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A regular taiyaki たい焼き pancake is fish-shaped, ‘tai’ 鯛 being red seabream. Traditionally it’s filled with azuki bean paste, but nowadays it’s common for shops to offer an array of fillings such as cream, jam and/or jelly. Like any other pancake, taiyaki is easy to shape with the use of special molds, so they’re very popular as anime or manga character-shaped food.
(English continued after Japanese)
先日、セガのたい焼き秋葉原店で呪術廻戦のたい焼きを買いに行きました❣️ 人気のアイマスSideMと同時発売だったので朝からめちゃくちゃ並んじゃいました? みんなはほとんどSideM客でしたが?！（で、午後に通りかかるとガラガラでした＜苦笑） 欲しかった宿儺のオリジナルコースターに当たり店内で飛び上がる大喜びの私がいました。たい焼きは、デザイン４種類１個ずつ買って、翌日食べることになりましたが、普通に美味しく、「チョコレート」より「プレミアムクリーム」が好みでした。SideMだとフィギュアに沿った形だったのに対してただの四角いじゅじゅ焼きに多少不満がありましたが、ま、十分可愛かったので良しとし、おまけコースターの種類が変わったらまた買いに行こうと思います❤️???
Sega’s Taiyaki in Akihabara
At the Sega’s Taiyaki Akihabara store, I got in line to buy myself the Jujutsu Kaisen taiyaki set.
Above is the first floor of the Sega No. 5 building. See all the girls lining up? You’d think they’re all big JJK fans but turns out most of them are after the IdolMaster SideM taiyaki! The two were being sold at about the same time. See the lady with a rounded blue backpack? She’s actually store staff, making sure everyone’s lining up properly, as well as distributing ‘come back later’ tickets to the SideM fans who’d rather return at a later time slot than waste their time falling in line first thing in the morning.
On the side of the store are posters of our beloved four: Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Nobara Kugisaki and Satoru Gojo.
I like how they paired the two boys on one side, and then Wild Rose and Six Eyes on the other.
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Between them are posters showing the prizes winnable at the game center. Yep, there’s another JJK x Sega collab with all kinds of prizes, stuff like plushies, key chains, tumblers and inflatable ‘sofa’ cushions.
It wasn’t just JJK and SideM doing the taiyaki thing, there were also pancakes for LoveLive!Superstar!! School Idol Project. When the staffer asked the queue which ones were there for SideM, though, nearly everyone raised their hand! I think it shows what’s truly popular at the moment.
Then there’s the poster for JJK, showing the square character designs available. There are four to choose from: Itadori, Fushiguro, Kugisaki and Gojo, with two flavours for each – chocolate and ‘premium cream.’
For a purchase of one pancake, you get one paper coaster, randomly distributed. From November 13 to December 24, the designs are: the main trio, the Tokyo sophomores Maki Zen’in, Toge Inumaki and Panda, plus (Fake) Suguru Geto and Ryomen Sukuna, for a total of eight designs. From December 25 to January 30, coaster design changes to the Kyoto students (Aoi Todo, Noritoshi Kamo, Momo Nishimiya, Mai Zen’in, Kasumi Miwa, and Ultimate Mechamaru), along with Kento Nanami and our beloved sensei.
Pancake Production
A huge window allows everyone to watch how the pancakes are made. I’d hate to be the cook inside – I mean, all those hundreds of people watching my every move! That means I can’t make obvious mistakes or eat pancakes on the sly xD Come to think of it, if I make pancakes for a living, I might feel like eating anything but pancakes!
Yum, yum, yum. Look at all ‘em cakes. The ones in front aren’t JJK, though. See the ones at the back? That’s them, already cooked.
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Speaking of quality, look at the cook trimming the edges of the cakes. If this isn’t quality control then I don’t know what is! I wonder what they do with the trimmed-off edges? They should give them to people like me for free! I mean, I’m the kind who actually likes the edge part of loaves and toasts. I’ll happily eat them, when given the chance! By the way, in case you’re wondering why I chose a cat sticker, it’s because cats are supposed to like fish, and taiyaki is traditionally fish-shaped. Cute, eh?
Look at these molds! Sega knows who the popular characters are, so for one column there are two each for Megumi and Gojo, and one each for Yuji and Nobara.
Crane Games
At last, I’m getting closer to the cash register. Did you notice how most of the customers are female? Dunno why, but I like a guy who likes pancakes… seems there aren’t many of them.
While waiting in line, we entertained ourselves by watching the customers on the other side of the store, the game center part.
There were rows and rows of UFO catcher/claw game/crane game machines filling up the other half of the floor. I was cheering for the lady you see in the pic above. She was working really hard to get SideM prizes. If my counting is accurate, she played about 20 times, using up around JPY 2,000. That’s nearly USD 20! The prizes were large 10cm pinback buttons, called ‘can badge’ in Japan. I think she won twice. That would make each button around USD 10 each. Worth it? For a fan, I suppose that’s a yes. Me, since I’m terrible at crane games I’d rather just buy a prize off Mercari or some other online flea market. Prizes become a lot more special if you win them yourself, though, so I totally understand why fans work the game center, regardless of skill level.
Giveaway Coasters
Finally it’s my turn to order! After going aww over the Sukuna and Gojo plushies, I ordered the JJK set of four.
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You can see how collab pricing works for character-based food. A regular Sega logo pancake – which is, gram for gram, I’d say about the same size as the character ones – costs JPY 180, while a character cake costs JPY 500.
The coasters are randomly distributed upside down, so you don’t know what you’ll get. I leave the queue and turn them over one by one and find… Sukuna! Yey! I was so happy I jumped for joy. Of the eight available, I wanted his coaster most of all. See that expression on his face? It’s like he’s going “Eww, a fish? Yuck!” xD
For the other three I got Toge, Nobara and Yuji. So adorable! I love them all, needless to say.
Taiyaki for Breakfast
So I get home and finally have a chance to eat the pancakes the day after. They’re palm-sized and squarish, about 3cm thick.
I’m sorta bummed they’re just square-shaped, instead of the die-cut styles of the SideM ones. Here they are with the Lookup figures. Cuteness overload! I tried to be careful in carrying the taiyaki but even then I managed to squash two of them xD
I cut up the Nobara and Gojo-sensei pancakes. One is chocolate-flavoured, while the other is custard cream. They’re both delicious! I think I like the cream one better. Pancake part isn’t the fluffy variety but more like the firm kind.
If I were to plan this collab, the fillings I’d choose would be strawberry jam for Nobara, azuki bean paste for Gojo-sensei (since he seems to like traditional Japanese sweets), milk chocolate for Yuji and matcha for Megumi. These would fit their personalities well, I think.
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There’ll be new coasters from December 25th, so I guess I’ll be visiting the shop once again. If you’re in the vicinity, the campaign lasts until the end of January 2022.
That’s it for the Sega’s Taiyaki x Jujutsu Kaisen collab. I hope you enjoyed going on this virtual ‘trip’ with me!
Purchasing the Jujutsu Kaisen x Sega Collab Merch
For those living overseas, you can still avail of Sega collab products (both prizes and giveaways) via the pre-owned specialty stores. Here are some:
If you want the taiyaki giveaway coasters in particular, see:
As of this writing, there are plenty of taiyaki coasters listed by resellers.
To get worldwide shipping on the stores above, check out my Shopper’s Guide.
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