Freedom Japanese Market – October 2017 Review & Coupon

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$14.99-$45.99/month–Free international shipping!
Ships from Japan
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Run by an expat family in Japan, Freedom Japanese Market offers three sizes of Japanese snack boxes: Puchi, 5-8 snacks ($12.99/month), Original, 12-16 snacks ($24.99/month), and Family, with twice the snacks of the Original ($45.99/month).

Every curated box includes an English content list and handmade, seasonal origami. Shipping is free worldwide! Longer subscription plans also come with a discounted price. You can also purchase a single box with no subscription in each size for $16-$50 depending on size. I’m reviewing the original size. They include a mix of sweet, savory, and seasonal snacks.

The info sheet lists all the snacks with a brief description, as well as their origami of the month. For October, they included a cute skull origami. Very appropriate for the season! Halloween decorations and themed snacks are getting more and more popular here in Japan, which is fun as someone who grew up with the holiday.

My parents visited us in Japan the week I received this box, so I had lots of help taste testing. We tried everything while watching our home baseball team and having some drinks.

Halloween Umaibo
This puffed corn stick is their popular corn soup flavor but in festive Halloween packaging. I love corn potage Umaibo, which has strong sweet corn flavor.

Pineapple Candy
Pineapple ame is a super common sweet in Japan. It is a ring of sweet pineapple hard candy in a Halloween themed wrapper.

Chocolate Umaibo
This umaibo is their plain corn puff stick but coated in a thin layer of milk chocolate. Corn and chocolate may sound strange, but you don’t get any corn flavor. Just the texture of the puff and the chocolate taste.

Hot Chili Aerial
These were an easy favorite in our family. It’s a layered puffed corn snack flavored with hot chili and spices. It wasn’t overly spicy, so you could taste the chili flavor.

Puccho Apple Candy
Puccho is another common Japanese sweet, similar in texture to Hi-Chew. The info sheet says it’s green apple, but I received soda and grape flavors.

Halloween Marshmallow
This marshmallow has a good cola flavor and squishy texture. I enjoyed the taste, but I especially liked the cute Halloween packaging!

Osatsu Snack
Since it’s fall, sweet potatoes are everywhere in Japan right now! These puffed chips are grilled sweet potato flavored. It almost tastes like candied sweet potatoes (also very popular). The taste was very subtle, but still good. However, I could have used more sweet potato flavor!

Porickey
These pretzel sticks are coated with a corn flavor. This snack is very mild. I prefer stronger flavors, but this would be a good introductory snack to Japanese flavors.

Doki Doki Fishing
I’m always happy to see DIY kits! This kit is relatively simple, as you add water to the included powders to make grape gummy fish. The packaging and design of these kits are always wonderful and fun to make. I’ve yet to try a DIY kit that I didn’t enjoy!

Kaki no Tane
Kaki no Tane, named because they look like persimmon seeds, are a popular beer snack. It’s a mix of seasoned rice crackers, often with peanuts. These were also a family favorite due to their strong, spicy soy sauce flavor!

Puchi Puchi Uranai Chocolate (Bonus Snack)
Hooray for bonus snacks! This bonus item is fortune-telling chocolate. Each strawberry milk chocolate has a topic written on the packaging. When you punch the chocolate out of the foil, a shape will be printed on the foil inside. A double circle is great, a circle is okay, a triangle is not great, and an x is bad.

Google Translate is your friend here—you can use your smartphone’s camera to translate. Or, my favorite online Japanese dictionary is jisho.org. Some of the categories are fun, like karaoke and shopping. Also pictured is this month’s origami. The skull is so cute!

 

Overall, I was a little disappointed. I think the uniqueness and value this time around were lower than normal. The smaller pack, “puchi pack,” is sadly not a good value this month based on the prices I see in supermarkets here. The price is $14.99, but I would place the value at no more than $4.  I also wish the savory snacks had a little more variety—it was a lot of corn and/or puffed products. Besides the chili puffs, sweet potato chips, and DIY kit, everything else is pretty common and cheap. Still yummy, but not the best value.

The Hot Chili Aerial puffs, Kaki no Tane, and DIY kit were our favorites. I also like that they included Halloween and autumn themed treats!

You can subscribe to this box , starting at $14.99 up to $49.99 depending on size (affiliate link). The original box is $24.99/month. All boxes have free worldwide shipping. Mention BeejuBoxes in the “Where did you hear about us?” section for bonus snack too!

 

PR Sample. All opinions are my own, and no compensation was received. Affiliate links are in this review, and they are noted when used.