Black Thunder (chocolate bar)

is a chocolate bar made and sold in Japan by the . It has a cocoa-flavored cookie bar mixed with crunchy biscuit, all covered with chocolate. The suggested retail price is 30 before tax. The main advertising slogan means "Delicious taste in a flash of lightning!" The story of the Yuraku Confectionery Company and its Black Thunder bar has often been described in the Japanese business press as a modern-day rags to riches story.

The Black Thunder bar was designed to be an easy-to-sell candy bar with three popular parts and a low price. The name was partly inspired by the Japanese god of thunder. Black Thunder bars were first made in a factory in Toyohashi in 1994. The main target customers were university students in the Kantō region, and sales grew mostly through word-of-mouth recommendations. From 2004, a series of marketing deals helped sales to rise. In 2008, the Yuraku Confectionery Company sponsored the Men’s Gymnastics team at the 2008 Summer Olympics, which made the brand more widely known.

From 2008, the Yuraku Confectionery Company started making and selling different versions of the Black Thunder bar. Similar products in the same line include the Big Thunder, Black Thunder Minibar, White Black Thunder, and the Morning Thunder breakfast bar. In 2009, Yuraku also worked with other companies to make related products inspired by the Black Thunder candy bar.

Product
The original idea was to make a candy bar that would have three main qualities: a heavy texture, a rich flavor, and a low price. The combination of these qualities was expected to make it easy to sell. Later, it was decided that the bar should also appeal to as many groups of people as possible, including children. The candy bar was made with dark cocoa-flavored cookie pieces mixed with Japanese-style crisped rice, and then coated with dark milk chocolate. The cookie bar is pressed flat on five sides, but the top surface is uneven even with the chocolate coating. When choosing a name for the product, the keyword chosen was "black", which would suggest the dark chocolate flavor. This followed other marketing trends in Japan, where the color "black" is often linked with dark or bittersweet chocolate, such as the popular Meiji Black chocolate bar. To give the product more "impact" with consumers, it was named after the Japanese god of thunder, Raijin. Although the name uses the English words "Black Thunder" (pronounced or transliterated as Burakku Sandā), the package also includes the Japanese kanji term for the product in smaller font (), so that the meaning would be clear to Japanese consumers. An advertising slogan from the development period translated as "Delicious taste like a flash of lightning!" (), but it was first rejected in favor of the simpler descriptive slogan "Black cocoa crunch".

History
During early development, a chocolate bar with three kinds of nuts was made, called "ChocoNuts 3". However, it was discontinued after a short time, because it was thought that it would not appeal to children. The Black Thunder bar was then developed based on the original concept, but also with the idea that it should appeal to many different groups of people, including children.

In 1994, a small factory with only 20 employees in the city of Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture began producing the Black Thunder chocolate bars. The packaging at that time used alphabetic script that read "Black Thunder", and the suggested retail price was set at 30 yen. By the year 2000, sales were not strong, but the company decided to continue the product. At the same time, the package design was changed, and the slogan "Delicious taste in a flash of lightning!" was added. In August 2003, the package was changed again to its current design, where the alphabetic font for the brand name was replaced with Japanese katakana. A new advertising slogan aimed at a specific demographic was also added to the front of the package: "A big hit among young women!" During this early period, sales growth depended mostly on word-of-mouth recommendations.

Though at first Black Thunder was sold only in 7-Eleven stores in the Kantō region, the company soon saw the chance for wider marketing, and the bar was released through a cooperative business association into more areas. During the 2004 to 2005 sales year, Black Thunder bars became suddenly popular in the Kyushu region. In the summer of 2005, distribution expanded to more regions across Japan. By the end of that year, more than 900,000 bars had been sold, making Black Thunder the best-selling product of the Yuraku Confectionery Company. In 2006, the bar was picked up by the Shiraishi-san Co-op and sold online, which gave sales another boost as it became popular among university students. In the first three years after internet sales began, about ten times more bars were sold than in the eleven years since the product was first made. In 2008, the Yuraku Confectionery Company sponsored the Men’s Gymnastics team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The team won the Silver Medal, and individual gymnast Kōhei Uchimura also won silver. After the 19-year-old gymnast publicly endorsed the product in the media, brand recognition increased greatly. From 2008 to 2009, total sales rose from just under 50 million bars to 100 million. By 2010, sales had reached 130 million bars.

For the company’s 25th anniversary in 2019, Yuraku introduced a mascot called , played by model Matt Kuwata, the son of former baseball player Masumi Kuwata. Black Thunder Matt is described as a 25-year-old android superhero with Black Thunder bars for eyebrows, who shoots Black Thunder bars at hungry citizens.

Today, Black Thunder bars are made in four factories located in Sapporo, Tokyo, Osaka, and the original factory in Toyohashi. From these factories, the bars are shipped to many convenience stores and discount stores across Japan, and they are still distributed to all university student co-operatives in the Kanto area.

Overseas sales
In 2017, Delfi Limited formed a strategic alliance with Yuraku to manufacture Black Thunder in Indonesia. Two years later, the two companies created the Singapore-based joint venture Delfi Yuraku Pte Ltd. to market Black Thunder and other Yuraku products in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Nutritional information
The following table shows the nutritional information of a standard Black Thunder chocolate bar.
+ One bar6.5 x 3 x 1 cm Energy  115 kcal Protein  1.3 g Lipids  5.9 g Carbohydrates  14.1 g Sodium  71 mg

Variations

Yuraku has produced many variations of the original Black Thunder bar, aimed at different groups of consumers or created in collaboration with other companies. This section describes some of the more notable products by Yuraku. Other Black Thunder products have been released only in certain markets or for limited periods of time.

 Big Thunder 
In 2008, Yuraku expanded the product line to appeal to a wider audience. The  candy bar was introduced, which is about twice the length and width of the original bar, but only about half as thick. The main slogan can be translated as , while the package also carries the slogans  and .

 Black Thunder Mini-bar 
Since 2008, Black Thunder has also been sold in the form of a "Mini-bar". These mini-bars are about half the size and width of the regular bar and are sold in packages. It was thought that the larger quantity would appeal to cost-conscious families. While the Big Thunder bar is sold mainly in convenience stores, the Mini-bars have been targeted at grocery stores.

 Dear Girl Thunder 
In March 2009, in collaboration with the radio show Dear Girl Stories with Hiroshi Kamiya and Daisuke Ono and Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, the "Dear Girl Thunder" candy bar was created. The flavor was advertised as "The Taste of First Love: Salt and Chocolate" (). In Japan, chocolate is strongly associated with Valentine’s Day and is considered an appropriate gift between sweethearts; salty flavors are considered "adult" and are linked with maturity. A person’s "first love" is seen as a rite of passage, sweet in memory but also part of growing up. In July 2009, a limited edition of 480 Dear Girl Thunder bars went on sale and quickly sold out. In October 2010, the bar was sold in FamilyMart convenience stores, except in one region. During 2010, consumers asked why Black Thunder bars were not available in Hokkaido, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa, and the company began researching nationwide distribution. In January 2011, a second edition of the Dear Girl Thunder bar was released through Animate stores, which specialize in anime, manga, and video games. It was also marketed on the mail order website of Cho!A&G+, a branch of Nippon Cultural Broadcasting that focuses on digital radio. These deals made the Dear Girl Thunder bar available to consumers across Japan.

 White Black Thunder 
In December 2010, Yuraku Confectionery Company introduced "White Black Thunder" bars, called Shiroi Black Thunder (), for a limited run of six months. The cookie and crunchy biscuit core were the same as the original Black Thunder, but the outer coating was white chocolate. The package included the phrase "From Hokkaido", an area associated with white chocolate since its introduction by the Rokkatei Confectionery in Obihiro, Hokkaido in the 1970s. The advertising slogan was: "Straight descent into deliciousness!" (), using a term related to the steep slopes of Alpine skiing. The White Thunder bar quickly became popular, as shown by the rapid sell-out of stocks.

 Black Black Thunder 
 is a variation of the Black Thunder bar made with dark chocolate and chocolate chips, mixed with three types of cacao mass.

 Morning Thunder 
In January 2011, the Morning Thunder bar was introduced (). Designed as a breakfast bar, Morning Thunder contains a cinnamon-flavored cookie mixed with peanuts and soy bean puffs, fortified with extra protein, and coated in milk chocolate. The slogan on the package reads: "Protein and peanuts in a filling chocolate bar" (). A limited run of twelve months was planned.

 Morning Only Black Thunder 
In 2019, a new version called  was released. This breakfast bar contains coffee powder, dark chocolate chips, and coconut bits.

 Black Thunder Next Gear 
 is a longer chocolate bar that includes almonds.

 Other products 
Yuraku has also marketed many other Black Thunder products for limited periods. The list below includes some of the variations and special editions:

Black Thunder variations
  – Valentine's Day limited edition giant Black Thunder bar with gold sprinkles, rated at 3917 kcal.
 Black Thunder Gold – made with chocolate chips and coconut.
 .
 Black Thunder Manjū.
 .
 Black Thunder Monaka.
 .
 .
  – mixed with a blend of double fermented French and Hokkaido butter.
 .
  – Namco Amusement Japan exclusive variant with cola flavor.
  – a Black Thunder bar with almonds.
  – strawberry flavored Black Thunder.
  – a mix of Black Thunder and Calbee Frugra fruit granola cereal.
  – A mix of Black Thunder with corn potage flavor.
  – Valentine's Day limited edition variant with French blonde chocolate and golden caramel.
  – Kyoto exclusive variant with uji matcha and sencha powders. Manufactured in cooperation with Miju Co., Ltd.
  – Black Thunder with strawberry coating.
  – Valentine's Day limited edition box of three Black Thunder bars sprinkled with gold powder.
  – Yuraku Confectionery Tokyo exclusive variant with brown sugar.

Black Thunder Pretty Style Variations
  – Bite-sized version of Black Thunder.

 .
  – white chocolate with freeze-dried strawberry flakes.

Big Thunder variations
 Big Thunder Coconut.
 Dark Big Thunder – made with dark chocolate.

Black Thunder Mini-bar variations
 .
 .
 .
 .
 .
 .
 .
 .
 .
  – Toyohashi exclusive train packaging.

Mochi-mochi Black Thunder with flavors
 Azuki flavor.
 Kinako flavor.
 Matcha flavor.

Black Thunder ice cream variations
  – ice cream bar version produced by Seria Roile.
  – peppermint ice cream variant.

Others
 Chibi Thunder ("Tiny Thunder") – bite-sized pieces featuring tokusatsu characters.
 Granola Thunder.
 Ikeman Thunder – a Black Thunder bar with dried ramen.
 Kinako Thunder.
 Yaki-Tōmorokoshi Thunder ("Roasted Corn" Thunder), released in 2019.

Related products
In 2009, Yuraku worked with Royal Foods Company to create Black Thunder ice cream bars and Black Thunder Monaka (a product similar to an ice cream sandwich). These items were distributed only through 7-Eleven stores.

In April 2010, Yuraku announced a collaboration with the Guacamole clothing brand. The result was a line of swimwear for men and women, along with a selection of men’s underwear. Most of the items featured black or gold lightning designs inspired by the Black Thunder brand.

In 2011, a hardcover book was published about the history and trivia of Black Thunder bars. Released on February 9, 2011, in bookstores and convenience stores, the title translates to The Mystery of Black Thunder ().

In August 2017, Yuraku announced a collaboration with McDonald's Japan. The McFlurry Black Thunder was added to the McDonald’s menu in Japan for a limited time, beginning on 16 August 2017.

References

Other websites

Yuraku Confectionery official website

Category:Japanese desserts and sweets
Category:Chocolate bars