Valentine’s Day, Japan

by 24 Comments

A couple months back, we already talked about how different the Japanese Christmas is. Now it’s time to take a look at another holiday that’s isn’t quite the same in Japan: Valentine’s Day.

As with all Western holidays that have made their way over to Japan, almost all of the changes and “traditions” have been created by commercial organizations, looking to build swimming pools of 500 yen coins. In fact, only during one week before Valentine’s Day, chocolate companies make half of their annual sales. That’s a lot of money, and a lot of chocolate.

Then again, in America (and other places too), we give a lot of chocolate as well. So, what makes Japan different?

Only Girls Give Chocloate

Back in the 1950′s, a company advertised Valentine’s Day chocolates to non-Japanese living in Japan at the time. Then, Japanese companies wanted to get on board too, and started advertising Valentine’s Day chocolates as well. During this period there was quite a bit of “Westernization” where people wanted to adopt more Western / American traditions. Because of this, Valentine’s Day in Japan did fairly well.

But there was one problem…

It seems that at some point someone messed up a translation and ended up telling the Japanese people that Valentine’s Day was an opportunity for women to express their love to men. Because of this, even to this day it’s mostly women giving chocolates to men (don’t worry, men get their turn too, eventually).

Giri-Chocolate, Honmei-Chocolate, and Tomo-Chocolate

It gets more complicated, though. Because it’s not nice to make people feel left out on Valentine’s day (especially in, say, the office), there are different kinds of chocolates girls give out now, depending on who they’re giving it to.

Giri-Chocolate (義理チョコ)

Giri-Chocolate means “obligatory chocolate.” This kind of chocolate refers to the chocolate you have to give to people (who aren’t really people you love). These could be people like bosses, coworkers, male friends, etc. Even sadder still, there’s also something called “Cho-Giri-Chocolate” (Ultra-obligatory-chocolate), which is given to unpopular people you really don’t want to give chocolates to.

In order to tell these chocolates apart from other (less obligatory) chocolates, these chocolates tend to be pretty run-of-the-mill, and not super expensive. Things don’t start getting crazy until we get to Honmei-Chocolates.

Honmei-Chocolate (本命チョコ)

Honmei-Chocolate means “favorite chocolate.” This kind of chocolate is the kind of chocolate you give to the one you want to express your love to. These chocolates tend to be more expensive or possibly even home made. Basically, it has to be obvious that these are honmei and not giri, so they have to be on a completely different level (Way to go Chocolate companies! Ka-Ching! ￥￥￥￥).

Tomo-Chocolate (友チョコ)

Tomo-choco just means “friend chocolates,” and refers to chocolates you give to your female friends (as a female). Simple as that.

Getting The Guys To Give

Guys don’t give anything on Valentine’s Day in Japan, but they do have their own day one month later where they’re expected to return the favor. That day is known as “White Day” (or, if you’re old enough to remember, “Marshmallow Day”), and it also sounds pretty expensive.

To learn about that, though, you’ll have to wait for a month. On March 14 I’ll post something up about White Day as well, so you’ll have to wait until then! :)

Everyone enjoy their Valentine’s Day… and to all you girls out there: I’m waiting for my cho-giri-choco from you.

P.S. If you didn’t get me any cho-giri-choco, then shame on you.

P.P.S. You can make it up to me by following Tofugu on Twitter.

  • Anonymous

    I think I’d rather not have any “obligatory chocolate”

  • http://twitter.com/jintymac Janet

    It’s a bit stressful with so many different categories of chocolate lol! I just watched an episode of Kimi Ni Todoke which had loads of Valentine chocolate shenanigans so I also wouldn’t want to be given any “obligatory chocolate” either *cries*

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  • Stef

    What does that hand sign that the girls in the picture are making mean? I’ve seen it before…It kind of looks like a llama :)

  • http://rebeccaleo.wordpress.com/ rebeccaleo

    There are giri-chocolates everywhere!
    Could that be the reason they dont taste nice at all?… (giri)

  • http://www.kenanlucas.com/ Kenan Lucas

    Wow, its fascinating the way its a uniquely Japanese take on a popular Western holiday. I think receiving giri-chocolate, even if you know it was only given to you because of a mere obligation, would be completely overridden by the fact that it is chocolate nevertheless!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    hard to say… it also looks like they might be insane, too.

  • Rebekah Sue

    I’ve seen it in the show Nobuta Wo Produce. Akira (Yamapi) would make the sign and go “Kon Kon”. Some say the sign means nothing and I think others say that it has to do with a fox (the ‘kon’ is the sound the fox makes. . so the hand sign is supposed to look like a fox head) I really don’t know the truth behind it though. XD

  • Anonymous

    They also have jibun-choko (chocolate that you give to yourself) and gyaku-choco (“reverse” chocolate when a boy decides to give some chocolate to a girl). In Korea, they managed to push the commercialisation of these events even further by creating “black day” on April 14th. On this day, the boys who didn’t get any chocolates at Valentine’s Day will wear black and eat black stuff (noodles with black bean paste, black bread…).

  • Jim

    I thought they’re throwing up the horns because they’re metal…

  • http://twitter.com/ichigoichielove Lisa W

    Didn’t give, but I got lots of omiyage at work since it was a three day weekend prior, WIN! ^^
    I guess I don’t have much to look forward to on White Day, oh well. ;P

  • http://twitter.com/ryojiotani ryoji otani

    i swear i got you something for valentines day, but somehow i….. must of…… misplaced them….

  • http://twitter.com/edgarjon Jon

    Me too! Particularly the one on the left.

  • http://kellydolljapan.blogspot.com/ KellyDoll

    Being a girl in Japan on Valentine’s Day seems like way too much work ^_^;;

  • xiongmao

    diabetes much??

  • Ryan

    Ha, the Japanese rite that is Valentine’s Day. It’s all way more complicated than it looks!

  • alegna

    “Only Girls Give Chocloate”

    chocolate is misspelled. just thought i’d let you know :’D

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  • Kharol Go

    haha! ok I’ll give you a supercho giri chocolate! (^-^)

  • Tnot18

    To give chocolate to every one I know….OMIGEEZE I would bust up laughing at how bad I would be failing at just TRYING to do that.

  • b_wins

    i remember seeing about valentines day and white day in a detective conan episode (that is my drug,) but since white day was the week of the of the biggest earthquake japan has ever had, does that mean we will have to wait a year to read more about white day?

  • grotesk_faery

    Koichi, I feel like you’d be way more likely to get honmei-choco from your female readers than cho-giri-choko.
    Also, I kind of like the Japanese idea of Valentine’s better, because I feel like there’s not quite so much competition, and you don’t have to worry about getting someone you love something too unique (a lot of people I know here would think just giving someone chocolate on Valentine’s would be a cop-out). Plus it’s nice to have it broken up into two holidays, because that way nobody spends more than the other person (in theory). I know a lot of people worry about how much money to spend on someone’s Valentine’s gift because if they spend much more or less than the other person, it gets awkward.

  • meghu

    Valentine’s Day in japan is called White Day, the holiday falls is celebrated on March 14 every year. White Day is very much popular in Japan and many people participate in this holiday. http://www.whatisall.com/entertainment/what-is-white-day.html

  • Kotora

    My teacher in Japanese class is having us do this and she had us look up what happens so we know what to do…. Needless to say this shall be pretty interesting for the guys.