McDonald's Pokemon Frenzy in Japan Shows Collecting Boom's Dark Side

The rise of scalping is leaving children in tears and complicating promotion campaigns.

- Gearoid Reidy

In Japan, they don't call it a Happy Meal. The McDonald's option with a toy thrown in is known as a Happy Set. But that's where the differences end: Kids and adults on both sides of the Pacific love them—though sometimes for the wrong reasons.

McDonald's Holdings Japan, which operates the Golden Arches in its third-largest market, is finding this out to its peril. After a Pokemon trading card promotion went disastrously wrong, it has been rebuked by the Consumer Affairs Agency and is rethinking future campaigns.

The promotion seemed innocuous enough, offering two cards with every meal, one fixed and one random. But stores were inundated with scalpers seeking to flip cards online—and social media flooded with photos of dumped, uneaten meals. Children were left in tears when the restaurants ran out.

It's the second such issue the company has faced in 2025 after a similar commotion involving the beloved mascot Chiikawa also resulted in backlash. A resulting sales surge means that McDonald's might be secretly delighted; all publicity is good publicity. But the reaction grew too strong, halting plans for a Happy Set promotion with the manga One Piece.

Controversies over McDonald's are not new or limited to Japan. In the 1990s, fist fights erupted in US outlets over Happy Meals offering limited-edition miniature Beanie Babies (for Gen Z readers, that's a type of archaic Labubu). And in 2017, riots broke out at some locations due to the revival of the limited-edition Szechuan Sauce, made famous online in an episode of Rick & Morty.