New tie-up with hit anime comes with anti-scalper strategy.

Fast food and anime figures are two of the reliable simple sources of joy in life, and yet there was some trepidation about combining the two of them as McDonald’s Japan launched a collaboration with the Chiikawa franchise last week. Chiikawa Happy Meals went on sale on May 15, but there was worry that the promotion would be marred by the same sort of ugly behavior from scalpers that’s taken place in some of the chain’s previous high-profile partnerships.

Because of that, McDonald’s is taking some extra precautions in order to make it harder for would-be-resellers to buy the Chiikawa Happy Meals in bulk, and even popular Japanese second-hand goods site Mercari has pledged to remove posts from sellers attempting to flip the figures for a profit. McDonald’s restrictions were tightest on the day of the Chiikawa Happy Meals’ release, with sales limited to users of the McDonald’s app and capped at four Happy Meals per time block (morning or afternoon/night).

And you know what? The rules seemed to achieve their purpose, at least at the branch where we got our four Chiikawa Happy Meals. There were no massive lines, no one walking out with a dozen orders just for themselves, and no one just taking their toys and leaving uneaten food on the restaurant counter or littered on the street outside.

Each Happy Meal comes with one of four figures of the Chiikawa cast dressed in McDonald’s uniforms, so we ordered four meals, keeping our fingers crossed that we’d be lucky enough to get the full set.

▼ We got ourselves two Chicken McNugget Happy Meals and two cheeseburger ones, each priced at 540 yen (US$3.50), so we were pretty much set for lunches for the next few days.

And to our great joy, as we opened up the four figure boxes one by one, each of them had a different figure waiting for us inside!

Not only are they adorable, there’s even a bit of inspiration from Chiikawa lore in their designs. For example, Rakko, seen on the far right in the photo above, is depicted in the Chiikawa manga and anime as owning a car and being a skilled driver, so he’s dressed in the uniform of a McDonald’s Japan delivery person, as is Hachiware.

Also part of our set of four is Kuri-Manju (second from the lest in the above photo), the alcohol-loving character with a head shaped like a chestnut dumpling (Chiikawa can be a very unique franchise). Perhaps due to his regularly inebriated condition, Kuri-Manju is not part of the delivery team, and is instead dressed in the uniform of a McCafe by Barista crew member, in charge of McDonald’s Japan’s fancier dessert and beverage subdivision, which sometimes even has its own order counter inside the restaurant. Finally, there’s Chiikawa, who, fittingly for the series’ protagonist, is dressed in a McDonald’s manager’s uniform.

Each of the figures is about eight centimeters (3.1 inches) tall, compact enough to easily find space for on a shelf or your desk, but big enough to still provide a palpable Chiikawa aura.

▼ McDonald’s figures are quite a bit bigger than the ones beef bowl chain Matsuya gave out in their most recent Chiikawa collaboration, as you can see here.

In addition, the figures have holes on the bottom so that you can use them as pencil/pen toppers too.

As is becoming increasingly common with Japanese Happy Meals, McDonald’s is releasing its Chiikawa ones in two waves, with the first lasting until May 28, then a new set of four figures coming in as a second batch from May 29 to June 11, and hopefully the anti-scalping strategies continue to be effective in round two.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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