Comfort food to snuggle up with is just one of the crazy prizes in the 7-Eleven Happy Kuji collection.
There are a lot of things to love at 7-Eleven Japan, but one of the most lovely of all is the convenience store chain’s karaage-bo, or fried chicken skewers. Honestly, it’s hard to see how they could be improved on, except, perhaps, by making them giant sized.
However, even we have to admit that it would be hard to eat a serving of fried chicken that gigantic, and actually you don’t have to. That’s because this isn’t just any 7-Eleven fried chicken skewer, it’s a 7-Eleven fried chicken skewer plushie! And yes, you can take the pieces off.
The 90-centimeter (35.4-inch) long stuffed animal/meat is part of the lineup for 7-Eleven’s Happy Kuji event, a random-drawing prize lottery. 850 yen (US$5.50) gets you one prize pull, and each participating store’s “special class” prize is the fried chicken skewer plushie.
▼ The plushie skewer and its edible inspiration
That’s not the only crazy-size, zany-concept prize you can get, either. There’s also a pair of blankets modeled after the packages of 7-Eleven’s Gold Series of frozen/instant foods, one of which looks like a pizza…
…and the other like a hamburger steak.
The 7-Eleven love gets a little more modestly sized with the five bread pouches, which mimic the wrapper of the chain’s melon, curry, okonomiyaki, corn mayo, and butterscotch breads.
There’s more practical pseudo packaging with five different compact canisters based on the Cup Deli lineup of pre-made salads and side dishes.
Another set of pouches features the ingredients of 7-Eleven Japan’s rising-star smoothies on one side, and its Seven Cafe logo on the other.
Things get more abstract with the plush 7-Eleven coffee cup charms…
…but then swing back to the extremely realistic side of things with towels with the same text and graphics as 7-Eleven’s popular Maru De (“just like the whole real thing”) series of frozen fruit ice bars.
The “Rubber Collection” category has an assortment of rubber coasters, key holders, cable ties, and hair clips…
…and you could be forgiven for thinking that 7-Eleven had run out of crazy ideas once you see the muted-color tote bags…
…but then you’d realize they hadn’t upon seeing the cuddly Chigiri Bread Cushion!
Chigiri bread is a kind of bread with a sweet filling and a pillowy soft texture. It’s baked in such a way that it almost looks like peas in a pod, so that you can tear off (chigiru in Japanese) individual pieces to share with friends, pace your snacking speed, or just for fun. Unlike the fried chicken skewer, the pieces of the chigiri bread plushie can’t actually separate from each other, but keeping them all together does mean that it’s always ready to be snuggled.
This Happy Kuji lineup is available at 7-Eleven Japan branches as of March 13, but if you can’t get to one right away, don’t lose hope. The chigiri bread plushie is the “last one” prize, meaning that it’s awarded as a bonus for whoever pulls the last available other-available prize at each branch, so even if you don’t show up early, you could still go home a big (bread) winner.
