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A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

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Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#41

Post by makeitdouble »

lmm wrote: post #10
creamyhorror wrote: post #8

It's always bittersweet when I visit Japan and come across old establishments or traditions that an ageing proprietor or volunteers are trying to keep going. You can see the love and spirit they have for it, but it often looks like something too disconnected from the interests of young people and the vicissitudes of the changing economy to survive for much longer. A kissaten (old-style cafe) owner in Nagasaki who sha…

Meh. Dagashi are... not great. (And frankly the same is true of jazz). You can get nicer stuff from any 7-eleven, consistently, and whether the staff member cares is (thankfully) not really relevant. Stores that sell something people actually want can and do thrive (by charging a premium if necessary), and that includes a lot of traditions that people value because they're traditional, but when it comes to something…

Dagashi is aimed at kids, so the tastes can be a bit ..."primitive".

To me main appeal is to have a lot of choice of cheap stuff that can be bought with allowances (convenience store have better quality goods, but in smaller quantities and smaller choice). It feels a lot different to buy a small bag of stuff for 500y instead of 2 candy bars.

I don't think it will die of irrelevance, more sadly, it will come from how skewed the population is getting, and anything targeted to kids is bound to slowly atrophy and become a smaller and smaleer niche.

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#42

Post by b112 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #40
b112 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Way to paint a one-sided picture and make this a socialism VS capitalism debate.

Yet the comment I responded to, did quite the same, speaking of the statement(anti-profit) as "insight", eg wisdom.

But you cannot remove profit as a motivator in a capitalistic society, without finding a viable replacement, for wealth accumulation has directive goals. EG, successful entrepreneurs become focal points, and help direct resource allocation for future endeavors.

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#43

Post by zelphirkalt »

b112 wrote: post #42
zelphirkalt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to paint a one-sided picture and make this a socialism VS capitalism debate.

Yet the comment I responded to, did quite the same, speaking of the statement(anti-profit) as "insight", eg wisdom. But you cannot remove profit as a motivator in a capitalistic society, without finding a viable replacement, for wealth accumulation has directive goals. EG, successful entrepreneurs become focal points, and help direct resource allocation for future endeavors.

My comment did not even mention socialism, capitalism and whatnot. And yes, I see it as an insight, when people realize, that life is not about personal profit maximization. And no, that does not equal socialism or capitalism or even anti-capitalism.

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#44

Post by Aethelwulf »

Tade0 wrote: post #36
reaperman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have misunderstood this: > a jazz bar owner in Sasebo Where I’m from, that implies nightly live jazz performances from relatively to extremely talented musicians. I have never been to Japan, so I was unaware that I probably am missing context.

I would also assume that if something is called a "jazz bar", then there would be live jazz music there.

The previous poster was most likely referring to an establishment in the tradition of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_kissa

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#45

Post by kizunajp »

GaggiX wrote: post #24

I knew about Dagashi thanks to the manga Dagashi Kashi; you can also see one of the main characters on the left of Hideyuki Akiyama.

Yes! They have recreated the shop from the manga Dagashi Kashi (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagashi_Kashi)

Their site is unfortunately completely and only in Japanese but scroll to the middle of the page and look for a section with number ④ for more photos of the corner: https://ohmachi-site.co.jp/floor/

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#46

Post by kizunajp »

resolutebat wrote: post #9
sedatk wrote: post #6

Why is "Dagashi" in quotes here while it's not in the original article? The quotes imply faux-Dagashi or a tongue-in-cheek reference, or something like that.

It's a little old-fashioned now, but quotation marks can also be used when you're quoting another language, especially a word you don't expect readers to understand. Many tourists in Istanbul visit a "hamam", or Turkish bath. These days italics are more common, but the usage makes sense here because italics are unlikely to survive copy-pasting a title.

This was exactly my thought process when I added quotes around dagashi in the title. Also why all mentions of dagashi are in italics in the article.

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#47

Post by wrp »

makeitdouble wrote: post #38
creamyhorror wrote: post #8

It's always bittersweet when I visit Japan and come across old establishments or traditions that an ageing proprietor or volunteers are trying to keep going. You can see the love and spirit they have for it, but it often looks like something too disconnected from the interests of young people and the vicissitudes of the changing economy to survive for much longer. A kissaten (old-style cafe) owner in Nagasaki who sha…

Yes. A seldom discussed aspect of this is the ability to open a business in a residential area. Many of these small self-owned shop are the first floor of a house or building, and more often than not the owner lives upstairs, so it's less of an issue to keep it open with low frequentation as they're no paying extra rent or suffering hours of transit to get there. That also tremendously helps with the community aspect…

I lived in Tokyo and it was years ago, so I don't know if I'm describing the current situation. It was very common to see largish buildings in residential areas which would have some barely functioning retail shop on the ground floor. Some elderly relative of the building owner would maintain the shop, and would have practically nothing to do since the shop got almost no business. I heard the whole motivation for this setup was that the building owner got a significant tax break for keeping the shop open. Income from the shop was not considered.

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#48

Post by suoduandao2 »

danielscrubs wrote: post #15
okdood64 wrote: post #5

It's incredible how much high quality restaurant food, groceries and snacks like these that Japan has had for a relatively low price as compared to other wealthy nations. It was quite noticeable for me the last 2 times I went to Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka, as a visitor from the US, that food costs were pretty much never an issue. I guess the dollar being strong has something to do with that.

I got the feeling it has to do with rent and taxes, owning your own establishment helps. Being able to keep open even with few customers would drain all your resources within the same year in my city, but you hear these stories of businesses keeping open in Japan with prime real estate just because. I like that a lot, instead of the “everything is a chain” where I live. Im not sure why real estate moguls don’t have a…

I always thought it was the shrinking population

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#49

Post by modernpink »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #31

> When asked about the future of the business, Hideyuki says he has no intention of doing business (in pursuit of profits) at all. He believes businesses exist to serve society and contribute back to people in the community. That they make profits are merely a side effect and that somewhere along the line the side effect became the main goal. If only more had his insight.

I, and many economists, would argue that the price signal, profit and "serving society" are more tightly interwound than many like Hideyuki are mislead to believe.

Re: A peek inside Japan's largest “Dagashi” store

#50

Post by kizunajp »

lmm wrote: post #10
creamyhorror wrote: post #8

It's always bittersweet when I visit Japan and come across old establishments or traditions that an ageing proprietor or volunteers are trying to keep going. You can see the love and spirit they have for it, but it often looks like something too disconnected from the interests of young people and the vicissitudes of the changing economy to survive for much longer. A kissaten (old-style cafe) owner in Nagasaki who sha…

Meh. Dagashi are... not great. (And frankly the same is true of jazz). You can get nicer stuff from any 7-eleven, consistently, and whether the staff member cares is (thankfully) not really relevant. Stores that sell something people actually want can and do thrive (by charging a premium if necessary), and that includes a lot of traditions that people value because they're traditional, but when it comes to something…

Tastes are obviously subjective, but for what it's worth it's not like 7-11 does not sell a subset of the same dagashi mentioned in the article.

I did like the low-carb versions of things like chocolate cake they rolled out and in general they have a wonderful line of sweets: https://www-sej-co-jp.translate.goog/products/a/7premium/cat...

Lawson and FamilyMart have great sweets too.

Japanese convenience stores, to me, are fascinating. I could write a whole long form piece just on convenience stores if that sounds interesting to anyone.

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