BODY: When one of the most-talked-about Japanese dramas of the decade returns, you don't just get a new season—you get a snack tie-in. Oyatsu Company has announced two limited-edition flavors of its Baby Star Dodekai Ramen crunchy noodle snack to celebrate the second season of TBS's Sunday-night drama "VIVANT," rolling out across Japan from August 10.
The two flavors are steeped in the show's mythology. First up is a sauce monja variety, cheekily branded as fuel "for Nogi and Nozaki's strategy meetings"—a nod to the drama's central figures and its endless web of double-crosses and covert planning. The second is a tom yum kung flavor, described as the snack "favored by Bangkok-based agents of Tent," referencing the shadowy organization and the Southeast Asian settings that gave the first season its globe-trotting espionage flavor.
Both will sell at an open price, with an expected shelf price of around 152 yen each (roughly $1). As with most Baby Star campaign editions, expect them to vanish from konbini and supermarket shelves quickly once fans start hunting them down.
"VIVANT," starring Masato Sakai and directed by Katsuo Fukuzawa, became a genuine cultural phenomenon when its first season aired in 2023, drawing massive ratings and sparking online theory-crafting about its twist-heavy plot set largely in the fictional Central Asian nation of Balka. A long-awaited second season is exactly the kind of event that Japanese snack makers love to ride.
The insider take
Snack tie-ins are a quietly serious business in Japan, and Baby Star is one of the most reliable partners for it—cheap, nostalgic, and instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up here. What's clever about this collaboration is how the flavors double as in-jokes: sauce monja is pure Tokyo shitamachi comfort food, while tom yum signals the show's Thai storylines. For fans, buying both isn't really about the noodles—it's about owning a tiny, edible piece of the "VIVANT" universe before the season even airs.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).