Emma CourtlandValentine's gifting is especially tricky for women. You want your gift to tell him how you feel, without telling him how you feel. (Not because you're cryptic or unsure of how you really feel, but because he's not a heart-shaped box kind of guy and lacy pink things don't fit either and anyway that's what cards are for, right?)
The process is simplified in Japan, where Valentine's Day is celebrated by one-way gifting: women to men, only. Honmei choco, or prospective winner chocolate for special someones, and giri choko, obligation chocolates, for male bosses and coworkers. Naturally the options are more dude-worthy, the messages more specific. Because why give a heart when your feelings would be better described with a chocolate bug? Turn the page for four of our favorite Japanese Valentine's Day chocolates.
Chocolate tools
4. A Chocolate Tool Box:
Pliers, spanners and wrench rendered in milk chocolate — part of a tool set, like your man and his friends, only chocolate! And at ¥2,625 it's cheaper than any of that Ed Hardy shit he loves. The company also sells chocolate bolts and nuts. Those send a different message.
Chocolate solar system
3. Chocolate Truffle Planets:
Recommended for long-term committed couples thinking about taking it to the next level. From Japanese chocolatier L'Eclat, a chocolate truffle solar system in a variety of flavors, which means he'll be eating Uranus, and we hear it tastes like milk tea. Each sold individually for ¥400. Buy a whole set for ¥3,800 and they'll throw in the Sun (criollo chocolate and pineapple).
Chocolate beetles; Credit: Namco
2. Chocolate Bugs:
For the man who be blowin' up your pager when you at the club wit cha girls — your bugaboo, if you will. Chocolate kabuto-mushi beetles from Namja Town, the food amusement park of Pacman developer Namco. The set includes a Hercules beetle, a stag beetle, a male rhino beetle and a female rhino beetle. Priced at ¥4,500.
Credit: Jurassic Chocolat
1. Chocolate Archaeology Kit:
The Jurassic Chocolat kit comes with a block of chocolate and excavation tools — a hammer, to break the hard crust of the chocolate Earth; a spoon, because this is a “dig,” after all; and a brush, for detail work, to clear the brown chocolate sediment from the white chocolate bones. There's a manual too, but it's in Japanese. NOTE: If your man mentions that the two dinosaurs pictured aren't from the Jurassic period, you should ask for your gift back. He doesn't deserve chocolate as cool as this — nor love.
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