McDonald's Japan Pulls Happy Meal Pokémon Cards Early, And Fans Blame Scalpers

It’s wild to see that every country has a scalping problem. Kind of thought that was a more western phenomenon, but evidently not.

It’s crazy how popular Pokemon is that it inspires this behavior all over the world.

I was going to say something about the title, but I was beat to it

I expected scalping, of course. Was surprised when I heard of the early ending though. Well, whether scalpers buy stuff or not doesn't particularly concern me (though I also like it when people buy stuff they actually want as well 😃).

The subheading already made my day. Thanks a lot.

About the story. Thanks scalpers, you cannot go 5 minutes without shaming yourselves?

Did Digimon ever have something like this happen? Probably.

Not that I think bad news should dominate the headlines but the scalping issue in Pokemon doesn't get enough press coverage considering the size of the problem. It's been a rollercoaster of misery trying to buy cards from sets post Stellar Crown. As such I'm not massively surprised to read this, though of course it sucks.

I bet that made some people unhappiny.

Oh my gosh literally just came to comment on the tagline, love it @nintendolife 👏

Wasting food is a crime. Unbelievable

Scalping is one thing, but wasting food for cardboard is atrocious! At least give the food to people who need it.

Already plenty of McRibbing in the comments about that subheading, I see. XD

On a serious note....Talk about wasteful, shameful behavior. I thought this was more of a Western issue, but it appears I was wrong.

The food waste is a shame (I’m no longer surprised by human greed). MCDonalds isn’t healthy but I am sure some homeless person could have used some food.

When I used to still eat Macca's, I was able to buy Happy Meal toys (sans meal) for AU$2. Surely the concession still exists today (even if at a slightly higher price of $3 or $4)? It would be crazy if it didn't. Perhaps Aussie Macca's was a little unique in that regard.

Absolutely ridiculous that they would throw out all of that food for mere toys/cards though, but our mistake was assuming that scalpers ever possessed any scruples in the first place. Pathetic losers, the lot of them.

Wouldn't that make them even more valuable?

no wonder why we cant have nice things cause of fools/clowns who want to ruin everything for everyone.

They could at least store this food at home and eat it later...

This is why I could never get into collecting stuff. There is too much BS involved for what is essentially plastic and / or cardboard.

gotta catch ‘em all

@DCP a McCrime, if u will

While there is likely a few locals and such, it's mostly chinese doing it.

Pokémon has changed into a radioactive franchise corrupting people and causing damage to the market around it.

Dude just eat the food

Man, if scalping wasn't dastardly enough, they couldn't even donate all the unwanted meals to homeless or those in need to gain even an ounce of positive karma, scalpers truly are dreggs

There are people who could use that food. Why not at least bring it with you and ask if someone would take it off your hands?

Remember the days when you could just go up to the counter and ask to purchase the current Happy Meal toys separately?

‘Mon-sterous behavior from these super-sized goons. Surprised they didn’t go full-Hamburglar and loot the stores.

I remember hearing about wasted food from Happy Meal promotions when Beanie Babies were the hot thing in the US in like 1997.
But certainly Japan has a reputation for demanding cleaner stores than that resulting mess.

@stephalear Came here just to check if it got the credit it deserves 😂

Disgusting. I wonder if any kids actually got a Pokemon Happy Meal or if it was just rabid fans and scalpers.

When a rich dude buys up all the land and starts selling it back to people for 10 times what it's worth, that person is basically a hero. We worship them, idolize them, and lower their taxes.

When some guy who's likely struggling just to get by buys up all the Pokémon cards and sells them at profit, that person is the scum of the earth and deserves to die.

We, as a society, put real time, effort and money into trying to stop people from buying up all the Pokémon cards, because hey, me not being able to get a Pokémon card is just an unacceptable world state. We do nothing about the whole land barons and monopoly problems because record homelessness and wealth inequality is fine, as long as I get that shinny Pikachu.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting we hate the scalper LESS. But maybe a great way to react when you realize that on a microscale the cornerstone of our entire society and economic model is actually pretty awful is to ask yourself why you accept it on the macroscale. We spend so much time hating each other, we don't have any hate left for the people who deserve it.

I told you people. The Scrimblos and the McSwordGuys need to unite against our shared enemy: Pokemon

@HeadPirate Who the heck is calling the forst guy a hero? Other than the most deranged on Fox News, pretty much everyone else wants to kill that guy.

Human beings never fail to not disappoint. Waste of food, money, and time for some cardboard.😐 The same people who wasted this food are probably the type who wouldn't even donate to a food bank

@HeadPirate The majority of people definitely aren't calling the first guy a "hero". In fact a lot of society absolutely hates wealthy parasites and think they are dangerous to the rest of the world. Scalpers are scum but they aren't even remotely as bad as the wealthy who are waging class warfare on society. People can live without some Pokemon cards, video game consoles, etc... We can't live without food, healthcare, and other things that have been privatized/weaponized by the elites

@Zeebor15 @AllBLK

There are people who hate the bourgeoisie, sure. At different points in history that hate has boiled over into the odd beheading or social revaluation. But that's the exception, not the rule. I think it's fantastic if you are part of the minority that sees things for how they are, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking we are a majority.

My point is when people worship titans of industry or the wealthy elite, a thing most people absolutely do, they do so without considering that if they witnessed the same behaviors in someone who wasn't insanely wealthy already, they would condemn them.

At the peak of Musk's cult of personality, when 100s of millions of people world wide would defend his every action, I would argue that if any of them read an article about some everyday Joe who inherited a emerald mine from their Nazi father and was in the process of working locals to death to profit from it, they would condemn that person, despite the hypocrisy.

I don't think that's an overly hot take.

@HeadPirate Its 2025 and no one thinks house flippers or landlords are heroes.

As to your second point, these are not poor people struggling to get by. These are people that had enough money to travel from China to Japan and take lengthy vacations there or even live there.

@YoshiAngemon No, us Digimon fans are safe
Although it DID happen to another japenese series with happy meals, Chikawa

“Honey, I’m going to McDonald’s for lunch.”

“But you hate McDonald’s! You always say it tastes like cardboard.”

“…Turns out I like cardboard.”

Every scalper is also a trash human being. No, there are no exceptions.

People saying they thought this was only a Western thing are showing the weird myopic fantasizing of Japan is alive and well. Jerks exist in every region, race, culture, orientation, and any other grouping of humans in existence.

@Coalescence The thing is.. this wasn't a Japanese thing. It was a Chinese visiting or temporarily living in Japan thing. That is why this story blew up. Culturally Japanese were very upset this was happening to them, because this isn't common or accepted at all there. People were literally calling the police because McDonalds sold too many Happy Meals to single individuals. The police were actually responding to these calls with concern, because that is how deep something like this is not accepted in Japan. You do not liter in Japan, you do not cut the line in Japan, and apparently you do not buy up all the Pokemon Happy Meals in Japan.

If you go to Twitter and translate the Japanese comments all of them are asking why Chinese people are being so rude, why they don't have any shame, why can't they follow the rules, why are they always being disruptive. All of the pictures and videos that made this story a thing that reached Nintendolife, are about Chinese people in Japan, not Japanese people. This isn't something you will see normally in Japan.. other than the example you gave of westerners.. however this cultural difference, it isn't just westerners, it also includes people from other countries in Asia such as China and the Philippines or any other country that generally has more disruptive people.

@Milk_

Not wanting to be the guy who says I live in Japan so I know better…but scalping, rudeness, shamelessness and littering ALL exist and occur here daily.

Some of Mac’s other recent Happy Sets have had similar consequences and I think it’s fair to say native people will more readily call out foreigners on social media than fellow Japanese. Of course I agree with them, it’s all of the above to do such things, but posting about it has the knock on effect of damaging relations with foreigners and some of us here are working very hard to be model foreign citizens.

All over Pokémon cards too. Sweet Jesus.

And this is why i moved to lorcana.
Goof troop and darkwing duck.
Versus getting attacked for a booster pack.

@Ryu_Niiyama actually you'd be pretty surprised to find out that McDonald's In Japan is as healthy as some normal everyday food u can cook they have very high standards in that country that others need to adopt especially the USA

@Drago201 More concerned about the food waste itself personally as was the point of my comment.

@HeadPirate As someone who worked in large-scale retail during the absolute height of the card-collecting trend during COVID, we implemented a limit on the amount of packs you could purchase not to save card for little kids or something saccharine like that, but to prevent mad rushes over pieces of cardboard at a time when we were already dealing with organizations and hoarders buying excessive amounts of product. The same reason we implemented a limit on paper towels, it wasn't to save paper towels for the people or something ridiculous (that was just the lie we told customers who got p*ssy about it to shut them up), it was to prevent the cashiers from having to ring up a hundred rolls of toilet paper, along with products with loopholes to circumvent purchase limits, like soda where you can just buy different brands.

McDonald's cashiers and workers don't need to be slammed more than they already are by food-wasting scalping a-holes. Your stance is basically advocating for the same heartless capitalism you seem to be against, just because scalpers exist at the same time as mega-CEOs. People can be concerned about more than one thing.

@Dee123 Yeah. Jean Valjean stole the bread to feed his family, not to sell it to other hungry people at inflated prices.

@B3RTAY I have visited Japan a few times. And while I can see saying that it does happen with Japanese people too as true… it is also far less common and not characteristic of life in Japan. Where as we in the west and other regions of the globe outside of Japan are more used to people being disruptive. If I called the cops here in the states, because someone bought a lot of Happy Meals, the cops would come arrest me for wasting their time. So I think you have to admit there is a stark cultural difference in acceptable public behavior.

Not to say Japanese people aren’t rude, but they are rude in their own way, that typically isn't loud and boisterous.