King of the Monsters teams up with the king of fast food hamburgers.

McDonald’s Japan has teamed up with several major stars of the Japanese pop culture sphere. Just in recent months, for example, they’ve brought out Happy Meals featuring both the Forger family of hit anime/manga Spy x Family and Sanrio kawaii queen Hello Kitty.

But surprisingly, McDonald’s Japan had never partnered with Japan’s literally biggest entertainment icon until just a few days ago, when they released their new series of Godzilla burgers.

▼ The collaboration’s dramatic announcement video

https://twitter.com/McDonaldsJapan/status/1739828445213856085

Kaiju and hamburgers are both things that are very near and dear to our hearts here at SoraNews24, so we made the trip to our local McDonald’s to pick up all three of the new Godzilla-inspired sandwiches and taste-test them.

▼ The Godzilla burgers come in special wrappers.

Right away, you’ll notice that these don’t have the smooth, semi-spherical top buns that regular McDonald’s hamburgers do. Instead, they’re contoured to evoke memories of Godzilla’s scaly hide, which actually turns out to be an unusually appetizing aesthetic. Of course, since these are meant to be meals fit for a king (of the monsters), each of the Godzilla burgers is also heartier than their lesser McDonald’s menu mates.

First up on the Godzilla burger taste test schedule: the 550-yen (US$3.80) Cheese Double Teriyaki.

Though it wasn’t the first fast food chain to serve up teriyaki burgers in Japan, fast food connoisseurs will tell you that McDonald’s does a fine job with them, thanks to the brand’s high-quality teriyaki sauce that’s flavorful without being overpowering.

When combined with mayo, like it is in the Cheese Double Teriyaki, it almost tastes like eating okonomiyaki, and the sauces excellently compliment the paired beef patties, with the gooey cheese tying everything together in a very satisfying way.

Next, we come to the 590-yen Delicious Spicy Thick-cut Beef and Rough-chopped Potato Godzilla burger.

The saucy star here is the “umakara” (“delicious and spicy”) spicy mayonnaise, which is remarkably fiery. It won’t necessarily make you feel like Godzilla is hitting your tongue with his fire breath, but it’s got a noticeable kick all the same.

The big surprise came with the patty-like potato that sits underneath the beef here. We were worried that it would be a soft square of spuds, but it’s fried up to a nice, crispy consistency for its outer layer, which tastes especially good once the sauce soaks into it from the top and the cheese from below.

And last, the 520-yen Smokey Pepper Chicken Godzilla burger.

Mustard isn’t a condiment Japanese burger chains usually make a lot of noise about, so we weren’t entirely sure what to expect here. As it turns out, the mustard itself has a smooth, unobtrusive taste, and the real heavy lifting is done by the black pepper and, even though they’re not mentioned in the sandwich’s name, the sliced onions mixed in with the sauce.

Those onions give the Smokey Pepper Chicken a little extra elegant complexity, and even with the cheese and bacon, this sandwich felt the most refined out of the three.

All three Godzilla burgers are on sale at McDonald’s branches across Japan now. They’ll be available for a limited but not-specified time, which makes sense because so often it’s Godzilla, not humanity, who decides when he’s ready to go home.

Potos © SoraNews24
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