Why Give Up Choosing? Book Omikuji, Bourbon Gacha, Omakase

A bookstore omikuji, a bourbon gacha, an omakase course: why stop choosing for yourself?

▼ About This Episode

Sakura finds Haru at a library, watching the returned books pile up on the returns cart, each one a book somebody chose and read. She picks up the top one: a title she'd never, ever reach for. Haru says a bookstore has made chance meetings like that into a service. This fall, Umeda Tsutaya Books in Osaka is running a store-wide fair about meeting a book for the first time, with a "chance book" omikuji box. Inside are fortunes for love, work, relationships and health; people draw one and let it guide them around the store.

A bourbon bar in Tokyo's Shinjuku area does something similar. Its all-you-can-drink plan offers up to 65 kinds of bourbon, and for a limited time the bar added a "gacha" to it, where chance decides: the company says each spin sets a theme for comparing drinks. Guests can still skip it and find their next glass by chatting with the bartender. Then there's "Carte Blanche," a set meal a hotel restaurant in Fukuoka started this fall. Instead of choosing from a menu, diners leave the course to the season's ingredients and the chef's instincts. In Japanese, that's omakase.

So why would people give up their freedom to choose? Some don't know what to pick, and some may be tired of deciding. Haru wonders whether others let go on purpose. Haru's own view: decide everything yourself, and everything you get stays inside what you already imagined; leave something to chance, and you may meet a discovery you never imagined. And Sakura decides to leave one thing to chance today. What's one small thing you'd leave to chance?

▼ Featured Links

Umeda Tsutaya Books — the Osaka bookstore with the "chance book" omikuji box:

https://store.tsite.jp/umeda/event/shop/56988-1122080924.html

Bourbon gacha — the Shinjuku bar's limited-time add-on to its all-you-can-drink plan:

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000148.000145570.html

Carte Blanche — an omakase course at a Fukuoka hotel restaurant:

https://www.kys-newotani.co.jp/hakata/restaurant/castillian/carte-blanche/

▼ Timestamps (Chapters)

00:00 - Returned Books on the Library Cart

00:40 - Umeda Tsutaya Books' "Chance Book" Omikuji Box

01:16 - Bourbon Gacha: Let Chance Pick the Next Glass

01:53 - Carte Blanche: An Omakase Course in Fukuoka

02:24 - Why Give Up the Freedom to Choose?

02:43 - Discoveries You'd Never Even Imagined

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🎵Music by Ivan Ohanezov from Pixabay

#JapanBusiness #JapaneseCulture #NarrativeJapan #JapanPodcast #Omakase #Gacha