The old-fashioned package that shows golden bats on a moss-green background is extensively known, and it is coming to be re-evaluated as a nostalgic design these days.

Habitual smokers of Golden Bat criticized it as destroying history; however, the design has changed afterwards, with silver paper and a tag.

As part of the plans for the exploitation of China, during the 1930s and 1940s the subsidiary tobacco industry of Mitsui had started production of special "Golden Bat" cigarettes using the then-popular in the Far East trademark.

In their mouthpieces, there were hidden small doses of opium or heroin and by this, millions of unsuspecting consumers were addicted into these narcotics, while creating huge profits.

Mastermind of the plan, Doihara was later prosecuted and convicted for war crimes before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East sentenced him to death, but no actions ever took place against the company which profited from their production.

Well-known story writers Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Osamu Dazai and Chūya Nakahara loved to smoke Golden Bat.

The naturalist, Minakata Kumagusu also smoked Golden Bat, and he used its box as a specimen case of a slime germ he collected.

In 1931, 16-year old Takeo Nagamatsu and twenty-five year old Suzuki Ichiro created the golden skull headed superhero Ōgon Bat, naming him after the cigarette brand.