- [George] From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences
between Pocky in Japan and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In Japan, our Pocky comes in a 72-gram box
which contains two packets and a nine-pack.
(Pocky wrapper crinkles)
- Our Pocky's come in basically three sizes.
The one 1.14-ounce box, the 2.47-ounce box,
and the 4.13-ounce boxy bag.
But our strawberry-flavored box is smaller
than this chocolate box.
This is a 3.81-ounce box,
which is 0.32 ounces smaller than this one.
Largest box bag is this, the Cookies & Cream flavor,
which is 4.57 ounces
or 0.44 grams larger than the chocolate box.
One theory, my theory,
is that the Pocky boxes contain a specific number
of Pocky sticks
and each Pocky is a different weight
based on the flavor coating.
So we're gonna weigh each Pocky individually
to see if this is true.
All right, chocolate first.
So seven of these are 13 grams. Can someone write that down?
Strawberry, seven is 13 grams.
Was that what the first one was? Okay.
Cookies & Cream!
Cookies & Cream, seven of them are 18 grams.
Well, the Cookies & Cream ones are definitely a lot heavier.
A lot heavier.
(Joe chomping)
Mm!
- So let's see how many Pocky are in a box.
(George counting in Japanese)
(audio chirping)
32, 33, 34.
Thirty-four Pocky in total.
So one packet has 17 Pocky
and another one also has 17 Pocky.
- Let's see how many Pocky's are in this box.
(Pocky wrapper crinkles)
(exhales) Oh, man.
Is this normal?
I think I can kind of like,
do you wanna get a close-up on there before?
So one, two, three, those are the broken ones.
(audio chirping)
30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36.
You know how everyone was complaining about
how I eat Kit-Kats in the Kit-Kat episode?
(suspenseful music)
(Joe chomps)
(Joe chewing)
Mm!
(upbeat music)
Here's all the Pocky's that are native to the US
that are not in Japan.
- And here are all the Pocky's native to Japan.
- Cookies & Cream, Cookies & Cream.
Not a solid block, so that's good.
(Pocky wrapper crinkles)
(Joe chomping)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mm!
I like those.
This looks like fun, Yuelei.
Chocolate Banana, have you had these before?
You have?
No, mm-mm.
That banana flavor hits right away.
Oh, no.
Matcha green tea.
Any "Food Wars" heads watching know,
Joe does not like matcha.
Mm, smells like a freshly-cut lawn.
(lawnmower rumbles)
(Joe chomps)
Yeah, nah.
There's also a Crunchy Strawberry flavor you can get here
in the US,
but I was not able to get my hands on it
by the time of filming this episode.
So here's just regular strawberry.
Uh-oh.
Oh, another solid block.
Yeah.
(Joe chomps) (audience gasps)
Mm, yeah, dude.
Put me in jail for crimes against Pocky's.
- George's energy.
Bong, let's go!
All right, let's start with this one.
We have Pocky Luxury Milk Chocolate.
(laughs) Is it Pocky?
You look like corn dog.
What happened to you?
Hmm.
It's got milk and fermented butter flavor.
And we have another corn dog.
It's a Almond Milk flavor.
(George speaks in Japanese)
Mm.
It has strong almond milk flavor.
I prefer this one, the milk chocolate,
but both are so short.
You should be longer.
(whistle screeches)
You too!
We have this ultra-thin Pocky.
Oh. (laughs)
You are so thin this time.
This one is short.
This one is so thin.
We have Tasty.
Why is it Tasty?
Oh, fermented butter is used for this stick.
Ooh.
(George chomps)
It's got just a little bit of butter flavor.
I still prefer this one, this corn dog.
Almond Crush.
It's a little different. Look at the packets.
Yeah, obviously, it's got almonds.
Okey-dokey, Pocky.
(George speaks in Japanese)
I love this.
Mm.
We've got Pocky Chocolate Coconut.
Oh, this one is also this style of packets.
Oh.
It's pretty similar with this one, Almond Crush.
(George chomps)
Hmm?
Yeah, obviously, it's got coconut flavor,
and also, it's got a little bit of saltiness.
It's not my taste.
Strawberry chocolate Pocky.
(George chomps)
Oh.
Ah.
Right after you bite this, you get some sweetness.
But after that, you get sourness.
It smells so strong.
I can smell it from here.
Cocoa powder Pocky,
And it says you can only get this in winter season.
Oh yeah, look at this. It's got cocoa powder.
(George speaks in Japanese)
(George's lips smack)
We've got the cutest Pocky ever.
Cherry heart-shaped Pocky.
Aha.
Oh, look at this!
Heart! It's in there.
How cute.
And this part, cherry chocolate is so awesome.
You get strong cherry flavor.
We've also got blueberry heart-shaped chocolate Pocky.
(Pocky wrapper crinkles)
Ooh, look at this.
So blue.
This color doesn't make me want to eat this, but let's try.
(George speaks in Japanese)
Ooh!
Mm.
So sour.
But look at this heart-shaped Pocky.
Not for me.
This is what I've been waiting for, sakura matcha.
So "sakura" means cherry blossom.
Cherry blossom matcha taste.
Ooh.
Look at this!
So it's got matcha chocolate
and this stick is pink.
(George chomps)
Mm, this is so Japanese-y Pocky.
Just sweet matcha.
The feeling of spring has come to my life.
(bird chirping)
Spring days here in my body.
(George sings in Japanese)
Everybody's curious what these are.
Megami no Ruby.
Otona no Kohaku.
What does it mean?
I don't even know. (laughs)
Anyway, so it says Megami no Ruby.
It means like, "Goddess Ruby".
Otona no Kohaku, in English, it says, "amber."
Kind of like stone, fossil, jewel.
It says it goes well with red wine.
Interesting.
Ta-da!
It looks like regular chocolate Pocky.
(George chomps)
Oh?
What is this?
This taste itself is like berries.
This one goes well with whiskey.
(George chomps)
Huh?
It's pretty close to dark chocolate, it's bitter.
In Japan, we have this Gokuboso extra-fine Pocky,
which are roughly half the thickness
of a regular chocolate Pocky.
- In the US, ours are called the Ultra Slim.
- I got a new digital scale.
What I'm gonna do is weigh a regular chocolate Pocky.
2.13 grams.
So ultra thin Pocky.
So it weighs 1.52 grams.
- Thinner, that's it?
Here's a big boy.
Here's the thin.
Is it able to do this?
Can I get out of the way so it's just the white background?
23, 24, 25, and there's another bag in here, so 50 per box.
Okay, so 50 instead of 36.
Seven regular Pocky's are 13 grams.
Let's see how many slim ones we needed to get to 13 grams.
5, 6, 7, 8 1/2.
Eight and a half slim ones are the same
as seven regular ones.
Is that that much slimmer?
I guess that's slimmer.
Does anyone think that's not significant enough
to be a selling point?
Pocky adjusts its sweetness for different countries.
Not surprisingly, the US ones are meant to be sweeter.
I'm gonna do a taste test side by side.
We got the American ones and the Japanese one,
and we're gonna see just how different they taste.
I'm worried that these are also gonna be a Pocky popsicle.
Oh no, okay.
Japanese.
These are only Japanese ones I can find.
Obviously, they're bigger. I don't know if this is the norm.
(Joe chomps)
Mm-hm, in the baseline sweetness.
Yeah.
Mm.
(Joe chomps)
Yeah, it's noticeably different.
They taste identical, but ours has a sweet aftertaste.
I like the Japanese ones much better.
- So Pocky is in the Guinness World Records three times.
It's the largest chocolate-coated biscuits brand,
has the most mentions of a brand name
on Twitter in 24 hours,
which was 3,710,044 times.
And finally, it was part
of the most people opening packaged food online
simultaneously with 143 people.
- 143 people, that's it?
That doesn't seem like that many.
I feel like I've been on Zoom work calls
with 143 people in it, right?
It would've been literally one email to set that up.
- I can do (George speaks in Japanese).
Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom.
Now I got more than 200 George's clones right here.
Simultaneously, three, two, one.
Boom.
Now I broke the Guinness World Records.
So November 11th is known as a Pocky (speaks in Japanese)
or Pocky Day in Japan.
This date was chosen because a Pocky is shaped like a one.
At November 11th, visually, it looks like four Pocky.
And also, Pretz are included in this day, November 11th,
which is the pretzel version of Pocky.
And in Japan, you can get them in flavors like Salad,
Ripe Tomato, Sweet Potato, and Roasted Bread flavor.
In the US, we also have Pretz,
and we get these fun flavors like Sweet Corn, fun,
and Pizza.
Oh, God.
It has nothing on it.
(Joe chomps)
Nope.
I mean, yeah, it tastes like corn.
Why though?
What is the demand for corn-flavored sticks?
(Joe sighs)
Besides pizza, anything flavored like pizza is terrible.
Even pizza combos aren't very good.
(Pretz wrapper crinkles)
No.
(Joe chomps)
I mean, it's up there with croutons.
Does anyone grab a handful of croutons on-the-go?
And would just eating a box of croutons.
These probably would be good on something.
(catchy music)
- In Japan, our chocolate Pocky box,
per 100 grams, has 506 calories.
Adjusted for the box size, 72 grams,
the package contains 364.3 calories.
And let's break it down even further to per Pocky.
One Pocky contains, on average, 11.38 calories.
- A US chocolate Pocky box contains 340 calories.
Just a little bit less than a Japanese box,
but note, there is a two-gram difference.
Now here at "Food Wars", we thrive on scientific accuracy.
So let's break it down per Pocky.
One US Pocky is 9.44444444444444444...
calories.
- The highest-calorie Pocky in Japan is to be determined.
We emailed the customer service,
but we didn't get their response.
What are you doing? Hurry up!
But I guess this Pocky is the most calorific Pocky.
It's 196 calories.
So it should be 'cause it's got a lot of butter in it.
- The US Pocky
with the most calories is the Cookies & Cream.
It contains total 630 calories.
There's no question I can murder this whole box
in one sitting.
630 calories? That's nothing.
That's kind of reassuring like, "Wow, only 630?
Found my breakfast!"
(steady music)
- Japa-Pocky contains these ingredients.
Wheat flour, sugar, cacao mass, vegetable oils,
whole-milk powder, shortening, malt extract,
starch, salt, yeast, cocoa powder, butter,
emulsifier, flavoring, leavening agent, annatto coloring,
and mineral salt.
- Any US Pocky contains wheat flour, sugar,
chocolate liquor, blend of vegetable oils,
that blend being sunflower oil, palm oil,
whole-milk powder, vegetable oil shortening,
which is palm oil, hydrogenated palm oil, and cocoa butter,
salt, artificial flavors, yeast, soy lecithin,
leavening, sodium bicarbonate,
mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids.
Wink.
- In Japan, our Pocky contains malt extract,
which is sometimes used as a replacement
for sugar in baking.
It contains lots of maltose,
a type of sugar
which actually has a higher glycemic index value
than normal sucrose.
So it's a surprise that American Pocky are supposed
to be sweeter.
- There are actually differences in the types of cocoa used.
If you've watched the "US versus UK Snickers" episode,
you know that American chocolate is not so great.
In the US, our Pockys are made with chocolate liquor
and cocoa butter.
Chocolate liquor is just cocoa that's been processed
into semisolid form,
and it's actually around 50% cocoa butter itself.
The trouble is for an American product
to be classified as milk chocolate,
it only needs to contain around 10% of chocolate liquor,
and the rest can be made up of sugars
and various ingredients.
- In Japan, the rules are different,
depending on the type of product.
Milk chocolate material must contain
at least 21% cocoa content,
double the required amount in America.
So our chocolate has more chocolate.
Are you jealous of us?
Come to Japan.
- So if I had to go favorite flavors,
I'm gonna go number one, number two.
These two Pocky.
These are the best ones.
Grab your glocky when you see two Pocky.