A Taste of Summer in Japan – Manga Spice Cafe Box Review

Get a taste of summer in Japan with the specially curated box of fiery and magical manga and treats – Manga Spice Cafe Box Review

It might be December, but the Manga Spice Cafe Box #5 is filled with summer. Being a very casual manga/anime fan, and having never been to Japan, I have no real way of saying what a summer there is like. However, this box does scream summer for us here in the states. Let’s begin with the snacks in this box:

+ Bourbon Every Burger

+ Crown White Heim – White Hazelnut

+ Good Good Eat BBQ Cube

+ Hi-Chew Cherry Berry

+ Kasugai Pineapple Gummy

+ Coconut Ramune Soda

The Bourbon Every Burger and BBQ Cube represents the grill, the Hi-Chews, Pineapple Gummies, and Coconut Soda represent summer fruits and the Crown White Heim represent ice cream. This combination is brilliant. Food wise, it really hits the mark on what we generally think of summer food. The most unique of the snacks were the Good Good Eat BBQ Cubes. As a kid who has taken uncooked Top Ramen to school and ate the brick of noodles for lunch, this was a spectacular treat. The cubes are basically cut up pieces of uncooked ramen season with BBQ seasoning. The noodles in the cubes are much smaller than Top Ramen noodles, but the texture and crunch were just right. It’s a delicious snack with an amazing crunch that I need more of immediately. The Coconut Ramune was very lightly flavored, which made it seem like soda water with a hint of coconut. If you like flavored water, I think this is a good example of how to do coconut flavoring.

The mangas in the box, don’t quite hit the theme as much as the snacks do, but there is definitely a sort of adolescent freedom that is akin to summer vacation that ties them together.. The manga in this box are:

+ Black Clover Volume 1

+ Behind the Scenes!! Volume 1

+ Delicious in Dungeon Volume 1

Black Clover is a mix of Harry Potter and Naruto. It stars a troublemaking kid with boundless potential who’s rival is the obvious prodigy with equal potential. Behind the Scenes!! is my particular favorite of this bunch, because it features a teenager figuring out his passion in college. It hits pretty close to home and does a great job of exaggerating the situation for humor while remaining extremely relatable. Delcious in Dungeon I haven’t gotten all the way through yet, but from what I gathered from the information sheet and flipping through the pages, is that it is a manga that somehow makes black and white drawings of food look appetizing and make me hungry. What is even more impressive, is that the characters create the food from the mythical creatures in the dungeon. The connecting thread I get from these mangas is the rebellious spirit, which is the general feeling of summer vacation. No school, no rules, it’s your time, you’re going to live life your way.

This Manga Spice Cafe Box is packed the summer spirit with a Japanese/Manga twist. The snacks in the box are brilliantly selected to cover the spectrum of summer foods. Candy burgers and BBQ ramen to represent grilling in the summer. That is straight clever and cute. Plus the mangas that feature the rebellious protagonist that refuse to let their situation control them and instead decide to change the system their way. It really is a masterfully curated summer box. My only negatives are that there are not enough drinks to last through the snacks. Which is asking a lot, but that’s the only thing I could think of after finishing the BBQ Cubes and the Ramune. But, as a fan of food, a fan of manga, and a fan of cleverness, my Manga Spice Cafe Box Review gets a 5/5.