>>32
Go you. The race issues moldering in the heads of people who constantly babble about "wotaku/wapanese" are at least as interesting as what's in the heads of Japan-obsessed non-Japanese.

Plain Pocky, in my opinion, isn't that interesting, but some of the fancier ones are pretty good, such as the Decorer line. However, my favorite Japanese chocolate thing is the Melty Kiss line. It's kind of like a grown-up version of the gas-station-purchase Ice Cube chocolates of my youth.

On the average, though, Japanese (and Chinese) chocolate isn't very good (with a few exceptions--a number of Meiji products are pretty good) . American chocolate isn't great either, but it's a little better, and there are a few more exceptional brands (Guittard, Scharffen-Berger, Joseph Schmidt; even See's and Godiva). On average, European chocolate is best.

When I was in China I found Dove bars were the only chocolate that was consistently edible. ("Couldn't you live without chocolate?" "No, I'm female, duh." /stereotype reinforcement )