Latest news with #McDonald'sJapan


Express Tribune
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Exclusive Pikachu card featured in McDonald's Japan Happy Meals in limited-time Pokémon promotion
McDonald's Japan has announced the return of Pokemon Happy Meals, featuring an exclusive Pikachu promo card alongside collectible reprints from the Pokemon Trading Card Game. The promotion will run for a limited period from August 9 to August 11 2025. The highlight of this release is a new Pikachu promo card, which shows the Electric-type Pokemon about to eat a burger. This artwork is exclusive to the McDonald's promotion and will not be available through other releases. Each Happy Meal will include this Pikachu card and one additional promo card at random, with options including Sprigatito, Fuecoco, Quaxly, Ralts, or Riolu. While Pikachu features new artwork, the other cards in the set are reprints from earlier releases. Each card carries the McDonald's logo on the bottom right corner of the artwork, identifying it as part of this limited collaboration and marking it as a collectible item for fans of the franchise. McDonald's Japan has also announced that Pokemon toys will accompany the Happy Meals during this promotion. At the time of writing, it is not confirmed whether this promotion will expand to other regions outside Japan.


SoraNews24
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
McDonald's Japan announces Pokémon Trading Card Happy Meals with guaranteed Pikachus
You don't need to specifically choose Pikachu, because it's a promise that he'll be in your Happy Meal. McDonald's Japan is right in the middle of a collaboration with Sanrio, currently serving up Happy Meals with summer suntanned Hello Kitty Toys. But cravings for burgers and fries will always return, and so McDonald's is already planning its next team-up with a superstar character in Japan, and this time it's Pikachu. Coming on August 8 is a new line of Pokémon Happy Meal toys, and fans of the franchise have most likely now marked that date on their calendars. If you can hold off until the next day, though, there's something even better, as in addition to the toy, you'll also get exclusive Pokémon Trading Card Game cards! The lineup consists of a half-dozen Pocket Monster species, including Riolu, Ralts, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet starters Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly. Then, of course, there's Pikachu, whose card features an adorable illustration of the franchise mascot sitting in a restaurant booth and about to dig into a delicious hamburger. Well, actually, judging from the way the cutlery on the table is oriented, he's asking for a bite of the burger ordered by the Pokémon Trainer who's taken him along on this McDonald's run, but come on, get serious, there's no way anyone would ever say no to such a heart meltingly cute appeal. 8/8(金)~ハッピーセット®にポケモンのおもちゃが登場!8/9(土)〜8/11(月)はポケモンカードも もらえるよ!#ポケモン #ポケカ — マクドナルド (@McDonaldsJapan) July 15, 2025 With a total of six designs, though, you might be wondering how many Happy Meals you're going to have to order in order to snag the Pikachu card, but that's where the deal gets really sweet. Each Happy Meal comes with two Pokémon cards, and one of them is guaranteed to be Pikachu. However, while the odds are in your favor, time isn't necessarily on your side. McDonald's is yet to say how long the Pokémon Happy Meal will be available for, but usually each toy theme runs for about two weeks. The Pokémon cards, however, will only be given out on August 9, 10, and 11. And should you decide to go on august 8 as well to make extra-sure you don't miss out on the toys, ending up with a bunch of leftover McDonald's French fries in the process, we've got some tasty ideas for how to reuse them. Source: Twitter/@McDonaldsJapan via Jin Top image: Twitter/@McDonaldsJapan Pokémon ©Pokémon, ©Nintendo/Creatures Inc./Game Freak Inc. ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!


SoraNews24
16-07-2025
- General
- SoraNews24
Can you use McDonald's French fries to make Japanese-style croquettes?【SoraKitchen】
And if you can, should you? In a shocking turn of events, we recently found ourselves with leftover French fries. And we're not talking about one or two unclaimed fries, but multiple orders of them. We're as surprised as anyone, given that SoraNews24 HQ is usually a sort of black hole in which unclaimed food is absorbed and devoured with cosmic-level force. But even our collective company stomach has its limits, and we'd reached them the other day after we noticed we had a whole bunch of free French fry coupons for McDonald's Japan which were all about to expire, so we used them all at once. This sudden influx of French fries itself was cause for joy, but as our stomachs filled and our giddiness wore off, we were left with a grim premonition. French fries never taste quite as good after they've cooled down and been reheated in the microwave, which meant we now had a couple of sub-par spud snacking sessions in our near future… …or did we? It's been said that crisis and opportunity are two sides of the same coin, and so our Japanese-language reporter Ikuna Kamezawa came up with a plan to flip things around. Instead of eating diminished reheated French fries, she would use our leftover McDonald's fries to make croquettes. She'd need a few other ingredients to do this: an onion, some ground meat, butter, flour, eggs, breadcrumbs, and cooking oil. Starting with the onion, she peeled and minced it, then added it to a frying pan along with the ground meat (in our case a mixture of ground beef and pork) and butter to sauté them together. ▼ Ikuna used half an onion, about 70 grams (2.5 ounces) of ground meat, and roughly 8 grams (0.3 ounces) of butter. Now it was time to get our leftover McDonald's French fries out of the fridge and start them on their path to rebirth. We had two medium-size orders to work with. Rather than try to mash them up cold, Ikuna put them in the microwave for three minutes so that they'd get very hot. Then she got to mashing with her spatula. This turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Though the fries were looking droopy and squishy after being reheated, they weren't easy to crush with the spatula. Ultimately, Ikuna ended up using the spatula's edge to stab at the fries, rather than trying to press on them with the flat face. After about 10 minutes, they looked like this. The next step was to combine the quasi-mashed potatoes with the sautéed meat and onions… …and then to form the croquettes, which Ikuna did by hand, placing a scoop of the mixture in her palm and pressing it like she would when making a rice ball. Our two medium-sized orders of fries were enough to make six croquettes. However, maybe because the fries weren't completely mashed, the croquette cores Ikuna formed felt like they were on the verge of crumbling almost immediately. This meant there was a ticking clock as she applied their breading, and she moved as quickly as she could to cover the croquettes first in a layer of flour, then a coating of egg, and finally an outer layer of breadcrumbs. Now all that was left was the final step, frying them in oil for three or four minutes, after which her leftover McDonald's French fry croquettes were complete! Ikuna, by the way, would like us to remind everyone that her croquettes do not look sloppy or unprofessional at all, but are simply bursting with rustic homemade charm. So, how do they taste? Not bad! But also not really great…? First thing first: they do taste like croquettes, so in terms of answering the simple question of whether or not you can use leftover McDonald's fries to make croquettes, the answer is 'Yes!' However, the flavor was definitely on the mild side. As you might have noticed, Ikuna didn't add any salt to her croquettes, figuring that the McDonald's fries were probably already salty enough on their own. However, she also didn't add any pepper, which is a common croquette ingredient but not something that the McDonald's fries were bringing to the party by themselves. There was also a bit of a discordancy between the mild flavor of Ikuna's croquettes and how oily they were, perhaps owing to the potato part now being twice-fried. The potato filling was also noticeably firmer than it is with conventional croquettes made with mashed potatoes. But again, they weren't bad, and when Ikuna added some of the Worcester-like sauce used for croquettes in Japan, the overall eating experience was pretty good, at least in line with normal croquette expectations. So since we've already answered that you can do it, the next question is whether or not you should make croquettes with leftover McDonald's fries, and the answer to that isn't quite as simple as 'Yes' or 'No.' Using McDonald's fries didn't grant our croquettes any special magical qualities beyond the results you could expect with using regular potatoes and mashing them, so we wouldn't go out of our way and make a French fry run with the specific premeditated purpose of using them as croquette ingredients. But on the other hand, the croquettes we made did taste pretty good, and this was definitely more fun than wistfully eating a plate of limp leftover fries that had been reheated in the microwave. So in the unlikely event that we ever end up with leftover fries again, we'll definitely have to keep the croquette option in mind. Photos ©SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! [ Read in Japanese ]


SoraNews24
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
Hello Kitty's new McDonald's Japan Happy Meal items are here, and we've got them all to show you【Pics】
Suntan Kitty and yukata Kitty are here for fun on summer days and summer nights. Whether you call them Happy Meals or use their for-Japan name of Happy Sets, the point of McDonald's meals for kids and kids at heart is to put both a burger in your hands and a smile on your face. Those smiles are going to be especially big for Sanrio fans this month, as McDonald's Japan is releasing Hello Kitty Happy Meals, and we've got a special sneak peek at the whole lineup! First previewed last week, we knew that these were going to be very cute. How cute? So cute that even the boxes the toys come in are adorable. ▼ With Mt. Fuji in the background, Kitty-chan is spending her summer on the shore of either Kanagawa or Shizuoka Prefecture. As you can see, the themes here are the two best parts of summer in Japan, days at the beach and nights at festivals watching fireworks. The first of those is the subject of the initial batch of three possible Hello Kitty Happy Meal items, which will be available from July 11 to 17 and feature the suntanned Hello Kitty who rose to popularity in the late '90s. The surfer Kitty isn't just a decorative figurine, either. The surfboard is hollow inside, and the top pops off to reveal a shaft for making your own popsicles. Just fill the surfboard with fruit juice, replace the top, and place it in the freezer to solidify. ▼ The shaft has a playful heart-and-ribbon motif, and since it's plastic, you won't have t worry about the unpliant texture and taste of a wooden popsicle stick. Hello Kitty is taking a watermelon snack break on the lid of the Summer Drink Cup, which serves as a reminder that it's important to rest and rehydrate to prevent heat exhaustion. There's a slot on the back for a straw, and while the cup's capacity is on the small size for adults, each refill you do is another opportunity to say hi to Kitty-chan. Rounding out the suntan beach-theme is the vaguest of the items, the Sunglass Cap Mini Tray. This is a two-piece tray with Hello Kitty artwork on both sides, plus a set of heart-shaped sunglasses that you can either keep on her forehead or snap shut as a case. There's not a whole ton of space inside, but you can at least use them to hold an accessory or two, or for organizing thigs on your desk or picnic blanket. Hello Kitty will be back to her regular complexion from July 18, as the theme switches to Japan's traditional summer festivals, and she gets into the mood by wearing a traditional yukata (summer kimono). The first festival item is a bag clip set. Though not super strong, they're still a cute way to seal up sandwich or snack sacks, and the like, so they're handy to have if you're carrying some munchies in your bag on extended outings this summer. Alternatively, they're also useful for sealing up bags with any trash you might have accumulated while out and about, since public garbage cans are few and far between and the etiquette expectation is that people will take their trash back home or to their hotel and dispose of it there. The most inventively abstract design of the series comes in the form of the Wind Chime Hello Kitty Fork and Spoon Set. The soothing, psychologically cooling sound of wind chimes makes them a traditional summertime decoration in Japan, and while this toy doesn't actually function as a chime, that's still the visual motif for it. Honestly, the fork and spoon aren't really sized or shaped in a way that makes them very viable eating utensils, especially for adults, but you can actually separate them from the 'chime' part and use it as a key holder or carabiner. And last, we come to this spherical Kitty, once again sporting a yukata. This is actually an onigiri (rice ball) maker. Ordinarily, to make onigiri you have to scoop rice into your hands and press the grains together. This is actually easier said than done, though. Press too softly, and the rice ball will fall apart when you try to eat it. Press too hard, and you'll squash the grains, turning the texture into an unpleasant and uneven mush. The Hello Kitty onigiri maker (which is shaped like a paper festival lantern), offers a way around that problem, though. All you have to do is put cooked rice inside, close the ball up, and give it a nice vigorous shaking, and the rice grains will press themselves gently but firmly together. Oh, and remember those boxes the Happy Meal items come in? Don't throw them away, and not just because they're adorable. On one side, you'll find a QR code. Scan this with your phone, and you'll get to play a special Hello Kitty version of smash-hit mobile game Suika Game. As mentioned above, the suntan Hello Kitty items will be available from July 11 to 17, followed by the summer festival yukata ones from the 18th to the 24th, and then a third phase where any of the six items could be yours, while supplies last, from July 25. Related: McDonald's Japan Photos ©SoraNews24 Hello Kitty © 2025 SANRIO CO., LTD. APPROVAL NO. L655449 Suika Game © 2021 Aladdin X Inc. ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! [ Read in Japanese ]


SoraNews24
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
Suntanned Hello Kitty Happy Meal toys on their way to McDonald's Japan【Video】
Hello Kitty heads to the Golden Arches, the sunny beach, and summer festivals. Though the whole world knows Sanrio's superstar cat as Hello Kitty, that's actually her nickname. The character's official 'real' name is Kitty White, with her surname likely meant to evoke the snowy shade of her fur. However, while she's always Kitty White, Hello Kitty is also sometimes brown, like in her upcoming batch of McDonald's Japan Happy Meal toys. That's because Kitty-chan periodically develops a 'suntan' while she's having outdoor fun, with such merch usually showing up in the summer months. So with McDonald's new Hello Kitty Happy Meals arriving on July 11, right around when the sunshine is strongest in Japan, the first three toys are all suntanned Kitty ones. There's a Mini Tray for keeping your snacks off the sand or grass during picnics at the beach or park, and also a Summer Drink Cup for hydration help. The coolest item, though, in both senses of the word, is the Surfboard Ice Maker, which lets you make frozen popsicle-style treats by filling it with juice and popping it in the freezer to form. Kitty's suntan will have faded by July 18, when the second round of Hello Kitty Happy Meals arrive. Along with a trip to the beach, hitting up the local summer festival is a highlight of summer in Japan, so Kitty-chan puts on her summer kimono for the Yukata Hello Kitty Bag Clips. The gentle ringing of wind chimes has long been thought to have a psychologically cooling effect during summers in Japan, so that's the form Kitty-chan takes on for the Wind Chime Hello Kitty Spoon and Fork set. But once again, the best of the bunch appears to be the one that helps you make something to eat, the Lantern Hello Kitty Onigiri Maker Shaker. Being shaped like the hanging paper lanterns that light up festival venues means that this Hello Kitty is also shaped like an onigiri (rice ball). Scoop cooked rice inside, give it a series of good vertical shakes, and you get a nicely formed rice ball. ▼ It's an especially useful item if you or your friends/family are among the people who don't like eating onigiri that someone formed with their bare hands. ▼ Preview video for all the Hello Kitty Happy Meal toys The second batch of toys will be available from July 18 to July 24, and the third round of the tie-up, where any of the six items are a possibility, starts July 25 and continues until supplies run out. Source: McDonald's Japan Top image: Twitter/@ McDonaldsJapan Insert images: YouTube/マクドナルド公式(McDonald's), McDonald's Japan, YouTube/マクドナルド公式(McDonald's) (2, 3) ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!