S-CUP L (エスカップL)

This tastes a little sour, and that makes sense because this drink is supposed to taste like apple juice. It actually does......

Kyokyo Daha(強強打破)

 

This is Kyokyo Daha from the Tokiwa Pharmaceutical Company. This drink is not a pharmaceutical or a quasi-drug. This means that you can drink this more than one time a day even if you're younger than a 15 year old. This drink has 150mg of caffeine and some other ingredients like ginseng extract.

Taste:

This tastes horrible, one of the worst I've tasted in a while. It tastes like liquid tiramisu.......(Note: I don't like tiramisu or sweetened coffee)

Price:
about 250 yen (expensive, since this packs a small punch)

Effect:
150mg of caffeine is a lot, but you'll get the same effect as drinking 3 cups of coffee......in my opinion. However, it fails to pack a punch in energy, as it just makes you feel more awake. In that sense, it doesn't even compare to other (pharmaceutical) energy drinks.

Lipovitan D 11(リポビタンD11)

Today's energy drink is the Lipovitan D 11 by the Taisho Pharmaceutical Company. This is one of the most expensive energy drinks in the Lipovtan lineup that you can buy in a convenience  store in Japan(You can buy more expensive Lipovitans at drug stores). On the label, it says, "現代のつらい疲れに" which translates to, "For fatigue in today's society". The 11 stands for the 11 main ingredients in this thing. They are, 1500mg of taurine, 200mg of royal jelly, 90mg of ginseng extract, 0.6ml of Eleutherococcus senticosus extract(took me a long time to find this in English...lol), 0.2ml of wolfberry extract, 100mg of arginine, 100mg of inositol, 30mg of niacin, 10mg of vitamin B1, 5mg each of vitamin B2 and B6, 50mg of vitamin E, and 50mg of caffeine.

Taste:
The taste is not so good. It is sour and has a weird sweetness to it.

Price:
About 380yen

Effect:
This kept me awake for the whole day. I did not have to take a nap this day! This drink will naturally make you energetic and get you moving.....dangerous, yeah. However, this is normal in JAPAN.

Yunker Royal 200 (ユンケルローヤル200)

This is one of the more than 30 brands of the Yunker series. The Yunker series are sold by the Sato Pharmaceutical Company. First of all, the bottle is quite normal except for the fact that there is "Sato" engraved on it which is quite an eye-catcher.......for me. Another thing is that there's only 19kcal in 100ml of this compared to 74, which is what you'll find in a normal "Lipovitan D", which is also 100ml. The "Royal 200" stands for the 200mg of royal jelly that are in this. However, 200mg isn't that special; you'll find 300mg of royal jelly in a "Lipovitan D8" which is, not surprisingly, more expensive than this product. The ingredients in this Yunker are 200mg of royal jelly, 1000mg of taurine, 10mg of vitamin B1, 5mg of vitamin B2, 10mg of vitamin B6, 20mg of niacin, and 50mg of caffeine.

Taste:
This tastes and smells like nice, refreshing apple juice. It's quite watery compared to other energy drinks.

Price:
about 200yen

Effect:
The effects of this are "normal". On this blog, "normal" means that it has the same effects as a normal Lipovitan D, Tiovita, S-CUP, etc.

Alinamin V (アリナミンV)

 

Today's drink is the Alinamin V from the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. The first thing you might notice with this is that it's very small. There's only 50ml of this compared to 100ml which is what you would find in a normal energy drink in Japan. However, the amount of vitamins and god-knows-what does not differ much which means that it's that concentrated.
The drink contains Fursultiamine, a derivative of thiamine(Vitamin B1) which was developed in Japan by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company in the 1960s and is incorporated into most, if not all Alinamin products.

Taste:
The taste is bitter and sweet at the same time. This is one of the most bitter energy drinks I've done a review on. However, it's not disgustingly bitter, it's just slightly bitter which is actually quite nice. However, you might need a little time to get used to it. As for me, I still haven't gotten used to this taste.....definitely not my favorite.

Price:
about 150yen

Effect:
The effects of this are normal. When I say the effects of an energy drink is "normal", I mean that it is in the same range as the normal Tivovita, S-CUP, Lipovitan-D, etc which are all about 150yen.

Lipovitan D 8 (リポビタンD8)

 

This is "Lipovitan D 8" by the Taisho Pharmaceutical Company. On the label it says, "つらい疲れに" which translates to "for painful fatigue". PAINFUL!?!?.....wow I thought, this really must pack a punch. There's 1500mg of taurine, 300mg of royal jelly, 10mg of vitamin B1(thiamine), 5mg of vitamin B2(riboflavin), 5mg of vitamin B6, 50mg of vitamin E, 100mg of inositol, 30mg of niacin(B3), 90mg of ginseng extract(used in traditional Chinese medicine), and 50mg of caffeine. What really stands out with this Lipovitan D8 is that it has 300mg of royal jelly in it. That's 1.5 times what D11 and "Yunker Royal 200" have.

Taste:

It has kind of a floral essence to it. It's not like any of the energy drinks I've tasted before....very interesting. It might taste like medicine to people who think this floral taste has a medicinal taste to it.

Price:

about 260yen

Effects:

The effects are similar to that of "Lipovitan D Super". It's exactly what you'd expect from an energy drink in this price range. It's like you took a Lipovitan D and multiplied the effects by 2 as mentioned in the "Lipovitan D Super" article. However, unlike the super, the effects didn't last very long which was quite dissapointing,

Dekavita C (デカビタC)

Ok here's our first carbonated drink on this blog. It is the "Dekavita C" from a company called Suntory. This drink is not medicinal so you are able to drink this more than once a day and even if you're less than 15 years old. There's 0.67mg of vitamin B1, 0.76mg of vitamin B2, 1mg of vitamin B6, 1.4micrograms of vitamin B12, 95mg of vitamin C, 8.6mg of niacin(B3), 0.9-3.7mg of pantothenic acid, and 1.2mg of vitamin P(flavonoid) in 100ml of this.
"Deka" means "big" in Japanese and "vita" stands for "vitamins", and the "C" stands for vitamin C, hence the name "Dekavita C". There's 210ml of liquid in this thing so it is quite large if you compare it to medicinal energy drinks which are usually 100ml.

Taste:
The carbonation gives the drink a nice kick to it, unlike most energy drinks in Japan. The taste is not fruity and tastes similar to Oronamin C. There's nothing too special about it except for the slight honey-like taste, most likely due to the royal jelly.

Price:
about 120yen

Effects:
Well, you can't compare this to medicinal energy drinks, just a small boost in energy.

Alinamin 7 (アリナミン7)

This is the Alinamin 7 sold by the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. The 7 stands for the 7 main ingredeints that are in this. They are.....2.5mg of vitamin B1(thiamine), 2mg of vitamin B2(riboflavin), 10mg of vitmain B6, 25mg of Niacin(B3), 125mg of sodium L-aspartate, 1000mg of taurine, and 50mg of caffeine. 


Taste: The taste is fruity sweet and slightly bitter; that of medicine. Not my favorite taste among the energy drinks but better than Tiovita. 


Price: 
about 150 yen.


Effect: I didn't feel the effects of this very much.

Lipovitan D Super (リポビタンDスーパー)

This is the Lipovitan D Super energy drink from the Taisho Pharmaceutical Company.
First of all, this is different from the original, blue Lipovitan D energy drink and all the other baseline energy drinks from the fact that it has 2000mg of taurine in it. If you want to know what taurine is, check out my S-CUP post. Other than that this has 5mg each of vitamins B2(riboflavin) and B6, 10mg of vitamin B1(Thiamine), 20mg of Niacin(B3), 130mg of Ginseng extract(A type of traditional Chinese medicine), 10mg of vitamin E, 300mg of arginine hydrochloride, 50mg of caffeine, and 100mg of inositol. 


Taste:
The taste is very sweet and has a peach-like flavor to it. 

Price:
about 260yen(expensive)


Effect：
The effect is phenomenal compared to all the other baseline products.  I drank it and immediately, I began to feel the effects of the drink. It's like you took a Lipovitan D and multiplied the effects x2. On the other hand, I would have been disappointed if I didn't get this much of an energy boost with this 260-yen product.

Tiovita (チオビタ)

Today's energy drink is Tiovita! It is the flagship energy drink of the Taiho Pharmaceutical Company. The ingredients in this power pack is similar to all the flagship(baseline) energy drinks in Japan; 1000mg taurine, 5mg each of Vitamins B1, B2, and B6, etc.

Taste:

The taste of this is very sweet and has a medicine flavor to it.  Definitely not my favorite. The sweetness does not have any fruitiness to it, it's just plain sweet....period. And the medicine taste doesn't help much either.

Price:

about 150 yen

Effect:

So I drank one of these and I became recharged quite quickly. Nothing special. Just as what you'd expect from a 150 yen energy drink in Japan......which means Tiovita=S-Cup=Lipovitan D=Arinamin=etc....

S-CUP (エスカップ)

About
S-CUP is the flagship energy drink of the SS Pharmaceutical Company, a company which has its roots in the Edo Period, when Shirai Shosuke founded the "Minoya Yakubo" Kampo(traditional Chinese medicine) pharmacy in 1765. Later in the early 20th century, the name "SS", which stands for "Social Service" was adopted. Today, it also stands for "Science & Society". The company was acquired by German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim in 2001.
"S-CUP" is a long-seller item, having been first sold in 1963. It comes in a 100ml brown glass bottle, as with most quasi-drug energy drinks.

The drink contains 1000mg of taurine, 5mg each of Vitamin B1, B2 ,and B6, 50mg of caffeine, 20mg of niacin, 20mg of nicotinamide, and 100mg of carnitine.

Taste
The taste is fruity and not medicinal at all. Overall, it is very easy to drink.

Price
about 150 yen

Effect
The drink gave me a nice boost and was able to keep me awake for a whole day, despite having not slept much the previous day.