Make Believe Bonus: A Selection Of ILLIT "Picks" From 7-11 Japan's Current Korean Fair
Konbini Girl Syndrome
One of the surest signs of Hallyu’s success in Japan can be found relatively regularly on convenience store shelves. K-pop stars constantly collaborate with the big three konbini chains — 7-11, Lawson and Family Mart — whether for simple advertising purposes (here’s SEVENTEEN pointing at cakes excitedly) or for deeper tie-ups (TWICE not only holds pieces of fried chicken come Christmas, but they had a series of special sweets on sale last year in Family Mart). These centers of convenience are part of people’s daily lives all over the country, so seeing like NCT repping assorted dessert options feels significant.
The latest grop to get the konbini call-up is ILLIT. Makes sense, seeing as the quintet’s “Magnetic” was one of the biggest K-pop hits in Japan last year and subsequent releases found the outfit continuing to get love from the market. Enough to get there own bad Japanese-language single, too. Whatever shape the next wave of Korean pop in this nation looks like, it feels safe to say ILLIT will be a major player in it, especially with…errrr, well, the group’s closest point of comparison appearing to be out of the picture for a bit.
For 7-11 Japan’s latest “South Korean fair,” the leading konbini chain in Japan has selected ILLIT to be the face of this always-popular limited-time campaign. What’s interesting here is there’s like, nearly a dozen items available, but only a select few have been designated as “picks” by the individual members of the outfit. ILLIT aren’t just spokessingers — they’re curators.
I had to try at least a selection of ILLIT’s picks, so over the last four days I’ve splurged on a handful of items big-upped by the members. I’ve mostly stuck with desserts because 1. they can function as a nice snack or breakfast and 2. despite my love of convenience store food, I do try to avoid eating the heartier calorie-dense meals as much as I can. So I’ve avoided the rose-cream pasta and grilled-meat bowl in favor of smaller offerings. Think of them as my picks from the picks.
Let’s kick it off with….
