Calpico, Calpis, Cow Piss. Hello Kitty
January 31st, 2008So I stop by the ABC Store on my way home, you know, in search of a tasty beverage, and I notice they’ve got all these new, different flavored varieties of Calpico – mango, strawberry, lychee – I’ve never seen before. They all sound pretty tasty (I like Calpico), except they’ve got Hello Kitty plastered all over them:
Clever marketing, I suppose (Hello Kitty-branded stuff accounts for nearly half of Sanrio’s $1 billion annual revenue), and oh-so-cute, but I can’t bring myself to buy one, so I leave with a Vitaminwater instead, because I’m a guy, and guys just don’t buy stuff with Hello Kitty on them (it’s a guy thing), but vitamins are OK, also, water is OK, so I figure it’s cool.
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Ah, Calpico.
(non-Hello Kitty, canned variety)
If you’ve never tried it before, it’s good stuff – sweet, slightly tangy, and milky in appearance, not-so-much in terms of texture.
It’s refreshing and pleasantly unlike most western, heavily carbonated soft drinks.
In Japan and other non-English-speaking countries, the stuff is still referred to by it’s original name, Calpis (Karupisu in Japanese), which to the untrained ear sounds an awful lot like “cow piss.”
Putting Hello Kitty on the label seems like a pretty smart move to me because when I think of Hello Kitty I don’t think of cow piss which is probably why they chose Hello Kitty instead of, say, a cute cartoon cow like this guy:
