Japanese Supermarkets

Text by Ashley Ogawa Clarke

The welcoming calls of the staff stacking shelves trill out, mixing with cheery robotic jingles and automated voices announcing seasonal specials over the speakers. The soft, warm scent of fried chicken permeates the air, complemented by the hum of brightly lit refrigerators, the sliding glass doors and the occasional beep of a barcode scanner. To enter a Japanese convenience store (known colloquially as a konbini) is to experience an irresistible microcosm of stimulation that tingles the senses.

“A convenience store is a world of sound,” wrote Sayaka Murata in her celebrated 2016 novel Convenience Store Woman. In the book, which remains the most evocative literature on the subject, the neurodivergent protagonist finds a strange comfort in the automaton simplicity of life inside the konbini. “The convenience store,” she wrote, “is a forcibly normalized environment.”

At some point in the past 50 years, the konbini became irrevocably tangled into the cultural fabric of Japan. It is the concept of convenience crystallised into one destination, a place where you can buy lunch, use the toilet, ATM or printer, pay your utility bills, or post a package. In the city, you’re seemingly never more than a few meters from one—like rats, but more pleasant. 

The Big Three (7Eleven, Lawson and Family Mart) dominate the market, and are in a constant tousle for the top spot in the public consciousness. Each have their own special points to draw you in. Lawson, for instance, has a partnership with Muji, and so sells the brand’s minimally minded skincare and stationery. 7Eleven is the generalist, with the most stores in the country, and is known for its reliably tasty fast food, kitchenware, and coffee. In an effort to woo the fashion conscious, Family Mart has its own clothing range called ConvenienceWear, popular for its ribbed sports socks with green and blue stripes that nod to the store’s colour scheme; in February, the store announced that BAPE founder Nigo would become its creative director, so we can assume that even more hype-worthy socks are on the way.

The iceberg extends beyond the Big Three, however. Ministop is generally seen as a second-rate option, but has maintained a reputation for excellent parfait. Daily Yamazaki is an uncommon sight, but can be found dotted across the country, as is Seicomart, with its HQ in Hokkaido to the north. Almost all of them sell toothbrushes, underwear and basic toiletries—a divine saviour for the drunken salaryman who wakes up on the street and is due back at the office for 8am.

One’s konbini preference in Japan is treated as a totemic indicator of personality, like the Myers & Briggs test. Mostly what inspires loyalty to one is in the small personal preferences, like a particular coffee order or a type of onigiri. For my part I am a happily disloyal customer, a konbini syncretist who plays the field with no strings attached. After visiting what must be thousands, I have found there to be little that separates the overall experience. I have been the drunk foreigner in his early twenties rushing in to buy more Sapporo beer or Strong Zero to sup in the street. I have also been the guy who rolls his eyes at that guy queuing up to buy a cold bottle of mugicha. Maybe one day I’ll be the old man that hobbles in to buy a “One Cup” of sake and a packet of Hi-Lites.

The charm of the whole thing is not in fact in the convenience, but in the consistency. Whether in the thrumming centre of Tokyo or in a sleepy mountain village, the presence of konbini is comforting and eternal. Inside those doors, 2pm is much the same as at 2am (though it’s in the quiet of the early hours where the magic of the thing can be most keenly felt). Even when the world has gone to bed, even in the swallowing loneliness of the city, the lights of the konbini remain constant. “When I can’t sleep, I think about the transparent glass box that is still stirring with life even in the darkness of night,” wrote Murata. “That pristine aquarium is still operating like clockwork. As I visualise the scene, the sounds of the store reverberate in my eardrums and lull me to sleep.”