Japan Crate’s December 2023 theme is unsurprisingly Christmas. It comes with one of three Christmas tree ornaments, with the chance to win prizes depending on which one you find in your box.
If you’ve not seen our previous posts about Japan Crate, they’re a popular subscription box service by Sugoi Mart that sends out a box with 18-20 Japanese snacks every month. They do boxes with other themes too, like gacha, noodles, stationary, and cute items. We’ve taken a look at several of their boxes if you’d like to take a look.
Big Bags
As is normally the case, the December 2023 Japan Crate came with two bags of snacks. One was potato chips, while the other was slightly different.
The A La Potato Salt Chips from Calbee are firm and ridged potato chips. They’re very lightly salted so didn’t have much taste to them, but were quite nice.
More unusual were the Kappa Salt & Wasabi Shrimp Snack from Calbee. These are ridged potato-based snacks, not potato chips exactly but rectangular and thick instead. They had a slightly spicy initial taste, with a salty seafood aftertaste and a strong seafood smell. It wasn’t to my taste, though I appreciate it being something different than I’d find locally.
Boxes and Cones
A highlight of the box was the Choco Sandwich Cookie. These Furuta brand cookies are a chocolate cookie with chocolate cream inside and tasted great.
Following on with more chocolate was the Black Picola Milk. These are a slightly bitter chocolate flavored wafer tube, with sweet milk flavored coating inside. They’re crunchy and crumble away easily. While it’s easy to snack on them, the package suggests ideas to include them in ice cream sundaes.
On the topic of ice cream, one of the items was a Giant Caplico. It’s essentially an ice cream done with solid strawberry fondant on top, and chocolate inside all the way throughout. It’s a little odd to have solid fondant, but tasted nice.
A pack of Muscat Juice Gummy was included too, which are grape flavor gummies. They’re soft on the outside, but have a harder gummy core which felt a little odd when eating. Still, the flavor was mild and pleasant enough.
Another gummy treat was the Sour Paper Candy. It’s a sugar-coated long strip of gummy. Unlike the name implies, it’s not that sour, with a mild cola flavor.
In theory, there should have been a pack of veggie sticks too. Sadly, they were missing. A pity since I’ve had them before and they have a nice savory taste.
Luckily the Triangle Crackers were included as a more savory option with a herbal taste. They’re triangle shaped as you’d expect from the name (as fans of Sankaku Renai: Love Triangle Trouble would know). They have a mild taste, which is more herby than salty. Coming in a little tray for convenience, they’re nice to have to pick at during those gaming sessions.
Smaller Sweets
An orange long chew candy was in the December 2023 Japan Crate and was surprisingly tough to chew. Parts snap off this long candy. The taste was okay but didn’t stand out.
Softer was the Sumikko Gurashi Gum, a regular block of gum with two segments and a nice fruity flavor. Fans of the characters from Sumikko Gurashi may appreciate it.
It’s been in previous crates, but a Diamond Ring Candy was included again. It’s a fairly standard candy diamond on a ring, similar to the ones found locally. This one was grape flavor.
The Mini Peach Candy and New Ramune Candy were quite similar. They’re small candy tablets that don’t dissolve and are mildly sweet, with peach and ramune flavors respectively. The ramune candy stood out for its better packaging which was shaped like a bottle with a pop-off cap. Both tasted good though.
Special Items
As normal a DIY candy kit was included. The Nericcho Strawberry Soft Cream DIY has been included in previous Japan crates in a couple of flavors. Mix the powder with a small amount of water and it creates a sweet foam with a sugary taste tinted with a mild strawberry flavor. This is scooped onto the mini ice cream cones to serve.
This month’s drink was the Umeyoroshi Plum Juice. Plum drinks are certainly something that I don’t see here and it was very refreshing.
Ordering Japan Crate?
The Japan Crate comes at $49.95 per month, with discounts if you prepay. This includes delivery too.
It’s a nice mix of items, with some familiar and some new. I always enjoy trying new snacks, and sometimes this includes traditional ones or fairly unusual ones that I haven’t found elsewhere.
Japan Crate has set up a 15% off discount code for our readers: NOOKGAMING15 – this should apply to all types of crates and not just this one if you enter it at the checkout.
Many thanks go to Japan Crate/Sugoi Mart for sending out a sample for this feature.
You may also be interested in checking out our look at the Sugoi Mart Anime Set.

A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.