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The story
It’s been reported that starting September 22, Lawson will roll out 13 bento products, including a “Single-Focus Deluxe!” (“Itten Toppa Sugi!”) lineup that cuts costs by up to 50% by limiting each box to just one topping. A thread went up on 5channel’s game hardware board with photos of bentos topped with nothing but sausage or corn, and commenters quickly pushed back on the framing — the thread presented it as a “poverty” story without mentioning that a pricier “Too Luxurious!” (“Zeitaku Sugi!”) line, packed with more and better ingredients, was launching at the very same time. The conversation then broadened into gripes about rising prices more generally, with posters pointing to everyday changes like shrinking convenience-store rice balls and different banana varieties — producing reactions that went well beyond a simple “Japan is getting poorer” narrative.
What people said
https://www.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2141393.html
Anyone who thinks this counts as "too luxurious" has some seriously questionable standards, no?
Now that you put it that way, fair point.
Do you seriously not know how small convenience-store onigiri from the big three chains are these days…?
Even the cheap bananas at the supermarket have gotten smaller.
Bananas used to be thick and impressive back in the day.
And the country of origin's shifted too — away from banana giants like the Philippines and Taiwan,
toward Cambodia and Vietnam, wherever the currency is weaker.
That's the worst take here, lol.
People do use them — that's exactly why they sell it…
This is what happens when you don't spend money OR use your brain.
Supermarkets and drugstores are basically always cheaper anyway.
That's a wild, larger-than-life poverty take, lol (a riff on "Attack on Titan").
The real deal has salt visibly crystallizing on the surface, you know.
Even the "big" one is still just palm-sized.
The regular ones are way worse.
That's how Japan makes its comeback.
You've got my vote.
That's god-tier, I'm dying of laughter.
They lose their minds over what's just one option among many, so that's probably accurate.
Re: #64
If your standard of living were actually high, I doubt you'd be eating this in the first place.
Don't blow a gasket over it, lol.
Honestly I wish they'd just leave some empty space next to the bento so you could stuff in salad or Karaage-kun yourself.
Seriously?
If you're gonna buy this, wouldn't frozen mazesoba be the better pick?
That's like 298 yen, if I remember right.
This is exactly the kind of thing you use to burn through a QUO card you got as a shareholder perk. (QUO Card: a prepaid gift card commonly given out as a Japanese shareholder benefit.)
Wash your rice, then throw in salt, pepper, a bit of butter, corn, pork, and onion or scallion if you like —
hit cook and go!
That stuff's loaded with additives that are bad for you, though.
Convenience store? Or a family restaurant?
Probably some middle-aged person who got that idea drilled into them by TV or something.
Background and Key Points
The story originates from a report by Impress Watch on Lawson’s new product lineup: 13 bento items launching at once, split between the budget “Single-Focus Deluxe!” line, which cuts costs by limiting each box to one topping, and the pricier “Too Luxurious!” line, which does the opposite by piling on more ingredients. The thread singled out only the cheaper line and framed it as a story about poverty, which is what sparked the pushback — commenters pointed out that the “Too Luxurious!” line was listed right alongside it, so why leave that out? From there the discussion broadened into everyday examples of price hikes and shrinkflation, like the size of convenience-store rice balls and shifts in banana varieties. It’s worth noting that the “things are smaller than they used to be” impressions shared here are personal anecdotes, not figures drawn from consistent statistics. Some comments also touched on politics and currency policy, but those have been left out of this writeup since they lean toward judgments of specific parties or politicians.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5channel (Hardware/Industry (Game Hardware)) thread “[Sad News] Japan Has Gotten So Poor That Bentos Topped With Just Sausage or Corn Are Now a Thing“.
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