Sunday, February 01, 2026

Family Mart Line Socks

Family Mart Line Socks ファミリーマートソックス

Convenience stores are ubiquitous in Japan. In large cities you won't have to walk for more than a minute or two to reach the nearest konbini as they are called in Japan, the countryside is also dotted with them.

Convenience stores are generally open 24/7, in smaller towns they may be the only option to buy food, beer or cigarettes late at night. There, they are islands of light and warmth in a cold winter night.

The food on sale ranges from heated nikuman pork buns to bento boxes to onigiri rice balls to sandwiches to a large variety of snacks. Cheese tara are always on offer. The coffee is freshly brewed on site.

You can pay your bills at the counter. Yes, those electricity bills, etc. arriving at your home mailbox. You can ship packages from convenience stores, you can buy concert tickets there.

The ATMs at the convenience stores are usually the only ones processing foreign credit cards late at night, thus providing cash to foreign visitors at all times. Cash often needed at those cozy izakaya bars where cards are rarely accepted.

In short, Japanese convenience stores offer crucial lifelines at all times, even if all you need is a free, clean toilet or a free WiFi connection.

There are three major convenience store chains in Japan: Seven Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson. They all offer the same services, some details differ.

Family Mart

The Family Mart chain for example is famous for their roasted chicken, known as Famichiki.

Family Mart is the second largest of the three chains (Seven Eleven is the largest) and it has been an innovator in the industry since its inception.

The first Family Mart opened in 1973 near Iriso Station in Sayama City, just north of Tokyo. In the heart of the Sayama Tea area.

Today, Family Mart operates about 16,4000 stores in Japan and another 8,000 or so in foreign markets like Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, there are close to 3000 stores in mainland China alone.

Family Mart Apparel

What of the above makes Family Mart a fashion hub, though, you may rightly ask. Maybe a place to buy some fresh socks after a long hike in summer but not much more?

For decades, it was exactly like that. But then, Family Mart shifted gears. Fashion was to become one of their trademarks.

Basic fashion, of course, things residents and visitors alike needed quickly and on a daily basis. Like, yes, socks.

In 2021, Family Mart teamed up with Tokyo designer Hiromichi Ochiai and tasked him with a fashion line fitting the Family Mart image.

Family Mart Line Socks

Ochiai started out with the by now iconic Family Mart Line Socks. Thick unisex white socks made of wool and polyester, antibacterial and deodorizing, featuring towards their calf ends the green and blue lines that mark every Family Mart store.

People familiar with Family Mart (virtually everybody in Japan) would immediately recognize the source of the the socks. No logo was needed to achieve this effect.

Covid

The socks hit the shelves at the height of the Covid pandemic. It was a time when shopping trips went down to the barest minimum. People tried to avoid crowded trains, crowded department stores and so on and reduced their shopping to small stores in their immediate environs as much as possible.

Getting on a train to buy socks was out of the question. Many went to the convenience stores looking for reliable daily-use products beyond food and stationery.

That Family Mart was suddenly offering cheap, warm quality socks with a simple but easily recognizable design was greatly helpful at the time. People snapped them up and started to write about them on their blogs and in their discussion forums, creating quite a hype.

Convenience Wear

Meanwhile, Hiromichi Ochiai had bigger plans. In collaboration with Family Mart, he started a new fashion brand named Convenience Wear.

He designed towels, underwear, boxer shorts, T-shirts, sweat shirts, tank tops, hoodies, cardigans and even light jackets. All in basic black or white with a few sparse color lines thrown in. All quality products. Simple, durable, convenient.

If anyone wanted to, it would be possible to almost completely dress in Family Mart / Ochiai's Convenience Wear items.

Seasonal & Regional Products

Family Mart and Ochiai quickly understood that with the big fan base that had built up on the original Line Socks, seasonal and regional variations were to become much sought-after products.

That's exactly the way they went. Offering Line Socks with the colors of the lines geared towards the season, offering special editions for, say, the Fuji Rock Festival, as well as special editions for different regions. They also went into partnerships with the Simpsons and other major pop cultural players.

All of that of course being a tried and tested concept in Japan, best known in the food and snack sector.

It worked out with the Line Socks just as well, with fans searching out all the different varieties.

Foreign Visitors

Once the Covid pandemic was over, millions of foreign visitors entered Japan again. Soon more than ever before, lured by a cheap Yen and government policies focusing on aggressive tourist promotion.

The number of foreign visitors went through the roof. They are still getting higher year by year, all records are constantly broken.

Wherever those visitors are coming from, whatever their way of traveling is (tour group or individual?), they will all end up visiting a number of convenience stores during their stay in Japan.

Stores, they will tell stories about to their friends back home. Those always open, always reliable stores found to be everywhere.

Many of those visitors decided to buy their travel souvenirs right there at the convenience store rather than searching for something meaningful at a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine.

The Family Mart Line Socks quickly caught their eyes. They were useful, they were easy to pack into the suitcase even in big amounts, they were profoundly Japanese. Insignias of the modern Japan. Easy and convenient gifts or memories.

That foreign visitors picked up the Family Mart Line Socks in such a great number led eventually major news outlets like the BBC in Britain and CNN in America to investigate the matter … publishing major online texts that further enhanced sales among visitors.

Whatever their wording, those news outlets all agreed on one basic thing: that, yes, the Family Mart Line Socks made great souvenirs / gift. Easy to purchase, convenient, useful, stylish… and absolutely Japanese.

Buy Iconic Convenience Socks from Japan

Goods from Japan offers a variety of Japanese clothing including tabi socks and tabi shoes.

Family Mart Line Socks in White & Black

Japanese gunsoku socks

Charcoal tabi socks

Purchase a range of Japanese footwear from GoodsFromJapan.

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by Johannes Schonherr

Friday, January 23, 2026

Japan's Longest Day Book Review

Japan Book Review: Japan's Longest Day: Intrigue, Treason and Emperor Hirohito's Fateful Decision to Surrender

Japan's Longest Day

by Kazutoshi Hando and Yukinobu Hoshino

ISBN: 978-4-8053-1779-2
Tuttle Publishing, 2023 (English version)
480 pp; paperback

In the closing days of World War II, a few days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had completely eviscerated any faint hopes that Japan could win or even continue the war, the Japanese cabinet met to discuss and vote on the surrender of Japan and acceptance of the conditions set out in the Potsdam Conference. The vote was a tie, and nobody knew what to do or what was next.

Finally, Emperor Hirohito took decisive action, telling the cabinet members that the war had been lost and Japan would agree to the surrender terms. The fighting would end.

However, not everyone agree. In fact, some high-ranking military leaders decided to try to overthrow Hirohito and his planned surrender, continuing the war until every single Japanese was dead, if necessary. That was the only "honorable" possibility. Known historically as the Kyujo Incident, Japan's Longest Day is about this incident.

The day in question was August 14-15, 1945. Hirohito's recorded announcement of surrender was to be played on the 15th. On the night of the 14th Major Kenji Hatanaka and his men spent several hours searching for Hirohito's recording, a recording which was to be played for the nation at noon the next day. Unable to find the recording, the men occupied the NHK Building in an attempt to prevent the broadcast. Hatanaka had support from some factions of the military, but not quite enough to complete his coup. He abandoned the idea, went outside and killed himself.
It is important to know that while the general story is fairly well documented, parts of this graphic novel are speculation. The author opines that Hirohito had been blackmailed from the start to not oppose the war, even though he was generally against it. Potential historical reasons are given.

Two movies have been made about the Kyujo story: The 1967 film entitled, "Japan's Longest Day" and the 2015 film entitled, "The Emperor in August." Both movies are done in Japanese.

The overly picky could point out a few minor annoyances with the manga. First, there are half a dozen or so typos. Secondly, and perhaps it is a necessity and not an annoyance, is that the reader is swamped with many names and titles to keep straight.

One interesting touch is that the manga opens backwards from Western tomes, meaning the spine is on the right, not the left; so, the manga opens like old-style Japanese books did. This add to the authentic Japanese feeling of the manga, which was originally published in Japanese.

Japan's Longest Day is a gripping look at the anatomy of political decision-making under extreme duress. It shows that wars' conclusions can be as perilous and uncertain as wars' geneses. History buffs will be intrigued.

Review by Marshall Hughes, author of Rural Reflections: What 11 Years in Provincial Japan Taught Me.

Buy this book from Amazon USA | UK | Japan

Looking to buy Japanese things directly from Japan? GoodsFromJapan is here to help.

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Saturday, January 03, 2026

Ishigaki Sea Salt Okinawa Japan

The Taste of the Southern Seas - Ishigaki Sea Salt 石垣島

History | Okinawa | Buy Ishigaki Sea Salt

by Johannes Schonherr

Ishigaki Sea Salt, harvested from the crystal clear waters of Nagura Bay on the subtropical island of Ishigaki in the far southwest of Japan is a strong-tasting, mineral-rich salt bringing the fragrance of Japan's southern seas right to your palate.

The fragrance of a southern island famous for its coral waters, fresh seafood but also for the beef raised further inland. It's a very fine, powder-like salt produced in a small local facility - but wait, maybe we should give the salt a bit of historical context first.

Ishigaki coastline, Okinawa

History

Driving around the Japanese countryside, you sometimes spot a vintage grocery store proudly displaying the words 酒タバコ塩 in a prominent spot next to the name of the business. Those words mean "liquor, tobacco, salt". They also signify that the business had its full accreditation afforded by the government since liquor, tobacco, and salt were under strict state control.

While this is still the case with liquor and tobacco, the Japanese government eventually relaxed the regulations in the case of salt. In 1997, the government lifted all restrictions.

Ishigaki sea salt factory

Soon, small privately-owned sea salt processing facilities sprang up all along Japan's coasts. Stop at any rural seaside michi-no-eki (roadside rest house featuring a permanent and often quite large local farmer's market) and you will find packages of the locally produced sea salt.

From Okhotsk Sea Salt on the northern shore of Hokkaido taken from the waters bordering Siberia all the way down the non-industrial areas of the Sea of Japan coast to Kyushu. There, Amakusa Sea Salt from the Amakusa Islands in Nagasaki is especially sort after. The scenic Japanese Inland Sea has its very own culture of producing sea salt and so does Okinawa.

With that great diversification of locally produced salts, soon a Japanese salt gourmet culture sprang up. People began to compare which salt fitted which dishes best. Salt aficionados took long tours to visit famous salt spots to build up salt collections for their kitchens - so they could choose which salt to use for which dish.

Salt cooker and salt processing by hand

Okinawa

Okinawa became the center of this salt-sampling culture. Paradise Plan, a small company producing especially mild sea salt in a flaky form named Yukishio (Snow Salt) on the island of Miyakojima, was the first to act on the trend. They opened a store named Masuya (salt store) in Naha, the capital of Okinawa, offering 120 kinds of salt sourced worldwide.

From Himalayan rock salt to North American and Mediterranean to obscure stone salts hammered out of the Argentinian Andes, the Naha Masuya had it all. Still, their focus was on local Okinawa salts. By now, you can find Masuya salt stores in Tokyo and other major Japanese cities, employing salt sommeliers who take care of all your salty needs.

Salt cleaning by hand

Ishigaki Sea Salt

One of the most featured salts in any Masuya store is Ishigaki no Shio, Ishigaki Sea Salt from the island of Ishigaki in the Yaeyama archipelago in southern Okinawa.

Located close to Taiwan, Ishigaki has its very own traditional culture. The Yaeyama Islands were once home to 13 different languages, most of them today being considered extinct or close to it.

Walking through the market in Ishigaki City, however, you will overhear plenty of frantic haggling using speech that is decidedly neither Japanese nor Chinese. Those market ladies still make good use of those old languages academic linguists keep worrying about.

Sun drying Ishigaki salt

Enter Tokuhide Togo, a native of the island. A former diver, he was always interested in what the sea had to offer. After the liberation of the salt law in 1997, he turned his occasional experiments with extracting salt from the sea into a business.

Togo's Ishigaki Salt has a much stronger taste than the Miyakojima salt and is a fine powder, applicable to everyday use and simply called Ishigaki no Shio (Ishigaki Salt).

Visitors to the small factory are welcome. There is a small on-site store selling not only the salt in its various forms but also sweets produced using the salt. Delicious stuff. Ishigaki salt cookies are highly recommended.

Ishigaki Sea Salt production steps

A diagram explains, in brief, the patented manufacturing method of the salt: seawater is taken from the bay, sand and stones are filtered out, the water is collected in a tank. The water gets evaporated, thus concentrating the salt. The salt is dried in a sunlit room. Then, it's on to packing and the product is ready for sale.

Pipes take fresh water from the sea

A large glass front gives you a peek inside the main processing room where you can see workers in protective gear handle the salt. Stroll down to the shore. There you see two pipes leading into the clean natural bay. Those are the pipes that take the seawater in for salt production. In the far distance, you see another, smaller but hilly island. To the right, you can see the Omoto-dake, at 526 meters the highest mountain in all of Okinawa. From there, the Nagura River flows down into the sea, assuring a constant cleaning of the water in the bay. Quite a peaceful scenery.

Purchase Ishigaki salt from GoodsFromJapan.com

Buy Ishigaki Sea Salt

While a visit to the Ishigaki Sea Salt factory is highly recommended, you can easily buy the salt online from Goods from Japan.

If you are interested in other Japanese sea salts as well, building up a small collection for your kitchen, Goods from Japan will cater to all your needs. Just contact us, we are more than happy to help.