McDonald’s is celebrating a new anime collaboration by launching a Los Angeles exclusive: WcDonald’s, a version of McDonald’s that’s commonly featured in many popular anime shows.
The knock-off first appeared in the 1981 manga and anime franchise Cat’s Eyes. The Los Angeles version is a prelude to a similar rollout in 30 markets worldwide. Aside from the name, the difference in the anime stores will be the availability of a special sauce, manga-inspired packaging, episodic anime shorts, and manga .
This isn’t the first such McDonald’s stunt. Earlier, they did a Snoop Dogg version of the stores in a limited promotion.
“Anime is a huge part of today’s culture, and we love that our fans have been inviting us into the conversation for years,” McDonald’s said in the announcement. The Japanese manga artist and illustrator Acky Bright was enlisted to design custom WcDonald’s packaging for this collaboration.
McDonald’s has also partnered with the animation house studio pierrot to produce the first official WcDonald’s anime. Starting Feb. 26 and lasting until March 18, 2024, McDonald’s will release a new anime short and new manga every Monday. You can find them both on WcDonalds.com or by scanning the code on the new WcDonald’s bag.
The four new shorts:
The Race to WcDonald’s (drops Feb. 26): Two heroes embark on an epic race to WcDonald’s.
Love from Across the Booth (drops March 4): Two protagonists discover the WcDonald’s Sauce and WcNuggets aren’t the only perfect pairing.
WcNuggets Space Frontier 3000 (drops March 11): A team of WcDonald’s pilots must protect the last WcNugget against an ominous force.
The Wisdom of the Sauce (drops March 18): Three women are transported to a distant land to unravel the mystery surrounding the elusive sauce before it’s gone forever.
The first WcDonald’s promises it will be a “multi-sensory dining experience with a genre-bending fusion of entertainment and food.” Guests will enjoy a set menu of WcDonald’s items all while being transported into the WcDonald’s universe “through 360 projection mapping and immersive tabletop projections” inspired by the four new anime shorts.
The stunt will run March 9-10. WcDonald’s fans can reserve their spot exclusively on OpenTable starting on Feb. 28 by searching “WcDonald’s Immersive Dining Experience” on the OpenTable app. You can also go through the WcDonald’s website.
