Platinum Cats is part of of the Chocolat New York series, which has brought Japan such hits as Feel Safari, Feel Envy and Blonde Cats. Like Feel Safari, the chocolate paddles are neatly packaged in a faux wallet (silver basket-weave pattern), but unlike Feel Safari, the candy is actually good. I bought Platinum Cats for the flavor, Milk & Salt, described as, "Rich milk chocolate featuring a blend of caramel flavor and French salt." (Blonde Cats, because it was Bitter & Vanilla flavor and therefore had little potential for horror, just did not interest me.) The thin paddles of chocolate snap in half easily, but instead of crumbling unpleasantly in the mouth like Feel Safari, they are creamy with a full flavor, I think because of the salt. They are also very blue, but in a nice way, like Easter M&Ms.

The back of the box illustrates a piece of the candy snapping in half with a "pakin!" sound. The Japanese language has an overwhelming number of words to describe texture, many of them fun and onomatopoetic. Pocky candy, for example, is named after the Japanese term for something breaking with a snap: pokipoki. Other vivid words I like are baribari (crackle), fuwafuwa (fluffy) and pakupaku taberu (to munch -- taberu means to eat). When I hear fuwafuwa, I just feel like stuffing my mouth with cotton candy.

Thanks to Platinum Cats, I haven't completely written off this candy series, though after exploring the themes of envy, safari and blonde-haired cats in New York, I really don't know where the people of Fujiya can go from here.

A non-platinum cat I befriended at a shrine yesterday.