written in Japanese that I cant read)

Despite Mike being a known sexist, I decided to accept his invitation to blog about snacks because it is a topic I feel very strongly about(-even moreso than my distaste for demeaning women). My first foray into snack blogging led me to a box of grape-flavored 'Gaba'. To it's credit, Gaba is more of an experience than most candies I've eaten. Stage one is the burst of flavor, that can be likened to the ultra-sweet/ tart sensation of a pixie stick. The taste wasn't so much that of an actual grape, but rather the artificial flavoring you've come to recognize as supposed to taste like 'grape'. After you bite through that initial waxy sugar-layer, you get down to the chewy rubbery nugget in the middle that is kind of a surprise. After eating about 10 or so of these things I really just wanted to forgo the chemical explosion at the beginning, and just eat the little rubbery nuggets by themselves. They feel good on your teeth and on that little patch of your gums behind your last molar at the back of your mouth. They're like little rawhide dog-chews for humans.

TASTE (6) Like most Japanese candies, the flavor is a lot like my pimp hand; -that being -'Mad-Strong'. Gaba's overall strength as a snack is it's texture rather than it's flavor. The initial burst on your taste buds is a little bit overpowering; although I could see this aspect being kind of the jam if I was a little kid. I decided to negate a point for the slight acidy / chemical aftertaste

PACKAGING (2) I gotta be honest here, this packaging is kinda bullshit. For Japan, this is not cutting it... And the half-assed Pac-man icon is not doing anything for me either. If it was up to me, I'd instead put a picture of a hot asian with some monster yabbos on there...-or at least an illustration of one.

OVERALL SNACKABILITY RATING (4) I'd eat an entire box of gaba without giving it a second thought, however I would never crave it or go out of my way to eat it.