White Day (ホワイトデー, howaito dē) is Japan’s day for returning Valentine’s gifts, held on March 14. Women give chocolate on February 14, and a month later the men who received it give something back, usually sweets. It began as a confectioners’ campaign: the Fukuoka sweet shop Ishimura Manseidō (石村萬盛堂) held its first Marshmallow Day in 1978.
The Paper Bag on March 13
My father came home on the evening of March 13 with a department-store bag that rustled when he set it down. Inside were nine identical boxes of butter cookies, each the size of a paperback, each in the store’s paper with a small printed sticker that said White Day.
There were nine women in his section. Each had left a square of chocolate on his desk a month earlier, the same square for every man in the room, and each would now get one box back. He lined the boxes up on the kitchen table and counted them twice, the way he checked train times.
There was a tenth box, smaller, in different paper. That one did not go to the office. It went, after dinner and with some awkwardness, to my mother.
“Valentine’s Day in Japan asks a question. White Day is the answer, and the whole office can read it.”
Valentine’s Day in Japan: Chocolate Goes One Way
In Japan, Valentine’s Day (バレンタインデー, Barentain Dē) has a direction. Women and girls give chocolate. Men and boys receive it. Cards, flowers and candlelit dinners, the furniture of a Western February 14, barely feature.
That shape was set by confectioners. The most commonly accepted starting point is a Kobe sweet maker, Morozoff, which placed an advertisement in the February 12, 1936 edition of the English-language Japan Advertiser suggesting chocolate as a Valentine’s gift. In February 1958 the chocolatier Mary’s held what is described as Japan’s first Valentine’s fair, at a Tokyo department store, and the next year it began writing names onto heart-shaped chocolates. Morinaga followed in 1960 with a large campaign of its own. By the middle of the 1960s, women giving chocolate to men was the settled form.
The Five Kinds of Chocolate
From the 1980s the gift stopped being only romantic. Chocolate became something you gave to the men around you whether or not you liked them, and Japanese grew a vocabulary to say who each box was for.
- Honmei choco (本命チョコ, honmei choko) is chocolate for the real one. Honmei (本命) is racing slang for the horse you actually expect to win. This is the box most likely to be handmade, tezukuri (手作り).
- Giri choco (義理チョコ) is obligation chocolate, from giri (義理), the duty you owe to people you work or study with. It goes to male colleagues, bosses and classmates, often the same small item for everyone.
- Tomo choco (友チョコ) goes to friends.
- Jibun choco (自分チョコ), also called gohōbi choco (ご褒美チョコ), reward chocolate, is the box you buy for yourself.
- Gyaku choco (逆チョコ), reverse chocolate, is a man giving to a woman on February 14 itself.
Giri Choco and Its Slow Retreat
Giri choco is the part of the custom people complain about. It costs money, it takes an evening of wrapping, and it is not optional in the way a gift is supposed to be optional. The work falls on women, and the men at the receiving end often did not ask for it either.
The complaint went public on February 1, 2018, when Godiva Japan ran a full-page advertisement in the Nikkei (日本経済新聞) headed 「日本は、義理チョコをやめよう」, Japan, let’s stop giri choco. Yuraku Confectionery, maker of the cheap and much-loved Black Thunder bar and a declared supporter of giri choco culture since 2013, answered with 「よそはよそ、うちはうち」, roughly “other houses, other rules.” A year later the two brands ran a joint Valentine’s promotion.
The surveys show which way it is going. In Intage’s 2026 Valentine’s survey, 85.4 percent of working women said they would rather not take part in office giri choco, the highest figure since the question was first asked in 2022. Chocolate for oneself held steady at 21.3 percent of women, while chocolate for family, friends and colleagues all fell, and 42.8 percent planned to give none at all, in a year of steep chocolate price rises.
The calendar helps the retreat along in 2027. February 14 and March 14 both fall on a Sunday, so whatever still changes hands at work will do so on an ordinary weekday either side.
Where White Day Came From
White Day is the reply, and it was invented in Japan by people who sell sweets. Two confectioners’ claims are well documented. They compete, but they fit together better than their owners sometimes suggest.
Marshmallow Day in Hakata
Ishimura Manseidō is a sweet shop in Hakata, Fukuoka, that began trading on December 25, 1905. By the company’s own account, in 1977 its then president read a reader’s letter in a magazine complaining that boys never gave anything back for Valentine’s chocolate: handkerchiefs, candy, even a marshmallow would do.
The shop already made Tsurunoko (鶴乃子), a soft marshmallow shell around sweet egg-yolk bean paste. It built a chocolate-filled marshmallow on the same idea, with a simple pitch: the chocolate you gave me, wrapped in my kindness and given back. Marshmallow Day launched in 1978. The name later changed to White Day, and the shop still calls itself the birthplace of the custom.
The Candy Makers’ White Day
The national candy makers’ cooperative, Zenkoku Amegashi Kōgyō Kyōdō Kumiai (全国飴菓子工業協同組合), set up a White Day committee in 1978 and held its first White Day event with department stores in March 1980. Its adviser Nakanishi Nobuo, interviewed in 2018 by the Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation, a government agency, said marshmallow and cookie makers were already promoting return gifts, and the association wanted the habit to sell candy.
White was chosen on purpose. Japanese brides wear shiromuku (白無垢), the all-white wedding kimono; white can be dyed any colour; and sugar is white. Nakanishi also decided not to trademark the name, on the view that White Day would only spread if every industry could use it. It did.
So the two stories agree on the shape: a return day for Valentine’s, invented by confectioners at the end of the 1970s and carried nationwide by department stores in the 1980s. Nippon.com dates the Hakata campaign to 1977 and notes that the wider confectionery industry pushed candy as the proper return around the same time. Other sweet makers tell their own versions too.
Marshmallows, Cookies and Candy: What Each Gift Is Said to Mean
The return gift was meant to be simple: something sweet, preferably white. In recent years it has picked up a code, spread mostly online, in which each kind of sweet carries a message.
- Candy is said to mean “I love you.”
- Cookies are said to mean “let’s stay friends.”
- Macarons are said to mean “you are someone special.”
- Marshmallows are said to mean “I don’t like you,” because they melt in the mouth and are gone.
None of this has any official basis, and the marshmallow rule annoyed the people who started the day. On March 12, 2016, Ishimura Manseidō ran an advertisement in the Nishinippon Shimbun (西日本新聞) headed 「嫌だなあ。3月14日に『嫌い』なんて。」, roughly “How sad, ‘I don’t like you’ on March 14.” It explained that the marshmallow was meant to wrap her chocolate in kindness, and suggested spending the day with the person in front of you rather than with strangers online.
White chocolate sells on the strength of the name alone. In practice the return has widened to almost anything: handkerchiefs, hand cream, a dinner, jewellery for a honmei reply. The magazine letter that started the Hakata campaign had already suggested handkerchiefs.
Sanbai Gaeshi: The Triple-Return Rule
Every White Day conversation reaches the same phrase sooner or later: sanbai gaeshi (三倍返し), the triple return. A Valentine’s gift, the saying goes, should be repaid at three times its value. Its origin is unclear and it is usually said half as a joke, but it hangs over the shopping.
Real spending is gentler. LINE Gift compared what its users sent on Valentine’s Day and White Day in 2023 and found that the average return was about 1.4 times the price of the gift received. A January 2024 survey of 6,215 women by the same service found that 54 percent did not mind what a return cost, 25 percent hoped for about the same price, and 16 percent for something a little better. Only 4 percent said a cheaper return was fine.
So the working rule is simpler than the saying. Do not go below what you received. For giri chocolate, a shareable box of individually wrapped sweets is right, the same kind of box you would bring back as omiyage from a trip. For honmei chocolate, the return is a reply to a question, and the size of it matters less than whether it says yes.
Why a Return Day Took Root in Japan
Giving something back is an old reflex here. Wedding guests go home with a gift. Mourners who bring condolence money receive a gift in return. Families send oseibo year-end gifts to the people who looked after them. Nippon.com makes the same point about White Day: it fits a long habit of answering a gift given on a special occasion. The everyday word is okaeshi (お返し), the return, and White Day is that habit given a date.
It also sits in a crowded stretch of the calendar. Setsubun comes in early February, Valentine’s Day on the 14th, then hinamatsuri, the Doll Festival, on March 3, and White Day eleven days after that. Department-store sweets counters change their displays for each one. The other date on which a gift carries this much weight is Christmas Eve in Japan, which is a night for couples rather than families.
White Day Outside Japan
White Day travelled. South Korea keeps the same pattern: according to Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, women give chocolate on February 14 and men reciprocate on March 14 with candy or white chocolate.
Korea then added a third date. On Black Day, April 14, people who received nothing on either day commiserate over jjajangmyeon, noodles in black bean sauce. A looser chain of themed days follows on the 14th of later months, though interest drops off fast after April.
How to Do White Day Well
If you are in Japan and someone gave you chocolate in February:
- Return to everyone who gave. An unanswered giri gift gets noticed. Hand the return over on or near March 14.
- Keep office returns light. One shareable box per giver, individually wrapped, slightly better than what you received.
- Make a honmei return personal. Something chosen for her, not for the occasion.
- Answer tomo choco in kind. Friends trade, and gender does not come into it.
- Opting out is allowed. If your workplace has let giri choco lapse, let White Day lapse with it. Most of your colleagues will be relieved.
Sources and Further Reading
- Valentine's Day and White Day in Japan: Chocolate-Centered Celebrations, Nippon.com the 1936 Morozoff advertisement, Mary's 1958 fair, Morinaga's 1960 campaign and the names for each kind of chocolate
- White Day Is Candy Day: interview with the National Candy Confectionery Cooperative, Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation the 1978 White Day committee, the first event in March 1980, why white, and the decision not to trademark the name
- White Day Started Here, Ishimura Manseidō the company's account of Marshmallow Day, conceived in 1977 and launched in 1978
- Valentine's Day 2026 survey, Intage 85.4 percent of working women would rather skip office giri choco; jibun choco at 21.3 percent
- White Day in practice: a 1.4 times return, LY Corporation (LINE Gift) purchase data on the average return and the January 2024 survey of 6,215 women
- Ask Us about Korea: Valentine's Day, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea White Day and Black Day in South Korea
FAQ
What is White Day in Japan?
White Day is March 14, the day for returning Valentine’s gifts. In Japan women give chocolate on February 14, and a month later the men who received it give something back, usually sweets. It began as a confectioners’ campaign in 1978 and spread nationwide through department stores in the 1980s.
When is White Day 2027?
White Day falls on Sunday, March 14, 2027. The date is fixed every year. It is not a public holiday, so with the day on a Sunday, gifts at work change hands on a nearby weekday.
What do you give on White Day?
Traditionally sweets: candy, cookies, marshmallows or white chocolate. Today almost anything works, from a box of individually wrapped cookies for colleagues to a handkerchief, hand cream or jewellery for a partner. The one firm rule is not to return something cheaper than what you received.
What is giri choco?
Giri choco (義理チョコ) is obligation chocolate, given on Valentine’s Day to male colleagues, bosses or classmates out of social duty rather than romance. It is in decline: in Intage’s 2026 survey, 85.4 percent of working women said they would rather not take part in it at the office.
What is the difference between honmei choco and giri choco?
Honmei choco (本命チョコ) goes to someone you love or hope to date, and is often handmade or expensive. Giri choco goes to people you owe a courtesy, usually the same small item for everyone. White Day returns follow the same split: a shared box for giri, something personal for honmei.
Do you have to give back three times as much on White Day?
That is the saying, sanbai gaeshi (三倍返し), the triple return, and it is mostly said as a joke. LINE Gift’s 2023 purchase data put the average White Day return at about 1.4 times the Valentine’s gift. Matching or slightly beating the gift is the real standard.
Is White Day celebrated outside Japan?
Yes, most visibly in South Korea, where women give chocolate on February 14 and men reciprocate on March 14 with candy or white chocolate. Korea also added Black Day on April 14, when people who received nothing eat jjajangmyeon, noodles in black bean sauce.