Anime Food: McDonald's Introduces WcDonald's
On the night of its debut, I hit up WcDonald's for the anime-packaged "Savory Chili" sauce and nostalgia
As a local food writer, I have ample reasons to avoid corporatized, mainstream food products. But having lived in a neighborhood where the only kind of “food” within walking distance was predominantly served at liquor stores and gas stations, McDonald’s became the easiest — and most affordable — option for a few years, and in many ways, it made my life easier when I had to cut corners. Living in a food desert is real, and sometimes, you have to work with what you have.
Since leaving that area, I haven’t been back to a McDonald’s — I have plenty of other options now. But still, it reminds me of a certain time and place in my life, and the reality of what it’s like to ball on a Bay Area budget.
I also happen to enjoy anime — especially from the 80s, 90s and aughts — ever since one of my Filipino homies put me on to Kill la Kill nearly 10 years ago.
I never anticipated those two realities to intersect, but today, they did. For the first time ever, McDonald’s has announced their real-world anime-inspired alter-ego: WcDonald’s.
Based on popular anime and manga throughout the past decades — including Cowboy Bepop and Sonic X — the cartoonish brand re-positions the famous red-and-yellow logo upside down, and places it in variously different multiverses of neon cities, metropolises and fictional destinations.
IRL McDonald’s virtually announced the concept last week, and has revealed multiple characters that will inhabit the Japanese-stylized fast food eatery. It includes mechs, heroes, villains (?), and other diversely-presented humans and creatures (including a dude with a hamburger head, of course).
In addition to releasing anime shorts and micro-manga installments each week for the next month, totaling four episodes, WcDonald’s will also feature a limited “Savory Chili” sauce with cartoonish packaging, designed by Japanese artist, Acky Bright, and in collaboration with Studio Pierrot.
The sauce low key hits, and tingles with a sweet-and-spiciness that is clearly derived from Asian dishes. Such a simple ingredient addition — and a shit ton of re-branding — really makes it seem like you’re eating in a different dimension. (I wonder what some Americans who are oblivious to the month-long campaign will think when they pull up for a Big Mac and get served with a “WcDonald’s” W-arch and series of Japanese alphabet characters plastered all over their brown bags and soft drinks).
According to the Fictional Companies Wiki Fandom page, WcDonalds “originates from the 1981 manga and anime franchise Cat's Eye (キャッツ♥アイ, Kyattsu♥Ai), first appearing in the 1983 anime adaptation's 48th episode "A Mystery for a Winter Night" (冬の夜はミステリー, Fuuyu no Yoru wa Mystery). Since then, WcDonald's has appeared across many different manga, anime, video games, light novels, webtoons and other forms of animated media, usually as a background element or cameo.”
There’s definitely some deeper commentary on how Westernized capitalism can work perniciously, and I’m aware of my participation in The Machine by eating WcDonald’s and briefly writing about it. But in honor of the times I’ve spent grabbing a struggle meal near my grandma’s house on the outskirts of the East Bay — and all of the ungodly hours of anime I’ve consumed at different periods of my adulthood — here’s to Chicken WcNuggets.
