Best Japanese Snacks

Last Updated: Feb 12, 2021 @ 2:12 pm.

Best Japanese Snack Variety Pack: Tonosoma Candy’s 30 piece Japanese Candy Assortment

Before you order any of these Japanese snack boxes, a word of caution: since these snacks are authentic and sourced from Japan, there is often no allergen warning info in English. If you have food allergies, we do not recommend eating these snacks!

After testing a few different options, we pick Tonosoma’s 30 piece candy assortment as the best bet for Japanese snacks—especially if you’d like to try it out or for a party. The box arrived with out damage and inside was this package of snacks:

Here’s what the snacks look like when you take them out of the package:

One key note: the snacks vary from box to box, so what you see above may not be in the box you get. From what we can tell from our research, contents are similar from box to box but not exactly the same.

Also: you can see the size of the snacks—using the small bag of chips at the top  of the picture, you can see most of the candies are bite-size in portion. Some you can share, some not!

Here’s more on what we liked this choice:

What We Liked

• Nice mix of sweet and savory snacks. 

• Fun for parties—try to figure out what flavors are what. And for the brave, try the fish-flavored snacks. While we liked a majority of the snacks, some are a, uh, acquired taste!

• Affordable.

What Needs Work

• Bring on the funk. Apparently, fish flavored snacks are a big thing in Japan. You’ve been warned.

• Arrives in a bag, not a box. Even though the item is shown with a box, we just got a bag of snacks. So if you are giving these as a gift, the box is BYOB.

• Shipping damage. As you can see from the above picture, some of the snacks arrive with a bit of damage—note the green cookie at the bottom is split in two. This didn’t bother us, but we can see how it would bother some.

• Inconsistent selection. If you have your heart set on a particular Japanese snack, this variety pack isn’t the best way to go. Contents will vary. From our point of view, that is part of the fun.

Best Japanese Snacks Sweet/Savory: Ohimesama 35 piece Dagashi Snack Assortment

For sweet and savory snacks, we liked Ohimesama’s 35 piece snack assortment. Here’s more:

What We Liked

• Fun variety.

• Larger quantity of snacks than other boxes. 

What Needs Work

• No English ingredient listings. But that is true for all of the Japanese snack boxes we tried (except for the one below).

• May contain nuts.

• Some snacks get crushed in shipping. We didn’t see that in the box we tested, but we see reports to that effect.

• Small bite size packages. But that is true for most Japanese snack variety packs!

• Some repeat snacks. Of course, that isn’t a negative if you like the repeated snack!

Best Japanese Snacks Subscription Box: Bokksu Authentic Japanese Snack & Candy Subscription

If you like the Japanese snack thing but wish the snacks came in bigger sizes, a subscription box is probably the best answer. Bokksu’s subscription box is the one we’d recommend. Here’s why:

What We Liked

• Higher quality, larger sizes. Most sampler packs like the ones we review above have inexpensive snacks, which are fine. But if you want bigger sizes and upgraded quality, this is a better bet.

• 20-25 snacks per box. Sweet and savory, plus some other items like tea.

• Included culture guide discusses each item’s origin, flavor and allergens. That’s something you don’t get with one-off variety packs!

• Ships direct from Japan.

What’s Needs Work

• Pricey.

• Cancellation through Amazon only.

• Not a lot of variety from month to month.

Best Japanese Snacks Subscription Box, Largest Assortment: Ohimesama 40 piece Japanese Snack Assortment

If you are planning to have a snack box as entertainment at a party, you might consider a box with a larger assortment. Of the options, we thought Ohimesama’s 40 piece offering gives a good bang for the buck! Here’s more.

What We Liked

• Nice variety of snacks.

• Affordable.

What’s Needs Work

• Most items are bite size and not big enough to share.

• Some repeated items.

• Seafood flavors are an acquired taste!

Why Trust Us

We’ve been rating and reviewing products for families (and mom and dad) since 1994. We do hands-on testing—we buy the products with our own money and evaluate with an eye toward quality and affordability.

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