Furuta’s Choco Egg Giant Squid and Why It Captivated Japan

Giant Squid #2 — Choco Egg Saikyo-O Character Zukan

A Blind-Box Candy Figure from Japan’s Food-Toy Boom

Furuta Confectionery launched Choco Egg in 1999: an egg-shaped chocolate snack with a small assembled figure hidden inside. The defining feature was randomness — you had no idea which figure you would get until the chocolate was gone. That blind-box format sent collectors back to the candy aisle repeatedly, chasing whichever number they still needed to complete the set.

The Saikyo-O Character Zukan is a sub-series within the Choco Egg range. Saikyo-O translates roughly as “supreme king,” suggesting a theme built around powerful or extraordinary subjects. Zukan is a Japanese term for an illustrated field guide or encyclopedia — a naming pattern Furuta used across Choco Egg lineups designed to be collected and studied like a natural-history reference. This giant squid holds the #2 position in the series, one entry in a numbered lineup.

The figure is molded in translucent, pale pinkish plastic. Its form follows the animal’s actual anatomy: a cylindrical body tapering to a point at the front, a rounded fin at the rear, and long tentacles extending from the base. Like other Choco Egg figures, it assembles from separate parts.

The Giant Squid Before Anyone Had Seen One Alive

Architeuthis dux — the giant squid — is one of the largest invertebrates on Earth, with body length estimates ranging from 13 to 18 meters depending on the source. It lives in deep water, far from easy observation. When these figures were produced, around the turn of the millennium, no one had ever filmed a living specimen. The first footage of a live giant squid was not captured until 2004–2006, by a Japanese research team — years after this sub-series would have appeared in stores.

In that gap between widespread fascination and confirmed visual evidence, the giant squid occupied an unusual cultural space in Japan, known mostly through washed-up carcasses and illustration. It was precisely the kind of subject a series themed around extraordinary creatures would pursue. The translucent plastic may echo the semi-transparent quality of real cephalopods, though that design intention is not confirmed in available records.

Shokugan and the Collectors Who Took These Seriously

Shokugan — literally “food toys” — covers the collectible figures bundled with Japanese candy and snacks. Choco Egg became one of the most recognized names in the category. Released during a period of economic contraction in Japan, the line offered detailed sculpts at a low per-unit price, drawing in adult collectors alongside children. The practice of buying large quantities to complete a set became common enough to enter everyday Japanese speech.

The creature-themed Choco Egg series attracted attention well beyond the toy aisle, appearing in museum shops and science publications. The sculpting standard was considered unusually high for mass-market candy figures. Kaiyodo, a figure maker with an international reputation for precision natural-history models, produced the sculpts for at least some Choco Egg series — notably the animal lineups. Whether they were involved in the Saikyo-O Character Zukan sub-series specifically is not confirmed, as production arrangements varied across different sub-series within the line.