Yubaba is no shrinking violet. The owner of the mystical Aburaya bathhouse in "Spirited Away" is always ready to make her presence known and to remind you of what belongs to her and what she’s in charge of.
And now that bold, covetous nature has led the Studio Ghibli character to claim something else as her domain: pudding.
The last time we saw Yubaba, she and "Spirited Away" co-star No-Face were hanging out in a real-world park in the town of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the south. They were there to commemorate the arrival of the traveling Toshio Suzuki and Ghibli Exhibition to the Yokosuka Museum of Art, where the display of Studio Ghibli related artwork and other materials related to the career of veteran anime producer Toshio Suzuki is currently ongoing.
Yokosuka, it just so happens, is also the town where cafe and confectioner Marlowe was founded. Taking its name from Philip Marlowe, the hardboiled private detective created by American noir author Raymond Chandler, Marlowe is especially famous for its purin, Japanese-style custard pudding, which comes in glass beakers bearing the likeness of the private eye, modeled after his movie portrayal by Humphrey Bogart.
But just like Yubaba took the last half of "Spirited Away" protagonist Chihiro’s name, she’s also taken over a portion of Marlowe’s pudding beakers. As of May 13, a limited number of Marlowe pudding containers have Yubaba staring straight at you, and since the containers are made of glass with a wide top, they’re easy to reuse as drinking glasses or storage jars, so Yubaba will be with you long after you’ve finished the pudding.
▼ Marlowe’s purin comes in a variety of flavors, but Yubaba is on their classic vanilla custard version, made with Hokkaido milk.
Yubaba is also making her presence known on special tins of Marlowe biscotti, another popular item from the company’s sweets lineup.
The Yubaba purin and biscotti are only being offered at physical Marlowe shops, not through the company’s online store. Most of Marlowe’s locations are in Kanagawa Prefecture, but they also have stores at the Ginza Six and Seibu Ikebukuro department stores in downtown Tokyo, and the Marlowe branch inside the Sogo Yokohama department store at Yokohama Station isn’t too far from Tokyo either.
The purin is priced at 994 yen and the biscotti tin at 1,728. Both will be available only until supplies run out. Note that neither item is for sale at the Yokosuka Museum of Art, where the Toshio Suzuki and Ghibli Exhibition runs until June 18.
Related: Marlowe location list
Source: Marlowe
Insert images: Marlwe
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1 Comment
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Gene Hennigh
If I can't get the pudding (I can't. I'm not in Japan anymore) I'd like to have the glass. Ghibli is so iconic that having the glass would be a great reminder of that. You lucky people in Japan have the best cuisine in the world.