Ice Cream: Expectations

While I was in Japan, I ate a lot of ice cream—especially during the summer months. There were three flavors of ice cream that really struck me: matcha, sea salt, and soy sauce.

If you’ve gotten sea water in your mouth, doused sushi in too much soy sauce, or sampled really thick matcha, you might wonder why anyone would want to make ice cream out of such salty and bitter substances. Those of you who are familiar with the Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbon from the Portland Salt & Straw or any other strange flavor from your local artisan ice cream parlor may be less surprised—but when one hears “ice cream,” one often expects it to be something sweet. These three flavors offered an experience that was far from the one I had come to expect from ice cream.

Matcha ice cream is often served as a soft cream and topped with real matcha tea powder. It can also be found at any nearby Japanese Baskin Robbins in scoops. In comparison to the rich, dark tea taste of the Japan’s matcha ice cream, the green tea ice cream of the States is downright sweet.

Me with matcha ice cream.

Sea salt ice cream is the brainchild of the Disney Sea park in Chiba. Each area of the park is themed after a kingdom from a Disney movie. You can visit the center of the earth, Agrabah, and even Atlantica. Each area has its own theme for the food available. As you may have guessed, Atlantica’s theme is salt. Only “under the sea” is one able to get salted popcorn and the sea salt flavored ice cream that inspired Tetsuya Nomura, the creator of Kingdom Hearts. I had to try the ice cream in order to A) compare it to Salt & Straw’s version, and B) taste what had inspired the blue ice cream bars I’ve been coveting for most of my young adult life. The ice cream from Disney Sea comes in a cute shell and has a fruit center. The ice cream was tasty, and I enjoyed it for the novelty, but if you’re looking for truly delicious sea salt ice cream, I would recommend scheduling a trip to Portland and the Salt & Straw.

Me and two friends at Tokyo Disney Sea eating sea salt ice cream.

The last type of ice cream was the one I didn’t come to Japan expecting to try. I was raised to be the sort of person who will try any type of food once, so when a teacher mentioned soy sauce ice cream to me, I was intrigued. Soy sauce in Japan is far more than just liquid salt. There are different kinds, different flavor combinations, different levels of intensity of flavor. Picking a soy sauce can be as complicated as picking a fine wine. This was reflected by the ice cream. One might have expected it to taste salty. Instead, it tasted like one of those soy sauce coated rice crackers. There was something salty, yet sticky and sweet about it.

My very first soy sauce ice cream.

I want to talk a little about how expectation plays a role in media today—especially when it comes to secret identities and love triangles—or, as with Miraculous Ladybug (aka Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir and Miraculous), love squares.

The two main characters of Miraculous Ladybug are the super heroes Ladybug and Chat Noir (he’s called “cat noir” in the English dub, but you get the idea). These super heroes daywalk as Marinette and Adrian. Now, get ready for the geometry. Marinette likes Adrian, but Adrian as Chat Noir fancies Ladybug, who is Marinette. Sadly, these two have no idea they’re just crushing on the other’s alter ego, and so Adrian is nice to Marinette, but not too nice, and Ladybug is constantly outwitting Chat Noir’s charming (if pun-tastic) flirting. The only thing keeping them from realizing who the other is? Their expectations about their different identities. Adrian’s ladylove couldn’t possibly be someone as ordinary as Marinette, and Marinette’s sweet kind-hearted Adrian could never be so full of bad cat-themed humor as Chat Noir…right? It’s going to be all kinds of fun when these two finally figure it out. Let’s hope it follows Sailor Moon’s example and cinches this particular plot bunny before the end of season one.

Marinette and Adrian visually expressing their love square in the Miraculous Ladybug opening.

Next, I know we’ve talked about Undertale before, but it bears bringing up again. Those of you nostalgic for the 8-bit games of the 90’s will want to pick up this particular little number. I don’t want to say too much, but those of you who have played know the merit of playing this game through twice. You may think you know what’s going on, due to your unspeakable experience with video games and understanding of plot…but that is precisely what the game wants you to think. Undertale is like a wine that gets better with age, because the second time you play it, you’ll come at it with a completely different understanding of the characters, the world, and the story you’re being told.

(This is where those of you who don’t want spoilers for the game should stop.)

For example, let’s talk about Mettaton. The robot celebrity is first met when the player enters the laboratory of Royal Scientist, Doctor Alphys. Alphys makes Mettaton out to be a robot that has gone rogue and is out for human blood. Mettaton then tries to kill the player through all manner of entertainment programs, ranging from quiz shows to cooking shows to Romeo and Juliet type drama—but each time he is about to succeed, Alphys comes through and saves the player. In the player’s final encounter with Mettaton, Mettaton tells the player that Alphys was fooling them the whole time. There was never any danger, and Mettaton would rather entertain humans than hurt them. He just played along so Alphys could pretend to help you.

As a player who has had plenty of villains try to sway my mind with lies, I immediately disbelieved Mettaton. No way he was going to get out of taking responsibility for trying to kill me multiple times just by trying to make out like it had been a game. No way he was going to undermine the bonds of trust and friendship Alphys and I had built by braving his trials together. So I paid him no mind, and I fought him, and I won, and Alphys told me she had one more lie she had to confess to me, and didn’t deny anything Mettaton had said, and when I played the second time around, it was obvious that Mettaton was acting. It was amazing how different my responses to Alphys and Mettaton were. Since my original expectation of Mettaton was that he was my adversary, I read all of his antagonistic text as serious the first time through. The second time, it was impossible to take him seriously.

The moment Mettaton made me laugh most on my second playthrough.

Even though the evidence was there the first time I played through the game, my expectation of what was going to happen overpowered it. And this is just one example of how Undertale uses your expectations against you—a sweet little reminder to keep an open mind.

Now go eat some strange ice cream.