Morinaga Chocoball: Long-Selling Chocolate Snack Balls
“Morinaga Seika (森永製菓)” is a leading Japanese confectionery maker founded in 1899, and the snack and candy that represent the company include Morinaga Milk Chocolate, Morinaga Angel Pie, and Morinaga Chocoball.
Morinaga Milk Chocolate is Japan’s first milk chocolate that was made from scratch, from cacao beans, with the help of foreign engineers, while Morinaga Angel Pie is known as Japan’s first Choco Pie snack.
Morinaga Choco Ball
Chocoball is also one of Morinaga’s signature products, which was first introduced in 1963 by the name of “Skip”, and afterward in 1969, the name was changed to the current one Choco Ball. And in 1973, the Chocoball Peanut pictured above was put on the market.
As its name indicates, the chocolate snack ball of Morinaga Chocoball Peanut has a filling of peanut inside, together with a thin layer of crispy puff.
Flavors
In addition to this Chocoball Peanut, the regular flavors of Morinaga Chocoball are “Caramel”, and “Strawberry”, and sometimes limited-edition flavors are offered for sale.
Kyoro Chan
Morinaga Chocoball is especially well known for its mascot character “Kyoro Chan (キョロちゃん)”. Kyoro Chan is an imaginary bird created for this snack in 1967.
Kin no Angel and Gin no Angel
Speaking of Morinaga Chocoball, its box has a retractable lid like a bird’s beak where “Kin no Angel (金のエンゼル: Golden Angel)” or “Gin no Angel (銀のエンゼル: Silver Angel)” logo is rarely printed.
In exchange for either one Kin no Angel logo or five Gin no Angel logos, you can get an “Omocha no Kanzume (おもちゃのカンヅメ: Canned Toy)” from Morinaga.
Image: Rakuten Rakuma
As you can guess, the Kin no Angel logo is much rarer than the Gin no Angel logo and is extremely difficult to obtain, for which reason, these logos can sometimes be seen being sold on online auction sites.
(Reference Page: Wikipedia チョコボール )