The much-anticipated launch of the McDonald’s Japan promotional Pokémon TCG cards on 9 August 2025 rapidly turned into a nightmare. The event was marred by many unsavory incidents—both at countless McDonald’s outlets across Japan as well as online.

The most visible issue that plagued the launch event was the remarkable extent of food wastage. So many people showed up specifically for the cards without any interest in the Happy Meals that they came with. As such, these buyers threw out the food and kept the cards. Many even left the food in the McDonald’s outlet or even out in the streets.

Although McDonald’s Japan had intended to enforce a limit of no more than 5 people per group, some large groups used underhanded methods to circumvent this limit. Other buyers tried to cheat the system by buying Happy Meals in bulk off a reseller, then using that to claim their cards. Still others even tried to use doctored screenshots supposedly indicating that they’d purchased the Happy Meals via the McDonald’s Japan mobile app to claim their cards without paying anything at all.

Such was the demand for the cards that every McDonald’s outlet ran out of cards before the end of what should’ve been the first day of a three-day launch event, thus prompting McDonald’s Japan to end it early. At one outlet, police were called in to de-escalate a potential physical altercation after a buyer furiously demanded a refund as the outlet had run out of cards.

Even McDonald’s employees themselves were among the culprits with some having allegedly been involved in store embezzlement. Whole boxes of the packs were seen being sold online despite each pack being sold individually; only employees had access to the boxes.

Topping it all off, after the fiasco had fully unfolded, many Japanese netizens baselessly claimed that all the preceding problems were caused by buyers from China even though there was no evidence that the majority of the people at fault were indeed from China. Some netizens were even seen to have made blatantly racist remarks.

In other TCG-related news, check out the ONE PIECE CARD GAME 3rd ANNIVERSARY COMPLETE GUIDE. Alternatively, you can also head over to the SNKRDUNK App via the banner below and find the top trending and latest single cards and boxes.

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