Valentine’s Day and White Day in Japan: Chocolate-Centered Celebrations

Chocolatiers Redefine Valentine’s Day for Japanese Consumers

In many countries around the world, February 14 is a chance to declare one’s affection for a significant other or prospective partner, an act performed with anything from cards and flowers to balloons and even teddy bears. In Japan, however, stores focus specifically on just one Valentine’s gift: chocolate.

While, there are various theories as to the origin of this custom, the most commonly accepted is that it started in 1936, when the Kobe-based confectioner Morozoff placed an advertisement in the February 12 edition of the English-language newspaper Japan Advertiser, suggesting that readers send chocolates as a Valentine’s gift.

In February 1958 the Japanese chocolatier Mary’s launched Japan’s first-ever Valentine’s fair at a department store in Tokyo; the following year it offered a new service inscribing names onto heart-shaped chocolates. Then, in 1960 the candy company Morinaga came out with its own major campaign recommending that amorous buyers present chocolates to their partners.

The tradition was firmly cemented by the middle of the 1960s, with sweets-makers across the board marketing heart-shaped chocolates as ideal gifts for women to give to men.

Chocolates All Around

In this way, this practice evolved to fix the role of women and girls as the February 14 chocolate-givers and their male romantic targets as the recipients. From the 1980s onward, though, the tradition morphed still more, with chocolate gifts being defined as a must, whether or not romance was on the table, and women and younger girls were urged to buy chocolates for friends, coworkers, classmates, family members, and other males in their lives.

A variety of labels came into play to describe these presents in terms of who received them. In addition to the honmei-choko—the chocolates given to “the real thing” in romantic terms—Japanese saw the rise of new words like giri-choko (“obligatory” chocolates given to classmates, teachers, and the like), tomo-choko given to tomodachi, or friends, gyaku-choko that “reverse” the equation when a male presents them to a female recipient, and in more recent years, even jibun-choko, “chocolates for myself” bought as a well-deserved personal treat. Surveys show that purchases of jibun-choko are on the rise, while giri-choko seem to be falling by the wayside among many women consumers.

White Day: Gentlemen, Take the Lead

Exactly one calendar month after Valentine’s Day, on March 14, comes White Day, when men are expected to reciprocate.

This custom, a Japan original, is said to have begun in 1977, when the Fukuoka Prefecture confectioner Ishimura Manseidō launched a campaign urging men to buy marshmallow treats for women, noting: “It’s unfair that the boys never return anything to the girls after Valentine’s.”

At around the same time, companies in Japan’s confectionery industry began promoting the idea that men should repay in kind every Valentine’s gift received, with candy the recommended option. From the 1980s onward, major department stores and other national chains got on board, and “White Day” became an established feature on the Japanese gift-giving calendar—perhaps not surprisingly, given the Japanese tradition of giving gifts back to people who have offered something on a special occasion, as seen in the presents guests take home from weddings and other major celebratory events.

(Banner photo: A gift box of Valentine’s chocolates. © Adobestock.)