Walk into the candy section at Don Quijote (Donki, the giant Japanese discount store) and your first thought is:
That's way too many gummies.
Fruity ones. Sour ones. Extra-chewy ones. Imported ones. Limited editions. Mystery bags the size of a pillow. You came for one bag of candy, and now you're facing an army.
So I narrowed it down to gummies that have both high ratings and lots of reviews. The short answer: the classics win. Especially Meiji Kaju Gummy (Meiji's "fruit juice gummy"). Even after checking out the new stuff and the imported stuff, I keep reaching for Kaju Gummy again.
Then I looked around the aisle and had a second thought:
Isn't Donki basically the opposite of minimalism?
All that stuff is fun in a store. But if your home looked like that, cleaning would start with moving piles out of the way.
So this post starts as a gummy ranking, explains why people keep going back to Kaju Gummy and why HARIBO stands out so much, and ends with a slightly odd life rule: enjoy the abundance at the store, but don't bring it all home.
1. The ranking: don't just look at the stars, look at how many reviews there are
A 4.9 from 7 reviews and a 4.4 from 300 reviews are not the same thing.
So for the 6 gummies I compared, I only kept products with 100 or more reviews, then sorted them by their overall score on Shareview (a Japanese review site) as of September 21, 2026.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
| Rank | Product | Score | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Meiji Kaju Gummy Unshu Mikan (Japanese mandarin) | 4.44 | 255 |
| 2 | Meiji Kaju Gummy Grape | 4.41 | 320 |
| 3 | Bourbon Fettuccine Gummy Italian Grape | 4.38 | 226 |
| 4 | Kanro Pure Gummy Lemon | 4.37 | 188 |
| 5 | HARIBO Goldbears | 4.22 | 132 |
| 6 | Kabaya Tough Gummy | 4.16 | 141 |
This is not Don Quijote's sales chart. It's just a comparison of well-known gummies on an outside review site, using only ones with enough reviews to mean something.
Still, it's interesting.
Kaju Gummy is just plain good.
The mandarin flavor has the top score. Grape holds 4.41 across 320 reviews, the biggest sample on the list. No flashy gimmick, just solid stats across the board, like the starter gear in an RPG that somehow never needs replacing.
2. But the best-seller is Tough Gummy: "popular" depends on what you measure
Don't read this table as "the most popular gummy in Japan."
Kabaya's Tough Gummy was reported as the No. 1 single gummy product in Japan by sales value for 3 years in a row, from FY2023 to FY2025, based on Intage sales data. In FY2025, the brand's yearly sales passed ¥10 billion.[7]
So all of these are different things:
- a high average rating
- a lot of reviews
- actually selling a lot
- being a famous brand for a long time
In reviews, Kaju Gummy is strong. In sales, Tough Gummy is a monster. HARIBO has worldwide fame and history.
If you don't decide what "popular" means first, a "most popular" ranking falls apart fast.
3. Why does HARIBO stand out so much?
HARIBO Goldbears have been around since 1922, and the official lineup has 6 fruit flavors.[8]
Compared with Kaju Gummy, they're good in a different way.
Kaju Gummy is about real fruit taste, being easy to eat, and being the safe classic you can always come back to.
HARIBO is about a firmer chew, the bear shape, a mix of colors and flavors, and that "imported candy" vibe.
That's why it pops on the shelf.
It's one bag of candy, but you're also buying the experience of "eating HARIBO."
A 4.22 score isn't weak, either. It has 132 reviews, and a brand that's over 100 years old is sitting right there as a normal option on a Japanese gummy shelf. That alone says a lot.
4. And yet Kaju Gummy wins me back every time
According to Meiji, the current regular Kaju Gummy flavors include grape, Unshu mikan and muscat. The "100% juice" label is calculated on a fresh-juice-equivalent basis, and Meiji says it uses no artificial coloring.[9]
Meiji says the grape flavor blends several grape juices, and the mandarin one uses coarsely strained juice made to balance sour and sweet.[9]
But the real point isn't the spec sheet. It's how easy it is to come back to.
The gummy market is full of new stuff. Harder textures. Sourer coatings. Fillings. Giant sizes. Weird shapes from overseas.
Kaju Gummy is the one where you go:
"Okay, okay. This is still the best."
Lots of products win once because they're new. A product people keep coming back to has a different kind of strength.
5. The gummy aisle really did get bigger
Japan's gummy market hit ¥113.8 billion in 2024, up 17.1% from ¥97.2 billion the year before, passing the ¥100 billion mark.[10]
So the feeling that stores have too many gummies isn't just in your head. The market grew.
Makers compete on chewiness, sourness, smell, shape, health claims, limited editions and collabs. Gummies sell, so more products come out, and more products make the aisle even more fun.
Then it all lands in Donki.
A market full of new products meets a store built to cram as much as possible into every shelf.
A gummy explosion, stuffed into Donki-style packed shelves.
Your eyes give up first.
6. "Donki is anti-minimalist" pretty much matches the company's own idea
The official FAQ of PPIH (Don Quijote's parent company) explains that it stacks products high on purpose. It's a "compression display" style based on CV+D+A: Convenience, Discount and Amusement.[11]
Its current investor relations page also says packed displays, handwritten POP signs and constantly changing displays are how it makes shopping fun.[12]
So all that clutter isn't bad organizing.
They're throwing stuff at you on purpose.
If minimalism is "own fewer things so you have less to decide and manage," Donki goes all the way in the other direction inside the store.
More choices. More stuff per shelf. Making the hunt itself the fun part.
For a store, that works.
The problem is when you do it at home.
7. In a store, lots of stuff is fun. At home, it's a maintenance plan
If a store shelf has 100 kinds of gummies, you don't have to clean it.
But if your home has 100 kinds of anything, you now have to:
- find a place for each thing
- remember what you have
- dust it
- move it every time you clean
- keep track of expiry dates and wear
- carry it when you move
- throw it out in the end
Same "lots of stuff," opposite value.
Stuff in a store is a service. Stuff at home is a job.
Open shelving is the same. It looks fun, but every item on it is a landing spot for dust.
Cleaning isn't really about wiping the floor.
In a cluttered home, the real work is everything you have to move before you can even reach the floor.
8. Maybe the smart move is treating Donki like a giant closet outside your house
Not literally as a warehouse, of course.
It's just a way of thinking.
The store has tons of stuff. You take home only what you'll use now. When it runs out, you go back and pick again.
That way you get the fun of all that variety, without bringing most of the storage and cleaning work home.
You're allowed to agonize over 100 kinds of gummies.
But you only need to take one bag home.
And after all that agonizing, you'll probably grab Kaju Gummy again.
Donki can be anti-minimalist. Your home doesn't need to turn into Donki.
Enjoy the piles outside. Keep your home easy to clean.
That line is exactly what makes the next trip to Donki's candy jungle fun again.
References (12)
- Shareview, 明治 果汁グミぶどう shareview.jp
- Shareview, 明治 果汁グミ温州みかん shareview.jp
- Shareview, カンロ ピュレグミ レモン shareview.jp
- Shareview, ブルボン フェットチーネグミ イタリアングレープ味 shareview.jp
- Shareview, 三菱食品 ハリボー ゴールドベア shareview.jp
- Shareview, カバヤ タフグミ shareview.jp
- 食品産業新聞社, 「タフグミ」ブランド年間売上100億円・3年連続単品売上1位, 2026-04-22 ssnp.co.jp
- HARIBO, Goldbears official haribo.com
- 明治, 果汁グミ公式・商品開発情報 — ; https://www.meiji.co.jp/quality/r_d/unique_technology/gummi-commitments/ meiji.co.jp
- インテージSRI+由来の2024年グミ市場1138億円。食品産業新聞社およびカンロ開示資料参照 — ; https://www2.jpx.co.jp/disc/22160/140120250206564541.pdf ssnp.co.jp
- PPIH / Don Quijote FAQ, 圧縮陳列とCV+D+A ppih.co.jp
- PPIH, 個人投資家向け情報：Amusement・圧縮陳列 ppih.co.jp
