At a year-end charity mochi-pounding event organized by a shopping-street association in Akune, Kagoshima, residents reportedly formed a line before the rice cakes had even been pounded. Mochi made with wooden mallets and mortars was sold in bags of four, including bean-paste-filled pieces, for 200 yen.
A normal sales line begins in front of finished goods; this one began before production. Buyers watched the pounding while waiting and participated in both a neighborhood year-end ritual and a fundraiser. The queue doubled as the audience for the making of what it would later purchase.