The best New Year gift for yourself, if you love the risk on getting random items on those bags.

Japan has a lot of great things, but aside from anime, sushi and video games, there are these things called fukubukuro or lucky bags in Japanese. These concealed bags are a thing every New Year, where every store put them on sale on the very first day of the year. Heck, even Starbucks and McDonald’s have these as their annual tradition.

You can’t peek or ask on what’s inside of the lucky bags, as its part of the thrill of unraveling what you will get once you purchase it, though some stores have specific themes on their lucky bags to attract some fans of popular anime or games. They can go as low as 1,000 Japanese yen or as high as JPY 50,000, but the best part for these mystery bags is the total value of the contents, with some having double or triple the overall value that you actually spent. Think of it as Gashapons in those vending machines or from games, but instead of giving you undervalued trash, they give you random treasures.

If you are still skeptical on these fukubukuro, then you can check these samples from different hobby stores in Akihabara

Gunpla Lucky Bag JPY 9,900 (images courtesy of fisoku.net)

Fate Lucky Bag JPY 22,000 (images courtesy of fisoku.net)

Square Enix Online Store Lucky Box JPY 10,000 (images courtesy of fisoku.net)

Fate Lucky Bag JPY 3,000 (images courtesy of SoraNews24)

Gunpla Lucky Bag JPY 13,000 (image courtesy of fisoku.net)

Assorted Character Model Kit (Kotobukiya, Hasegawa, etc.) Lucky Bag JPY 10,000 (image courtesy of fisoku.net)

Now if only some of our local hobby stores would do the same promo every New Year with awesome items, and not of those excess FunkoPop figs from the bargain bin.