When you hear “sports drink”, what do you think of?
If you live in America, you might say “gatorade” ?
Here in Japan, we can also find varieties of sports drinks at stores including convenience stores, where sports and vitamin drinks take large space of a shelf.
Just like this.
The most popular ones are “Aquarius” and “POCARI SWEAT”.
Both have similar tastes but POCARI SWEAT seems to be surprising drink for foreigners.
“POCARI SWEAT”
It is nothing wrong with the drink itself but they are surprised by the name.
The other day my acquaintance told me,
“What surprises my friends who come to Japan from overseas is sports drink named POCARI SWEAT. Because the word ‘sweat’ is in the name, they are grossed out or find it humorous. Many of them take pictures of the logo.”
Now that I heard that, it does sound like “drinking sweat” by the name.
My curiosity made me search about the origin of the name.
In the official website of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, the sales agency, it says,
“’POCARI’ was named just because the sound has light and bright tone; there is no special meaning in it. ‘Sweat’ was meant to point the importance of water and ion since you can see loosing them with your eyes by sweating.”
Hmm… I didn’t know that.
Just like this one, I’ve learned various things through managing JAPAN Style, so I am glad that I started it (^_^)
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I ‘discovered’ Pocari Sweat in a restaurant in Singapore last year in July. I was disturbed enough to take a photo of it and post about it on my blog as well. The way it reads, it sounds as if you’re going to be drinking sweat. It sort of tastes salty too, which doesn’t help.
> Brad F.: You found it in Singapore? That’s interesting. I hadn’t think it was salty but now you say so, I’m kind of start thinking it is salty like sweat LOL.
I don’t think Pocari Sweat is weird, and I’m American. I don’t know any foreigners who do think it’s weird either… It just sounds like a sports drink to me. I think most foreigners think “Calpis” is a funny name, because of how it can sound in English…. ^-^
> Ashley: I heard of about “Calpis.” I think that’s the reason why it is called Calpico in some other countries.