Just a pack of gum...

Packs of gum in Japan could be pretty neat. The card sized packets were already nice but this pack I bought yesterday—the moment I opened it, it made me say "...wow" out loud to myself in public.

Japanese packaging is kind of notorious as excessive packaging. It kind of reminded me of this when I looked at it carefully.

My head went from ! to ?! to ?????. What has happened to gum packaging?? It's still evolving even further???


I found the instructions on the back afterwards:

I figured out later that the extra strip of packaging (like the aluminum base that folds over) is probably made like this to hold the small pad of wrappers. It makes sense now, but I'm still not sure if it's necessary.

Especially when what I also found on the back is a pocket for the pad of wrappers.

But then again the tiny pad has to go somewhere, and people need the wrappers to spit out their gum. Although even without it, I think most Japanese people won't spit it out on the ground or stick it underneath desks and chairs...