Both Mister Donut and Krispy Kreme Japan are doing Halloween campaigns this year (see 2012, 2013, 2014), and because I love you all so much, I ate a ridiculous amount of doughnuts one morning for science.

What happened with Mister Donut was that I wanted to eat all the Halloween ones, but because they didn’t have most of them in stock in Ikebukuro, I tried to eat enough to get me through till lunch, BUT THEN on my way to a business meeting, my coworker and I arrived a little early and stopped at Krispy Kreme, so I had yet another doughnut. The moral of the story: Krispy Kreme would have been a better choice for my doughnut blogging needs.

It was outside the Krispy Kreme that I began to notice how pervasive Halloween has gotten in Japan’s major metropolitan areas. All the department stores are doing Halloween campaigns. All the bakeries are doing Halloween sweets (more on that in a future post). I saw someone carrying a frakking jack-o-lantern purse, for crying out loud. (Then I bought one in Kyoto. Fight me.) There are Halloween flyers in the department stores to show you where to buy costumes, sweets, and goods. There are Halloween events. I now own Halloween furoshiki. I don’t know what my life is anymore.

Documenting Halloween in Japan used to be sort of a game to see which companies were marketing the holiday as a seasonal event amidst globalization and marketing gimmicks. It’s a secular holiday driven by purchasing goods. Japan loves seasonal, limited-edition goods, and companies love money, so Halloween is a natural choice. (Plus the popularity of Disney here, and Nightmare before Christmas and Snoopy, which likely had influence.) Also, Japan made me love seasonal, limited addition goods, and now I’m part of the consumerist hive mind whenever I’m here, and I’m compelled, as if by some supernatural force to purchase these goods that push all my cute-but-practical buttons or my nostalgia for the US (when I lived here) or my “I will eat every pumpkin” fury and—

I’m sorry, we were talking doughnuts, right?

Here are some doughnuts.

Mister Donut

I wanted all the cool doughnuts from the website/ad, but all Ikebukuro had was the jack-o-lantern shaped ones. I also got a kinako raised ring (yeast doughnut) and a chocolate Pon de Ring.

The description reads like the Mameshiba Theme Song: “Like a Pon de Ring, but not a Pon de Ring! Like a cream-filled doughnut (シュクリーム), but not filled with cream! We present a new texture for doughnuts.”

1. Pon De Shu (creme-filled) doughnuts in murasaki imo (purple sweet potato) and cookies-and-cream, which are described as “fun to eat”
2. Pon De Shu (creme-filled) doughnuts in pumpkin and cookies-and-cream: “pumpkin cream doughnuts, a Halloween classic, and a flaky cookies-and-cream”
3. Pon De Shu (creme-filled) doughnuts in custard (“everyone loves custard!”) and cookies-and-cream.
4. Misudo Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Yellow: “made with cookie dough, this doughnut has a flaky pastry and is coated in pumpkin glaze. The Jack-o-Lantern is teeming with the spirit of Halloween!”
5. Misudo Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Chocolate: “the white chocolate and regular chocolate on this jack-o-lantern give it the appearance of a mask!”
6. Pon de Pumpkin: Limited time doughnut for Halloween, has a pumpkin glaze and pumpkin-seed topping.

I didn’t think the pumpkin flavor was that noticeable on the Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Yellow, and I want the pumpkin creme and the pon-de-pumpkin!

Next time: Krispy Kreme yields better results.