We’ve got bad news for fans of traditional Japanese candies: the famous Sakuma Drops, a hard candy made famous in the Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies, will go away after 114 years with the closure of the company next year. Keep reading for details!
Why Are Sakuma Drops Going Away?
The news came yesterday that Sakuma Seika, the Tokyo-based confectionary company that has manufactured Sakuma-shiki Drops (“Sakuma-style Drops”) candies for decades, will go out of business in January of next year due to the increase in costs for raw materials and energy, and the company’s inability to procure staff for its operations. The company pointed out that they are not going bankrupt due to debt, but because they cannot foresee a way to profitably continue operations into the future.
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Sakuma Drops are a fruit-flavored hard candy sold in metal tins that have become as iconic as the hole in the middle of Life Savers or the dick vein in Snickers candy bars. They became popular globally thanks to the Isao Takahata film Grave of the Fireflies, about a brother and sister trying to survive during the hellish firebombings of Kobe during WWII. This film opened on April 16, 1988, as a double feature with My Neighbor Totoro.
J-List sold these classic candies in the past — back before the rise in shipping prices made it impractical to sell $3 snacks shipping from Japan — and a quick check of the database shows that we sold around 15,000 boxes over the decades. Wow.
A Story of Two Candy Companies
Sakuma Seika began production in 1908 by founder Sojiro Sakuma and manufactured the classic candies, though they had to close operations during WWII because of the inability to obtain sugar. After the war, the company split into two separate entities run by two sons of the founder, and there was a brief court battle over the trademark for the name Sakuma Drops. In the end, Sakuma Confectionary (佐久間製菓) agreed to sell “Sakura-style Drops” (the actual candies seen in Grave of the Fireflies). At the same time, its sister corporation Sakuma Confectionary (written サクマ製菓) makes which makes “Sakura Drops” (without the “style” kanji in the name).
So in the end, the company that made the actual beloved candy from Grave of the Fireflies is going away, but the candies will stick around in a similar form sold by the other company. Anyway, let’s pour one out for Sakuma Drops!
Thanks for reading this blog post about the bankruptcy of the beloved Sakuma Drops candies manufacturer from Grave of the Fireflies. Got any thoughts? Post them below, or chat with us on Twitter!
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