Umaibo (=delicious bar) is a kind of Japanese super junk food puffed corn snack. One Umaibo costs only 10yen, and they have a lot of flavors, this is their current line up ,which is available in stores now. But I don't know how many other kinds of flavors they 've released in the past. I have to say their flavors are very weird. Of course they have standard flavors like cheese, caramel, and Teriyaki burger. But basically they are known for their more unique ones. For example, curry flavor is not just curry, but Chicken curry. In the case of mayonnaise, they made Shrimp mayonnaise. One of their most famous flavors is Natto ( if you want to know natto is). For them, such details as flavor accuracy are important. I heard some flavors were made by request of fans. I mentioned Umaibo in the "what is 2 channel?" article before. The representative of 2 channel, "Hiroyuki"(his blog); likes Umaibo, and he named each of his servers for his 2 channel board after Umaibo. Umaibo can be a toy or gag. When we search for Umaibo on the internet, we can find some useless projects using Umaibo, like making objects, new style cooking, and Akihabara PC shop events. The most popular one is purchasing in bulk , everybody refers to this as an "Umaibo festival" and they enjoy it in their own style.(like some guy takes an Umaibo bath). I hope you can sense what our concept of Umaibo is. It is geeky, otaku, cheap, junk, fake, joke and so on.
Yesterday I found another funny challenge about Umaibo. It is a "eat up 1000 bars of Umaibo in a week". One guy ate 1000 Umaibo in a week. Hmm at least 142 Umaibo in a day, this means, if he sleeps 7 hours, he eats 8 Umaibo every hour. Actually he was eating them at work, he even brought Umaibo when he visited his friend's home. Sometimes he baked them!, he boiled them!!, steamed them!!!, and then dripped them!!!! (finaly he come to the conclusion that he should not try any other methods ). At last he made the record (if we can call it that ). Did he get into Guinness or something? Of course not. So Why? You know we don't need any reason for that kind of great stupid challenge.
Ah and the last, perhaps most interesting topic about Umaibo. Since Umaibo is a kind of fake junk food, it's character is also dubious. Apparently the Umaibo character looks like our national idol Doraemon. This is an ironic joke by Umaibo. However the funniest part is that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission in the U.S.A) ; An independent United States government agency used a super fake Doraemon or Umaibo character on their kids zone page. That character says, "My name is Broadband". I could laugh if he had the name Amerimon or something. But unfortunately it is nothing so humorous. Using such a fake copyright infringed character is okay as long as it is in an official capacity for the United States government? ha ha ha
MMMMMMmmmm.*chomp* wha?.. oh I'm testing that theory right now. Working hard on finding a cure for junk food poisoning...then I will try to tackle obesity, since it seems to be a rapidly growing problem. (O__o)
Posted by: robert | Wednesday, March 02, 2005 at 04:32 AM
Hi robert
We may make immunity for poison acquired by junk food?
Posted by: Mari | Wednesday, March 02, 2005 at 12:03 AM
Doraemon ice cream is Cat flavored....I think. :0
everyone should eat Umaibo. as Nietsche is oft misquoted.."what doesnt kill us..." think of it as health inducing junk food. eat enough and it will trigger the gag reflex..and thereby cleanse the system..or clog your arteries and cause heart failure...I get back to you on this theory. maybe.
personally I like eating real natto.
Posted by: robert | Monday, February 28, 2005 at 03:47 PM
Hi cecile
Doraemon Icecream??? I have never heard that. What flavor it has?
Hi Orange
no i hardly eat junk food. I am not nervous, they are not delicous for me.
HiGwen
Yeah, I do not like them too.
Posted by: Mari | Saturday, February 26, 2005 at 12:48 AM
sometimes they sell it in japanese groceries here and i've found that kids usually buy these. I don't know if they buy it for the taste or for the colorful packaging though. The Doraemon-look alike is kind of confusing. i like doraemon ice cream, hehe.
Posted by: cecile | Friday, February 25, 2005 at 10:01 AM
do you eat many of those things?
Posted by: orange | Friday, February 25, 2005 at 05:51 AM
I used to eat it when I was little! They import it to Malaysia. I didn't like it very much though. :(
Posted by: Gwen | Friday, February 25, 2005 at 05:27 AM