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| Pocky |
It's Eleven Eleven today and do you know what day it is? Nope, you're wrong because eleven eleven in the calendar is known as Pocky Day or if you're in Korea, Pepero Day, which is more of a copy cat of Pocky but only Korean. Anyway, while I'm not into the whole Pepero stuff, let's talk about the one thing most geeks often bought at supermarkets or at conventions.
Pocky. Hmmm...What is a Pocky? Well, everyone knows that Pocky is a stick of chocolate and we all love it because, yes, most anime characters eaten one of these. I can't even believe that Pocky is nothing more of every anime otaku's favorite snack and when I search through the Pocky tags, chances are that I might be encountering tons of anime stuff regarding Pocky. Pocky and anime, huh? Too common but this is worth a spit take to me. Why is Pocky is still part of the anime culture? Nobody knows but this is too much for me because whenever I see people at the convention bought some Pocky, I know that Pocky is a "geek food" of today or probably anime that fueled geeks to buy some Pocky.
Anyway, since how did this Pocky stuff began? Well, back in 1966, Glico, the Japanese company behind this, created Pocky and claimed that this is the world's first chocolate stick snack. The concept for this snack is to create a snack with a handle and after numerous trial and error process, Pocky is the first snack that has a handle because why? The lower portion remain uncoated.
Another fact why they called it Pocky is because of the sound full of bite and Pocky was derived by the onomatopoeic snapping sound made while eating it - pokkin pokkin - to the Japanese ear. Well, it all makes sense now why they called it Pocky probably because of that but never mind about that.
For almost five decades, Pocky keeps on evolving and as of now, Pocky not only offers a chocolate or strawberry but in Japan, they have tons of flavors from past to present. I can't think of any flavor Japanese Pocky had but no matter the flavor, it's still a Pocky so let's go deeper to this mystery.
There is a main reason why Eleven Eleven is called Pocky day is because of the stick which resembles the number 11 and along with its brother, Pretz, November 11 every year is Pocky day and in Japan, Pocky and Pretz fans took part on special events to celebrate that occasion. Sounds lovely but here in the internet world, the only thing that is more onto this Eleven Eleven stuff is looking through tons of anime photos with Pocky with it and that's annoying. Gosh...Can I look of just one photo of a real Pocky, not anime-related Pocky stuff? Please... Anime and Pocky don't mix but sadly they do and there's so many stuff that anime and Pocky DID mixed it up.
Back to the Eleven Eleven stuff and here's a fast trivia that on that day, Pocky is the most tweeted brand in the world and in the past, Pocky broke the world record by 1,843,733 tweets within the 24-hour period. No wonder the whole world loves Pocky as much as I do.
But still, the world record recognition isn't the least of my problems here because I'm still in the problem that why anime and Pocky always mixed to the highest magnitude and tell you why, when you see anime characters eating that delicious chocolate stick snack you know as Pocky, you really wanted to have one and when you do, you always think that when you have a Pocky, you really are an anime otaku but...how can Pocky make you an anime otaku? It's just a snack you know, not a prop or some sort of a bargaining material.
Pocky, a Japanese snack that once had a humble beginning, ended up became part of the anime culture because when anime sees Pocky, otaku wants one for the fun of it.
Official Pocky global site:
http://pocky.glico.com/
Japanese Pocky site:
http://pocky.jp/index.html
Glico Thailand site:
http://www.thaiglico.com/
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