Why McDonald's Japan Just Had To Limit How Many Happy Meals Customers Can Buy

For summer 2025, McDonald's launched a promotional giveaway in Japan featuring Pokémon cards and toys in Happy Meals. While all of us here in the U.S. were celebrating the triumphant return of Snack Wraps, folks young and old in the Land of the Rising Sun were clamoring to get their hands on as many of the children's toys as they could. Because of the chaos over the popular cartoon trinkets, McDonald's announced a new set of rules for its upcoming Happy Meal release.

The new Happy Meals stashed with Sanrio toys — including "My Melody and Kuromi," "Plarail," "Moon Universe Nanchara Kotetsukun," and "Let's Play With Cinnamoroll" meals — are slated for release in Japan on September 19, but now there's a catch. McDonald's is restricting the number of Happy Meals people can order at one time, as well as curbing the ability to order them online. Individual customers will be allowed one Happy Meal per order, and only three will be available to groups. The seemingly stringent rules placed around the children's meals are being enacted after news broke that folks were buying up as many Happy Meals as possible — and reselling the former exclusive Pokémon loot online via third-party platforms, which is prohibited by McDonald's. 

McDonald's may not be America's favorite fast food chain, but there's probably a location close by where you can grab a few McNuggets whenever hunger strikes. Still, that wasn't the situation a few months ago during the initial rollout of the Pokémon Happy Meals in Japan. In a case of "this is why we can't have nice things," hordes of people were witnessed crowding the restaurant in hopes of acquiring as many of the Pokémon trinkets as possible. Folks who just wanted a bite to eat found themselves waiting in extended lines just for a simple burger.

As if that wasn't bad enough, people who bulk-ordered Happy Meals weren't even eating the food. Plastic bags full of burgers and McDonald's iconic french fries were found littering the areas surrounding restaurant locations, likely to the dismay of hungry customers waiting patiently to order. Pokémon loot was fetching as much as $1000 when sold online. Given that a Happy Meal costs roughly $3.40 in Japan, the thought of making a nearly $1000 return on that investment is certainly alluring. Ironically, as McDonald's has wised up to the scheme and limited purchases of future Japanese Happy Meals, finding these hot-ticket trinkets for sale on third-party sites should become rarer, which will, in turn, make them even more valuable.