You know your country has done something really weird when it ends up on the morning news in Japan.

Sometimes strange Japanese trends confuse the rest of the world, but right now the tables have turned and it’s an American trend that is confusing Japan.

Recently McDonald’s announced that they would be releasing a limited supply of Schezuan dipping sauce. The campaign was born from  an episode of the show Rick and Morty where the mad scientist Rick goes on a tangent about how his life’s purpose is to obtain “that Mulan Schezuan teriyaki dipping sauce.”

▼ You can watch the clip here.

Rick’s goal to find the sauce quickly became the goal of many of the show’s fans too, so much so that McDonald’s finally decided to re-release the sauce in limited supply on October 7 after a public outcry.

▼ It started out so innocent….

https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/914626606680952832

However, the fun special event turned sour fast. Supplies ran out nearly instantaneously at locations, quickly turning into chaos:

▼ Video of crowd chanting “we want sauce” after 1,000 people
showed up and only 70 packets were available

▼ Running out was common at locations everywhere.

https://twitter.com/fawich/status/916727172974432256

▼ And at some places cops had to be called in.

▼ Some lucky customers who managed to snag the packets
are reselling them on eBay for crazy prices.

While the Schezuan sauce protests of course made news in America, stranger is the fact that they also made news in Japan.

Here’s a photo of someone attempting to explain the phenomenon on the Japanese morning news show Toku Da Ne.

▼ The graphic says that it’s from American animated series Rick and Morty,
and the sauce was used to celebrate the release of Disney’s Mulan 19 years ago.

▼ “In America there are riots at McDonald’s for people wanting
Schezuan sauce, but I don’t know if they’re dangerous or peaceful.”

▼ “The Schezuan sauce is a re-release from 19 years ago when Mulan came out.
I never expected to see Mulan come up on Toku Da Ne.”

▼ “What?! America is on the brink of rioting over Schezuan sauce?! A two-liter bottle sold for 1.6 million yen (US$14,000)?! And a little one got 50,000 yen (US$444)….”

Many other Twitter users were quick to toss out their opinions of the American Schezuan-sauce riots:

“Riots over sauce? Calling the police? Selling for tens of thousands of yen online? America is a weird place, isn’t it….”

“lol at the news about the overseas McDonald’s this morning, please get some Schezuan sauce to Japan too please lol”

“Is the sauce really that good?”

“Rioting over Schezuan sauce lol Americans are so funny.”

“Schezuan sauce haha something is wrong with their heads.”

“Why would they want Schezuan sauce that badly?”

“America, where people riot over limited sauce. I don’t get it.”

Despite the insanity, one fun thing to take away from all of this is that fans of the show Rick and Morty in Japan refer it to by the usual method of abbreviating it as much as possible, turning it into just “RickMo.” It’s… kind of cute.

In the end though, it’s good to see a trend from the West getting jabbed at by the Japanese side. Just like most of us think the Schezuan sauce rioters are a little crazy and don’t represent all of us, most of Japan probably thinks the ones who set strange trends in their own country are probably a little crazy too and don’t represent all of them either.

Sources: Epoch Times in Japan, Sputnik News Japan, Guardian News
Featured image: Twitter/@alleninc