Matsuya's Official X Posts a Store-Guessing Quiz, Opening with 'Matsuya, Right Now'

At 4:25 p.m. on August 23, Matsuya’s official X account posted a single photo of one of its stores along with the caption ‘Matsuya, right now (╹◡╹) Where do you think this is?’ Without naming the store or its location, the post challenges readers to guess where the pictured store is.

Opening with ‘Matsuya, right now’

The post itself is short — just ‘Matsuya, right now (╹◡╹)’ followed by the question ‘Where do you think this is?’ — with no promotional details such as a product name, release date, or URL. The emoticon ‘(╹◡╹)’ is a staple the official account uses regularly, but the opening phrase ‘Matsuya, right now’ has almost no precedent. The only comparable case found so far is a June 18 post that showed a photo of an underground Matsuya store and asked readers, ‘An underground Matsuya… how many stores like this do you know of?!’ as a number-guessing quiz.

Clues from the photo

The attached photo shows a Matsuya store co-located with the tonkatsu chain Matsunoya, standing under a clear blue sky. It’s identifiable as a suburban roadside store, with Matsuya’s yellow signboard bearing its round logo next to a brown Matsunoya sign. Out front hang a Matsunoya banner reading ‘Tonkatsu from 690 yen’ and a green banner reading ‘Rich, and even more refreshingly cool.’ Several bicycles, including an electric-assist bike with a child seat, are parked beside the entrance. A crosswalk runs in front of the store, with a gray warehouse-like building to the right and a tile-roofed house at the far left. However, nothing in the photo reveals the store’s name, its location, or any nearby train line or landmark, so there’s nothing in the image alone that narrows down where it is. In the lower right corner of the photo, Matsuya’s mascot characters Macky and Yakky are peeking out.

A guessing-game series that’s continued since May

Matsuya’s official X account has repeatedly posted photos of its stores and asked readers to guess the location since May of this year. Looking back at past posts, the series began with back-to-back ‘Which Matsuya Is This?’ posts on May 11 and May 15, followed by further quizzes on July 18, August 5, and August 9, and on August 18 the series used video for the first time. The answer has only been revealed once, for the August 5 round, when the official account announced the following day, August 6, via a quote repost that the correct answer was the ‘Shin-Matsudo Store.’ Every other round has gone without a revealed answer, and as of this writing, the answers to the August 9 and August 18 rounds still haven’t been made public. Whether an answer will be revealed for this latest photo, as with the earlier rounds, also remains to be seen.