Marukawa Aobe Midoribe Tongue-Colouring Bubble Gum Soda

Blue and green is the more alarming pairing of the two.

Marukawa sells this gum in packs of two sticks — one dyes your tongue blue, the other green — and neither is a colour a mouth is supposed to be.

Red at least has precedent; blue reads as something has gone wrong, which is the entire reason a child would spend their coins on it.

The flavour is soda, and that choice follows the colour rather than the other way round.

Sōda in Japan means the clear blue-tinted soft drink sold at festival stalls and in ramune bottles — a flavour category of its own, bright and faintly citrus — so a blue gum tasting of soda is internally consistent in a way that a blue cola would not be.

Marukawa files these under omoshiro shōhin, its novelty range, and has built a whole sub-family on the idea: there are red, green and blue versions with their own characters, plus the red-and-black sibling to this one.

The company has made chewing gum in Nagoya since 1954 and supplies most of what sits on a Japanese dagashi shelf.

Two sticks to a pack, and the colour fades long before the chew does.

About this item
Item Name : Aobe Midoribe Gum
Brand : Marukawa
Item Form : Gum
Number of Items : 2 Counts (Pack of 1)