Coin-Op

Growing up in the pre-internet world, where media consumption pretty much meant taking whatever you were served, my exposure to Japanese culture was limited. On TV there were a few children's shows — such as Star Fleet and Battle of the Planets — but by far my greatest contact came through arcade machines. I wasted many a happy hour down the amusements, shovelling coins into games by Taito and Namco. Which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to do with my recently-developed obsession with Japanese vending machines, but makes for a nice little segue none the less.

It's probably not too much of an overstatement to say that vending machines are everywhere in Tokyo. You can't walk more than 50 meters in any direction with coming across a small cluster of them. At one point, wandering around what I'm sure were residential backstreets, I found one stood at the bottom of someone's drive. In fact, about the only place they were missing was along the posh shopping streets of glitzy Ginza — but even here they weren't far off, tucked away inside lobbies and around the corner in side streets.

You really can't argue with that

So what do these machines vend? Well, drinks, mainly. I became particularly partial to Suntory Boss cafe au lait. This comes out of the machine hot, and is a sweet, milky coffee — imagine instant coffee made with evaporated milk. It makes for both a great drink and a handy handwarmer. And, well... who could argue with the endorsement?

Your savoury options seem to be limited to a choice of the yellow and pink cans shown below. The yellow is a sweetcorn soup, served hot, which was actually quite nice. I would definitely try it again. The pink one — which I had hoped would be some kind of chilled pudding — was warm and labelled "Sweet Red Bean Broth". No. Very much no.

Left to right: Yes; No

Machines vending food were rare. I think I only ever saw three of them. One sold a kind of cake bar like a dry brownie called vegestick which tasted of orange chocolate and was absolutely delicious. I wish I could remeber where I found it — a Metro station platform somewhere, I think. Another sold boxes of nibbles with a lumberjack theme and absolutely no English anywhere on the packaging. I took a chance — there was always the possibility that they were dishwasher tablets or plant food — and they turned out to be little biscuit and chocolate concoctions and, again, utterly lovely. (In my extensive testing, I can safely say that chocolate in Japan seems far more like its British equivalents than European or US chocy does.) The final snack I tried was from a vending machine in the airport departure lounge. It was called soyjoy and was heavy on the former with no evidence of the latter. Best to avoid.

The exception to the no food rule were the restaurants where you paid for your meal via vending machine. This is another example of the strange over-staffing which I noted in an earlier post. The major domo of the establishment would hover near the machine, offering advice as you inserted your money and pressed the button showing what you wanted to each. The machine would then vend a tiny slip of paper, which you would hand (two handed), to said major domo. The slip went to the kitchen staff, and a few minutes later your freshly microwaved meal would be brought to you at your table. It's like it was designed for gaijin who couldn't be bothered to learn any of the language before visiting.

(Of course, you could always fall back to buying dinner from convenience stores, where the age-old language of choosing stuff from shelves according to what it looks like is spoken. For what it's worth, I would probably rate Seven-Eleven > FamilyMart > Lawson's, particularly when it comes to baked goods. I was kicking myself for not trying a Japanese sandwich, but then we got served one — of the same brand and in the same packaging as I'd seen on the store shelves — on the plane home. A valiant effort, all things considered, but only white bread was offered and that was a little on the spongy side, and they really need to work on adding more filling.)

Finally, no discussion of Japanese vending machines would be complete without mention of the apocryphal panties vending machine. All I can say is, if they exist, I never saw them.