Make your way over to any Japanese convenience store’s frozen dessert section, and you’ll almost certainly be greeted by the gigantic open-mouthed grin of Garigari-kun, the namesake of one of the country’s most popular ice creams.
With such an exhilarating package design, it’s hard to fight the curiosity as to what’s behind that enthusiastic smile.

Having been one of the top choices when it comes to frozen desserts for the past four decades, the ice cream brand has been celebrating their 40th anniversary with the release of several new flavours.
Throughout the course of the year we’ve welcomed in ginger ale, lemon squash and ume flavoured limited editions. But the fun hasn’t ended just yet, and from the 16th of November we will have yet another new pick: Otona Garigari-kun Mixed Berry.

Just like the previous editions of this year, the Otona Garigari-kun Mixed Berry flavour was decided upon within a special survey held by the ice cream’s manufacturer Akagi Nyugyo, as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations.

If you know even a smidgen of Japanese, then you may have recognised the word ‘Otona’, which translates as ‘Adult’. Normally the use of this word would denote that a food product contains alcohol or is bitter in flavour – in this case it’s the latter, with the ice cream consisting of a mixture of shaved ice and smooth ice cream, flavoured by real berry juice.

Garigari-kun Ume flavour ice cream

A mixed berry-flavoured popsicle, made with real fruit juices (Strawberry 5%, Raspberry 5%, Blueberry 1%)

Price: 100 yen (plus tax)
Calories: 78 kcal
Release date: 15 November 2021