by Bruce Guthrie
Not being an anime aficionado, I was surprised to find that my McDonald's cup had a "W" instead of an "M" on it this week. And there were Japanese characters next to it which the Google Translate software on my smartphone translated as "Wak Donald". Was this a yakuza signal to take out the Republican front runner?
Apparently not.
Little known to me, a fictional WcDonald's franchise was introduced to
manga back in 1981 when they wanted to refer to a food franchise like
McDonald's but didn't want to run into trademark issues. ( https://fictionalcompanies.
Their regular website describes this as:
What Is the WcDonald’s Isekai?
Isekai is a popular anime genre that explores a story’s main character who suddenly finds themselves transported to a parallel “otherworld.” A fixture across various anime and manga titles and genres, WcDonald’s has been an indelible part of anime culture for decades. From it comes the new Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce! Dip into another universe and immerse yourself in WcDonald’s, artistically realized to serve as homage to fans of anime and the Golden Arches alike.
Isekai is a popular anime genre that explores a story’s main character who suddenly finds themselves transported to a parallel “otherworld.” A fixture across various anime and manga titles and genres, WcDonald’s has been an indelible part of anime culture for decades. From it comes the new Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce! Dip into another universe and immerse yourself in WcDonald’s, artistically realized to serve as homage to fans of anime and the Golden Arches alike.
There are
lots of in-store promotions for this campaign including bags (possibly
only the medium and small sized ones), the cups, the backs of receipts,
and videos on the order kiosks and behind the counter. There's also
a new promotional website ( https://www.wcdonalds.com ). All of this is to promote a new McNuggets sauce. (Which is really spicy!)
Nerdist has a great article about the campaign on https://nerdist.com/article/
The
website offers
a free miniseries of four video shorts and four manga chapters.
Currently, only the first set is up -- the first comic is a 24-page PDF
-- but presumably the other sets will be added each week as the campaign
continues. The story appears to start on the medium-size bag and can be read below.
As far as I can tell, the WcDonald's website only serves up the episodes
if you use the QR scan code to access it. If you access the www.wcdonalds.com
site directly, you're told that you have to unlock each episode. If
you don't have a device with a QR-reading built-in camera (like a
desktop PC), you're SOL. Once you use the QR code, there's a cookie
that's saved on your smartphone/laptop/PC which tells the system you're
kosher and lets you see the episode. Maybe that will change as
complaints mount.
Having said that, if you type in the short URL from your desktop browser -- 3wqv.short.gy/aZ1 -- things should work fine. I have to presume that McD's isn't issuing multiple bags with different QR codes each week so the new episodes should magically show up each week along with the old ones.
Having said that, if you type in the short URL from your desktop browser -- 3wqv.short.gy/aZ1 -- things should work fine. I have to presume that McD's isn't issuing multiple bags with different QR codes each week so the new episodes should magically show up each week along with the old ones.
(You can access the first issue of the comic directly via: https://www.wcdonalds.com/pdf/
Officially, the campaign ends on March 24.
Nerdist has a great article about the campaign on https://nerdist.com/article/
Some images (and, yes, I felt like an idiot photographing the screens above the counter...)
