TokyoTreat is a monthly box of Japanese candies and snacks from Tokyo. It is part of the TokyoTreat subscription box group which also includes YumeTwins and nomakenolife.

There are three monthly subscription levels:

Small: $14.99 (£11.20) 8 full-size snacks

Regular: $24.99 (£18.67) 13 full-size snacks plus 1 Wagashi

Premium: $34.99 (£26.14) 18 full-size snacks, 1 DIY candy kit, 1 drink, 1 item, and 1 Wagashi.

There are also three, six, and 12 month subscriptions, which work out more cheaply per month.

It’s October! Well, nearly. 

TokyoTreat are so amazingly efficient their boxes arrive before the start of the month! I’ve held off reviewing it for a few days so we’re at least within shouting distance of October.

So, October means Halloween of course, and this month’s theme is indeed Halloween! This is exciting because Japanese packaging is so wonderful that they are sure to come up with some fantastic designs for their candy and snacks.

Add a face and you’ve got a jack o’ lantern!

Look at the cute little Halloween characters! 

Plus I love the Rocky Horror-style font.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the menu.

There is a list of all the items in the box.

I love all the spooky illustrations!

Instructions for the DIY candy kit, which is useful because the packages are always in Japanese!

This month’s featured snack! 

And finally…

Here is the community page in the magazine. And look at the top left of the page! It’s Little C! 

This is a picture from when we made the Dinosaur Island Pudding DIY kit in the August box, and I wrote about it in this blog post.

Anyway, let’s have a look at these delicious snacks. 

First of all, the Dagashi.

Dagashi are kind of like Japanese version of penny sweets or pocket money sweets. As they are a random selection (always including an Umaibo) they are not individually listed in the menu. However I, using the magic of Google, plus image searches and translation apps, figure out what’s what especially for you.

Clockwise from top left:

Kato potato snack corn potage flavor. Corn potage (creamy corn soup) is a popular dish in Japan, and there are an awful lot of snacks in this flavour. It’s amazing how accurate the flavours are!

Umaibo: This one is Pumpkin Potage flavour, which is particularly seasonal, October being time for pumpkin everything.

I also have some trivia for this one. The character on the package is Kumamon, who is the mascot for the Kumamoto prefecture. This area suffered extremely damaging earthquakes in Spring 2016. A portion of the sales from this Pumpkin Potage Umaibo will be donated to the Kumamoto earthquake relief fund. You can find more information here. 

Under the Dora Q La. Funny name, but this is actually little blue gumballs. However when you chew it, your mouth turns red! This explains the picture of Dracula on the box.

K-Es Campani Bang Bang Squid Jerky. This stuff is very popular in Japan, but it’s not for me because it’s squid and I’m allergic. However if it was beef jerky I’d be all over it!

Yaokin Okin Monster Stamp. Another Halloween-appropriate candy, this is ramune candy in the shape of a stamp (not a postage stamp, an image stamp). The fun part is that you can lick the stamp part and actually use it to make pictures! Though it might be a bit sticky, and frankly, a waste of good candy.

Anyway, onwards.

Let’s start with one of the Halloween-themed goodies. This is Zombie Maker Gum. It won’t turn you into an actual zombie, but it does include a zombie card plus sticker sheets so you can create your own zombie!

This isn’t a Halloween item, but it’s green! This Paripipo Avocado Cheese Potato Snack would look pretty cool on a party table. One side is cheesey, the other is avocado. This might sound like an odd combination, but avocado and cheese go very well together (try it in a sandwich with a bit of Branston pickle). And anything crunchy and cheesy is OK by me.

Every TokyoTreat box includes a Wagashi, which are traditional Japanese confections.

This one is Waraku No Sato Chestnut Yokan. Yokan is red bean paste with sugar and agar. This one here is made with chestnut. Very autumnal!

My best friend (who happens to be half Japanese) adores this stuff, so I always send it to her. Aren’t I nice?

OK, so this is the first of the three Featured Snacks!

Toppo – Halloween Version is regular Toppo but with this fantastic Halloween packaging. Toppo are biscuit tubes filled with yummy creamy chocolate filling. The box contains two separate packages, which is just as well because once you open a package you can’t stop eating until they’re all gone.

Another chestnut-type snack here. This one is Harvest Mont Blanc Choco Sandwich, which are little cookies with a chestnut and white chocolate filling. Please ignore the ‘Choco Sand’ on the packaging, there is no sand involved. These are rich, crunchy and creamy, and unbelievably good. 

These Satsumanma Sweet Potato & Apple Chips aren’t Halloween-y, but they’re definitely autumnal! Apple chips are lovely, sweet potato chips are lovely, and together they are a surprisingly good combination.

Another spooky item! This is Horror Mask Mint, and consists of little apple mints plus a paper mask.

See the little package of red mints? And you can kind of see the mask behind it.

Koala’s March – Halloween Version is the second of the featured snacks. Again these are original variety snacks with cool packaging. In case you didn’t know, Koala’s March are adorable little cookies with koala pictures on them, and are filled with delicious chocolate. They’re amazing.

This item is not seasonal in any way, so you’ll just have to settle for tasting good. Mogimmogi Fruits Gummy are, as you may have guessed, little fruity gummies. These are a variety of grape flavours: red grape muscat grape, and melon cream soda.

OK, melon cream soda isn’t grape, but you get the idea. Fruity. Anyway, you can eat them separately or combine them. Either way they’re pretty good.

The third and last of the featured snacks: Pie No Mi Halloween Version. Pie No Me are one of these snacks where you can’t just have one. They are little puff pastry bites with chocolate filling, and they are amazing. I have been known to work my way through an entire box whilst drinking a cup of tea. 

Just to remind you of these cool Halloween-themed snacks, here are all three:

This month’s DIY Candy Kit is a Hana Kappa DIY Bubbly Jelly. 

Hana Kappa is a children’s anime series, and has collabarated with the drinks brand Meito to produce this little candy kit (see the instructions photo above). The package is a bit of a funny shape because it contains a reusable character cup!

Every month’s Premium Box also contains a drink. This one is Melon Soda Jelly Drink.

It’s called a jelly drink because it contains pieces of nata de coco, which gives this fizzy soda a unique texture. 

Finally, the special item:

One Piece is a seriously famous manga and anime series, and this is One Piece Wax Paper. 

At first I was trying to work out what on earth to use this for, but then it occurred to me that it’s a great and fun alternative to wrapping food in plastic wrap. You might even use it for wrapping paper, but it’s a bit thin. However if you want to add a little pizzazz to your child’s lunchbox (or hell, why not your own!) this would be a lot of fun!

OK, conclusions.

TokyoTreat have done a fantastic job with their theme this month.

Out of the thirteen main items plus five dagashi, no fewer than seven are Halloween-themed. And several more are perfect for Fall/Autumn. Chestnuts, anyone?

There are slightly fewer savory items than usual: one main plus three dagashi. However I suspect it’s much harder to find salty things with a spooky twist, so I’m not bothered about it for this month.

I really like that some of the Halloween things aren’t just candies, they include a couple of fun novelty things like a mask and stickers. 

The bonus non-food item is both fun and practical, and the anime theme brings a little extra piece of Japanese popular culture! 

In terms of value, you’re always going to get the most bang for your buck with the Premium box, especially with the drink and bonus item. Everything in the boxes comes straight from Japan, and is manufactured for the Japanese market. You also get limited and special edition items that will never be imported into the UK.

TokyoTreat is a fantastic box of goodies for the whole family. It would also make a wonderful gift, birthday, Christmas, whatever. You could even use individual items for party bags or stockings!

This box in particular is so wonderfully seasonal, so I’m going to be saving these goodies for the days leading up to Halloween. It was also an extra special treat to find Little C’s picture in the menu! 

I’m so happy to have a whole lot of Halloween-themed snacks!

I’ll tell you now, there’s no way trick-or-treaters are getting their hands on anything from this box.

The only problem that I have is to avoid eating everything before Halloween, not to mention keeping Little C’s hands off them. I think there will be a few Halloween Instagram opportunities when we finally tear them open!

Happy Halloween snacking!

A different version of this review was first published on allsubscriptionboxes.co.uk.