”Enjoy being an adult!”

Manga art doesn’t get much more macho than the works of Tetsuo Hara. Best known as the artist for Fist of the North Star, Hara doesn’t draw fresh-faced high schoolers working up the nerve to confess their love to their crush or trying to recruit members to save a quirky extracurricular club from being shut down. He draws adult heroes doused in the ideals of full-grown old-school masculinity, stout of heart and rippling of musculature.

As such, Hara’s characters are often seen wandering through post-apocalyptic wastelands or kingdoms at war. Hara’s newest character, though, is found in a McDonald’s commercial.

https://youtu.be/ZWwkYlBuNow

Opening with a close-up of a falcon soaring through the skies, the perspective of the video (which boasts animation direction and character design by Hara) swoops around to show our protagonist, a samurai clinging to the side of a sheer cliff face. “To the adults of Japan,” the on-screen text greeting reads, and as the samurai resumes his climb, we hear his thoughts. “The challenges an adult faces are difficult. In work, family, and dealing with your own age, the walls that stand before you are tall.”

The samurai comes to a gap between himself and his next handhold, and after a brief pause to steel his resolve, he bellows “But we’re going to do it!” and leaps fearlessly across the chasm.

“Today, we make the future!” he continues, his fingers gripping the rock like the talons of the falcon flying by. With a final effort, he pulls himself to the mountaintop. “Keep moving forward, even if it’s just one step at a time. Never give up, and one day, when you arrive at your goal, you will see the ultimate view,” the samurai tells us, admiring the vista of Mt. Fuji and the Tokyo skyline, before giving us one final command:

▼ “Enjoy being an adult!”

Then the dude takes a gigantic bite out of a burger.

It’s unclear if he had the hamburger in the folds of his kimono the whole time while he was rock climbing, or if it was waiting at the top of the mountain like a video game power-up. What we can say for sure, though, is that it’s one of McDonald’s Japan’s new Samurai Mac burgers. The periodically available line uses traditional Japanese seasonings to create bold burger flavors, and the one shown in the video is the Wafu Barbecue Tamago Nikuatsu Beef, or Japanese-style Barbecue Egg Thick Beef cheeseburger, whose key ingredient is hatcho miso, a darkly colored premium miso paste produced in Aichi Prefecture. Also coming to the Samurai Mac section of the McDonald’s menu is the new Ninniku Zakugiri Potato Nikuatsu Beef cheeseburger, which boasts smoked bacon, a potato patty to accompany the beef one, and soy and spicy garlic chili/pepper sauces.

▼ Wafu Barbecue Tamago Nikuatsu Beef (left) and Ninniku Zakugiri Potato Nikuatsu Beef (right)

Both sandwiches are priced at 500 yen (US$3.80). They go on sale January 4, typically the first day people in Japan head back to work after New Year’s vacation, but hey, like the samurai said, being an adult isn’t easy, but at least you can occasionally reward yourself with a tasty burger.

Source: McDonald’s Japan via IT Media
Top image: YouTube/マクドナルド公式（McDonald’s）
Insert images: YouTube/マクドナルド公式（McDonald’s）, McDonald’s Japan
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he actually eats burgers more often after moving to Japan.