She said it was good 🙂
Category: Food
Ramen Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy
Some weeks ago, when I was sorting through boxes to prepare for the sale of my Star Wars figures, I found these two ramen cups:
The packaging features characters from the Final Fantasy Dissidia game and buying them allowed the unlocking of in-game content. I bought these many years ago, and had intended to send the chicken one (featuring Cloud from FF7) to Florence as a gag gift one time. Obviously, I never did. Sorry Florence!
They’re attractive aren’t they? In preparing this post I learned there were two others as well: a shrimp flavour featuring Lightning (from FF13) and a multi-pack featuring Sephiroth (also from FF7). Given I only have two, I imagine I never saw the others.
The mechanism for getting the game content was a bit archaic: couldn’t they have just printed codes on the packaging? I never actually bought the game itself (I had played it on the PSP) so wouldn’t have even claimed the content even had I opened these over 4 years ago.
Yes, four years ago! Look closely at the above pic and you’ll note they expired on Dec 2018 and Jan 2019! I’m a real straighty-one-eighty when it comes to ‘expiration dates’ (yes I know they are technically best by these days) so it would require a bit of bravery to try these…
Removing the outer packaging removed shows these are just normal cup noodles, but when I removed the plastic wrap from each I discovered the seal on the lid had weakened to the extent the beef one just lifted right off by itself!
This was what they looked like before adding water. Doesn’t the flavoring in each look darker than normal? A quick google search revealed that if the seal had been good, they (in theory) may have been edible although chemical changes in the flavour may have rendered them both unpleasantly salty. However since the seal was compromised there was a risk of mold, which I was not prepared to take. Apparently Nissin themselves advises throwing away noodles more than three months after the ‘best by’ date.
So, alas, I didn’t try them. Rest assured they gave me joy for the nearly five years they were forgotten in a box in the attic, and I’ll certainly keep the outer packaging so I can reblog it in a decade or so 🙂
Can Collection Update
I’ve posted about my can ‘collection’ twice before, which you can read here and here. It’s been five years since the last one so here’s an update.
Let’s start with dinosaur cans from the last Jurassic Park film. Once again these were available in various flavours of Dr Pepper and as you can see I only found five (of seven). Interestingly I recently learned that a similar promotion occurred in Australia! I wonder did any of my Ozlandian friends get any cans?
Here we have a selection of game-related cans. The Coke one I got in Japan, and the other two (both energy drinks that I didn’t drink) were bought in the USA. The Sonic can is pretty cool isn’t it?
These four One Piece themed cans – all for various coffee drinks – were all bought in Japan. Licensed cans for this series are common and you could probably fill shelves with them if you were a fan. I’m not, but I can’t resist a licensed can and KLS drinks the coffee 🙂
Some more anime-themed cans, both picked up on recent Japan trips. The Coke was sickly sweet and ended up being poured down a drain!
Even more anime-themed cans, this time for Uma Musume (‘Horse Girls’). The big ones are energy drink and came out of a machine in a Game Center, and the smaller one is coffee I bought in Akihabara.
Three Ultraman themed items. The two cans were bought in an Asian grocer in NYC, and I don’t recall where I got the Ultraman shaped bottle, which I’ve had for almost a decade. In Japan I saw an Ultraman can from many years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was another series with a rich history of licensed cans.
This coffee can featuring Jin from BTS was going to go to Bernard, but I’ve inexplicably kept it. I probably should just throw it away…
Likewise this Black Adam energy drink can, which I believe is the only licensed item in our home featuring Dwayne Johnson. I like this one, since the film was a flop and I haven’t seen any other merchandise.
Lastly we have these six Mountain Dew cans featuring art from various themes. They’re all from 2007/2008, and during this time Dew had several different promotions where aluminum bottles were made featuring designs by various artists. There seems to have been a lot of these (dozens) and some of mine are from the ‘green label’, ‘stars and stripes’ and ‘nascar’ (!) series. According to what I read retail distribution of these was very poor so perhaps it’s surprising I found this many.
As I was taking these photos and writing this post my intention was to recycle most of these cans, but in the end I… didn’t. They went into a box and into the attic, there to remain forever.