Star Wars in Japan - The Freebies Awaken!

We are in full force Star Wars beast mode right now, and the boom is in full stride. In Japan, one of the traditions of these booms is freebies. This goes back to the first film:

On the left-hand side of the Japanese issue of Star Wars #1, you can see an ad for Morinaga caramel. It's an old company that is still going strong. Back in the day (in 1978), they released a big series of candy premium toys. You'd get one in each box of Star Wars branded caramels.

Back to the present, let's look at some modern giveaways and store promotions for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Furuta

Furuta is another company that has been stashing toys in sweets for a long time.

For these, the toy is literally inside a chocolate egg.

Well, it's inside this inner egg.

 More after the jump:

Easy to assemble. I got a Han Solo.

Who shot first???

Metz

This is a line of drinks made by Kirin. In a previous post, I wrote about Star Wars branded Metz packaging. Here we have a sticker freebie that's attached to the bottle. This type of giveaway is also common in Japan. 

There are 24 stickers in the set.

Shlick

It sounds like a bit of a stretch to connect a brand of razors to Star Wars, but if you remember in a previous post, I wrote about a line of Gundam branded razors (through another company), so there is a precedent.

You attach this little bit to the back of the razor so Kylo Ren can look at you while you shave. Watch those cross hairs!

7-11 Onigiri

These are some of my favorite types of giveaways, since they're generous, you know what you're getting, and they're easy to score. Onigiri (They're little triangle-shaped rice wedges with different types of food and flavoring inside. The whole thing is often wrapped in dried seaweed.) are very popular in Japan. For this promotion, you just needed to buy two from a particular selection of onigiri, and then immediately you could get a freebie.

After you select your onigiri, you take one of these cards to the register.

Voucher front

Voucher back

And here's your freebie - a cool 2016 desk calendar. Not bad for a pair of onigiri that cost 100 yen each. Each store was limited to 100 calendars, so they went pretty fast.