The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew

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bbckygldstn about 17 hours ago 260 commentsRead Article on mcdonalds.co.jp

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rappatic•about 15 hours ago

OP, I love not just that you noticed this, but that you thought to post it here too. HN is the best.

glenstein•about 14 hours ago

Yes! It's genuinely fascinating, and it's the kind of thing I trust this community to talk about in a reasonable way which is not quite always the case (Mozilla, many politics topics). But this feels like, potentially, AI prompting or even more interestingly an intentional stylistic choice.

rschiavone•about 5 hours ago

In Japan, pictures of food are legally required to faithfully represent the actual food you get, AI-generated pictures wouldn't fly with their laws.

mplanchard•42 minutes ago

Not sure about this, given that sufficiently accurate plastic simulacra satisfy the law, right? Is it just that it can’t be digitally generated?

JSR_FDED•about 4 hours ago

It’s clever, it makes the burger more “accessible” - you’re not thinking “how am I going to eat this tower of food”.

weird-eye-issue•about 5 hours ago

> But this feels like, potentially, AI prompting

Are you joking?

glouwbug•about 3 hours ago

Hackernews sees skewed burger and proceeds to praise itself

barbs•about 5 hours ago

So many upvotes. And not even any accompanying submission text. I love it.

Dwedit•about 15 hours ago

A video posted by McDonalds Canada reveals how they stage the burgers for photographing them. They shift each layer backwards (bun, meat, etc) so that the ingredients of the layer are more visible when photographed. The top bun ends up being a few inches backward compared to the bottom bun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSd0keSj2W8

alt227•about 7 hours ago

However, the buns on the Japanese menu are much more obviously askew than other countries menus, which is the interesting point I imagine the OP was getting at.

Compare for example with the UK images which are much more symmetrical:

https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/menu/burgers.html

rererereferred•about 1 hour ago

I wonder if they got the instructions on how to photograph them in text, without example pictures, and followed them verbatim.

lostlogin•about 7 hours ago

I used to work in food photography (in an admin role).

Sprayed on glycerine for condensation on cool things. cigarette smoke for steam.

It was super nasty, but the photos looked good.

vjvjvjvjghv•about 3 hours ago

When I had a contract with a company that makes machines to mass produce spaghetti and also stuff like pudding I watched a photography session. They used motor oil as chocolate sauce.

Barbing•about 7 hours ago

I was told once everything in those food photos in the United States had to be edible. You could substitute sour cream, but not glue, for whipped cream. I wonder if that was true.

riffraff•about 7 hours ago

I remember reading a book in the '80s where one of the characters was a food photographer and mentioned that some kind of plastic had to be used for the cheese in hamburgers or it wouldn't be realistic.

But also many post 2000 claims that it was all actually real food because of various "truth in advertising" regulations around the world.

The linked Canadian McDonald's video would be one example.

roncesvalles•about 5 hours ago

Elmers glue is edible.

evanjrowley•about 15 hours ago

I like how it makes the burgers look more "laid back", like some cool sunglasses-wearing skater/surfer dude leaning back, or a pin-up model whose pose invites you in. Standing up straight is for the man and that's not how I want my burgers to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man

adonovan•about 3 hours ago

Quite. A burger that wears its hat at a jaunty angle for a rakish look.

fennec-posix•about 15 hours ago

These burgers aren't working for the man

danesparza•about 3 hours ago

That's interesting, because I had a different take: The burgers are 'so big' they can't easily be contained.

If you notice, it's mostly the higher priced burgers that seem to be 'askew'

ahartmetz•about 13 hours ago

As we can see, it takes deliberate effort to look laid back ;)

pash•about 10 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

m463•about 10 hours ago

I was thinking more of south park characters, maybe ike:

https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Ike_Broflovski

smilespray•about 8 hours ago

Don't kick the burger

tokioyoyo•about 5 hours ago

That would be Canadian McDonalds.

robot-wrangler•about 15 hours ago

No idea why we're discussing burgers or the man, but pretty funny to learn the phrase goes back to freaking BCE

rdevilla•about 8 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

croon•about 7 hours ago

That would be the charitable reason, but I wonder if it could be more related to their laws on accurate representations in ads (Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations [0]).

[0] https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2303/e...

Kailhus•about 6 hours ago

That doesn't seem to bother burger king though: https://www.burgerking.co.jp/menu

croon•about 4 hours ago

IANAL, so I won't quote relevant text from previous link, but I believe promotional photos need to be of the actual food (ie not substituting shaving cream for whipped cream to deal with melting issue), but it will likely be a very picturesque version of it, though they are indeed (less, but still) askew in those photos. I looked a bit further, and it seem the American BK uses similar (though not exact) photos of their JP counterpart now, maybe it's a trend, but I did find a rather stark contrast with their AU counterpart (naming is another story):

https://www.hungryjacks.com.au/Upload/HJ/Media/Menu/product/...

compared to the Japanese:

https://www.burgerking.co.jp/images/menu/web/main/2025/09/04...

MrGilbert•about 6 hours ago

That was my first thought, too. Never ever looked a burger from any of the well-known chains the way it looks on photos.

sph•about 8 hours ago

Please don’t compare a beautiful practice with the symbol of ultra-capitalism.

Probably it’s some sociopathic psychologist working for McDonalds that find out that askew buns makes them sell 0.2% more units per year, which is around half a gazillion dollars in increased revenue.

rrr_oh_man•about 7 hours ago

Maybe 500 years into the future burger bun photography will be treated as a "beautiful practice" while nutrient syringes are getting shoved into our other buns.

saagarjha•about 7 hours ago

Why can't it be both?

sph•about 5 hours ago

Because it's not. From another comment: "Being slightly aswew really hard to fight the subconscious urge to reach out and 'fix' them. I almost want to rush out to a nearest McDonald's right now and buy one of these burgers"

Urge to fix something, or tricking one to spend money for a novelty is quite literally the opposite of wabi-sabi.

tbeseda•about 16 hours ago

I just want to note how fast this page is.

806kB transferred. 766ms to finished. I hit the DFW AWS CloudFront pop from here.

Similar page for BK https://www.burgerking.co.jp/menu

31MB transferred. 6.5s to finished. Hits the DEN pop (but it's a "miss").

I am in Colorado. uBlock is on.

Even if you don't count the 7.5MB of fonts on the BK page, that's wild.

bcrl•about 15 hours ago

McDonalds actually seems to have learned to take latency seriously. When their touch screen ordering systems were first deployed, the delay between tapping on an item or button was quite noticeable. These days the systems respond nearly instantaneously. I'm very glad there are people inside such a large organization that pay attention to that aspect of usability.

Now if only every other website on the internet would learn that latency matters...

ssl-3•about 14 hours ago

If that's true, then their mobile app team must be both completely separate and isolated from all communications.

Because it's really bad. And it's been bad for a really long time.

When all I want is to order a cheap cup of coffee, I get to stare at a throbbing box of fries while it tries to figure that out.

Get to the restaurant and signal my arrival? More throbbing fries.

Sometimes the fries never stop throbbing and the only way to get away from them and onto the next step is to force-close the app and start it again.

When I manage to accumulate enough points to order a free sandwich? "Sorry, something went wrong!" This leaves me with no sandwich, and no points. (I guess I was going to be disappointed no matter what -- maybe they're doing me a favor by fucking it up so bad that getting the food is impossible, since reaching the melancholy destination takes fewer steps this way.)

Over the years I've used multiple phones, from multiple manufacturers, with multiple carriers. It's not me; the app is consistently bad.

Oh. And speaking of carriers: Back when I had metered service, I used wifi where I could. The McDonald's near where I lived had free wifi, but their network had this app firewalled. It'd work anywhere but inside of the building where it was most useful.

But, yeah: The touchscreen kiosks are a bit more responsive than they initially were. It's too bad that they're gored up with finger grease and other bodily effluences, though, because they barely work with the layer of filth that covers them.

aidenn0•about 11 hours ago

I have a half-serious theory that their mobile app is for price discrimination. The best deals are only available in the app, but the experience is so bad that you'll only use it if you really need to.

basch•about 14 hours ago

their app has some very strange flow to it, i cant tell if it feels designed by committee or if there are just so many strange use cases that its somehow the least bad given some arbitrary constraints i cant begin to understand.

even selecting my restaurant is a constant battle. the closest restaurant to my house as the bird flies is not the closest restaurant. even the closest by miles driven involves much more complication than the one i always want to pick. it constantly battles me that i have selected a suboptimal choice. maybe learn that when i am at home, i want to default to my preferred choice, every time, unless i say otherwise.

a2128•about 5 hours ago

I've never once been able to use the McDonald's app over several years and multiple devices. I originally wanted to check the nutritional info of the menu. Download our app, it says. This website is better in our app, it says. The order screen constantly asks me to enter my app code. Collect points in our App! Do you have our App? I give in and finally download the App. "Something's not quite right", you didn't install our app properly (Aurora Store instead of Google Play), you didn't set up your device properly (unlocked bootloader), you did something wrong to upset the App and it will not run. Oh no, we can't let you see the number of calories in your burger with an unlocked bootloader!!! This stupid app has stricter protection than any of my banking apps and I will never be able to escape constantly being asked to use it

rstuart4133•about 7 hours ago

I gave up on the app completely when I placed an order via the app, was waved past the payment window, then the order window denied it was placed (and paid for). I showed them the phone with the order number still on it. They said it could be a screenshot. After arguing for a while, I drove away without food.

I eventually got a refund after digging throw their web site for an email address, and emailed them the statement showing where it has been paid. With the back and forward while they asked for evidence, it took over an hour of my time in the end to get the refund. It wasn't the money. It was the principle.

The app is by far the slowest, most unreliable way to place an order with them. Period. The next slowest (although far better) is the kiosks. They also unreliable when the printer doesn't work (which is most of the time), and you make the mistake of forgetting the receipt number. Other fast food outlets have solved this problem by getting you to enter your name. That's beyond McDonalds apparently. The fastest, and most reliable way by far is to talk to a human.

The order should be the reverse. It is beyond me how they get it so badly wrong. Maybe price discrimination is the reason. Nothing else makes much sense for an organisation of the size and resources of McDonalds.

jd3•about 9 hours ago

The US app is still laggy (even on the iPhone 17 Pro) and constantly logs you out. My theory is that they set the login timeout to a low number to make it harder to accrue points.

Itoldmyselfso•about 3 hours ago

Their app also blocks the use of it on GrapheneOS, for no proper reason.

kelzier•24 minutes ago

Have you used their app though? It shows an offer on opening, that must animate in and out in such a janky way, when really you just want your PIN code to gain points for the order. It's a horribly frustrating UX.

jerlam•about 14 hours ago

I remember the exact opposite of the McDonalds touch screen ordering systems.

When they first came out, everything was snappy because it wasn't loading recommendations or additional tracking. There were a lot fewer customization options.

Now, you click on something, and you wait a while, and then it asks you what you want to change and if you want to add these other suggested items. When you want to check out, it lags and then pops up another dialog asking if you want to add more items to your order.

altairprime•about 14 hours ago

McDonald’s in the U.S. is targeting market segments that either have low-price cellular data plans or are operating cellular devices in cars where coverage is often worse (especially for travelers!), which requires minimum server latency since you have to turn around those data packets instantly in order to queue them into their customer’s lowest-priority on-the-pole cellular pipe. Thus why they continue to provide a series choices that have such a high round-trip cost of user interaction: everyone wants to customize, no one wants to suffer a complicated UI, so simple serial dialogs served at minimum server resources per request it is. I would hazard a guess that the process fervor they design into their kitchen operations means that internet ordering is shown within the same metrics dashboard as store ops.

jtbayly•about 14 hours ago

I refuse to go to McDonalds anymore because they refuse to acknowledge you, won’t take your order, force you to use those stupid terminals.

ranger_danger•about 14 hours ago

I actively seek out such establishments because I'm an introvert and I don't want to talk to people. Japan is a paradise in this way... an extremely large number of restaurants do not require interacting with a human to place your order.

jml7c5•about 14 hours ago

Why do you want them to take your order if you have access to a terminal?

rapind•about 15 hours ago

Except they make you tap 2-3 times more than it takes to make your selections. That's business guys though, not the devs.

Do you want to add one of [x]?... No. How about now, add one of [x]?... No. Do you want to round up your total to [n]?... No. Do you want to eat in, even though we'll still put it in a takeaway bag so this option is really just the equivalent of a close door button on an elevator in that it does nothing except placate you?... Yes.

sowbug•about 15 hours ago

I'm sure these two behaviors depend on each other. Instantaneous response allows the company to spend more of your attention answering questions rather than staring at a spinner.

If you've ever watched TV with someone who gets distracted and sets down the remote after each button press while Netflix's UI slowly loads, you know that three or four UI interactions can turn into a several-minute ordeal.

b112•about 15 hours ago

I have been in elevators in which it does do something. I've timed the difference. This foul rumour must die.

1attice•about 13 hours ago

It's choice exhaustion, a common dark pattern. You get worn down and that makes you more likely to spend more than you need

DrewADesign•about 14 hours ago

Annoying, for sure, but at least it’s not an unpredictable 800 keystroke, zero agency, chatbot interaction.

postepowanieadm•about 8 hours ago

I'm not sure - their kiosks in Poland are horrible, nagging you to order more. Event hardware is broken, as your recipe with order number tends to get stuck in the machine. What makes me wonder what our Fiscus thinks about it.

lmpdev•about 8 hours ago

I repaired some of ~10 years ago (Australia)

Just low end uncustomised NUCs overheating behind the screen

No idea if that’s still the case

jimmydorry•about 11 hours ago

Yet the Maccas app in Australia is atrocious for me. Takes >30secs to load the huge ad that pops-up before you can get to the menu. Close the ad and the menu takes another eternity, then inside each sub menu, you wait another eternity for the pictures to all load. Meanwhile, all of this content could just be downloaded in the background and cached for future loads...

And the app continues to get worse each update. The checkout process used to be quick and responsive. They've since made it require additional clicks and take much longer.

Barbing•about 7 hours ago

Is there anyone who uses the app and orders premium options and uses coupons that don't represent much of a discount... yet, the app STILL takes a long time to load?

Causing delays for unprofitable customers. Any business is going to do it if they can. /tinfoil

(Their margins shouldn't be this bad.)

7bit•about 10 hours ago

I stopped using those because I'm faster ordering at the cashier. The delay was awfully long with 3-5 seconds. It's now improved but 2-3 seconds is still ridiculous. I wouldn't say they've learning anything. That's probably just a side effect of something they aren't even aware about.

Germany btw

brcmthrowaway•about 15 hours ago

Bet someone here worked on them

janderson215•about 14 hours ago

Probably. Similarly, Walmart has a great eng org for a company of its size.

ranger_danger•about 14 hours ago

My experience with them to this day is still abysmal... often have to touch 2 or 3 times to get it to register and there is still a noticeable delay, as if I'm (probably so) interacting with a slow/bloated webpage. The mobile app is even worse for me with added latency and surprising(ly delayed) large content changes that affect what you're trying to click on.

qsi•about 14 hours ago

Here in Singapore the terminals work well! The latency has definitely gone down. Ironically the Japanese McDonald's website loads faster than the Singapore one... so they've got some work to do.

fracus•about 12 hours ago

They probably never wash them so there is this insulating layer of grease and grime on the screen that inhibits touch detection.

mr_toad•about 15 hours ago

It’s worrying, or perhaps just sad, that 766ms for an initial page load is considered especially noteworthy. Six thousand milliseconds is just awful.

gl-prod•about 15 hours ago

But it feels snappy.

gerdesj•about 15 hours ago

When I was a lad, 30ms was considered the worst latency allowable for telephony unless you were dealing with satellite links, in which case you taught people to use a simple variety of radio protocol (over).

Nowadays with all our fancy crappy comms, 200+ms is considered normal. Ever noticed the lag on a Teams call?

danielheath•about 15 hours ago

It feels snappy _compared with most sites_.

That's the point!

It feels _very_ sluggish if I try it after spending some time using a windows 98 VM, or a library catalog from 1990.

alt227•about 4 hours ago

I would imagine it is intended so it loads quickly on mobile devices using slow data connections in crowded areas. I have noticed web pages taking a lot longer to load when I am in a city centre on a data connection. Its pretty cool and may even give a competitive edge if you can still be snappy in that situation when your competitiors arent.

userbinator•about 10 hours ago

BK's page is also completely unusable without JS. It's an "appsite", not a website.

McD's is readable with JS off, because the "meat" of the content is plain HTML. I also like how the other links here are to URLs of the form "/en/products/nnnn", which further reinforces the fact that the pages are server-side.

layer8•about 14 hours ago

It's fast food, what do you expect. ;)

wombat-man•about 15 hours ago

they gotta make sure you learn about those burgers as fast as possible.

sickcodebruh•about 14 hours ago

Crazy fast but the the way all header text sizes change briefly flash between values every time you switch tabs would drive me nuts if I was responsible for this.

puppymaster•about 14 hours ago

+1. not just that front page, click on any of the menu. Good prefetch and ttfb optimization there

IAmGraydon•about 14 hours ago

Hungry people are impatient. Some have learned this and how to gain another small edge with it.

tpurves•about 16 hours ago

This is such a dastardly psychological trick. Being slightly aswew really hard to fight the subconscious urge to reach out and 'fix' them. I almost want to rush out to a nearest McDonald's right now and buy one of these burgers so that I can make sure that it's buns are aligned properly....

xofer•about 13 hours ago

I'd like to reach out and snatch that last apostrophe from your comment for similar reasons.

mykowebhn•about 10 hours ago

Your being so critical!

eps•about 7 hours ago

... and last dot in the ellipsis.

vivid242•about 14 hours ago

In a culture that likes things neat and orderly lined up!

soco•about 4 hours ago

Interesting, I couldn't care less about those shapes. Where is the difference in our minds? Because I haven't for single a second thought about "fixing" it, nor cared about it - even after you mentioned it.

m463•about 10 hours ago

> reach out and 'fix' them

maybe by eating your way into the problem...

sbt567•about 7 hours ago

Oh, that is absolutely how all of mobile game ads now are designed. It will deliberately fail a very simple task to poke our desires of "Huh, I can do better than that"

kylehotchkiss•about 10 hours ago

What if I told you that you could do this without flying to Japan. You’ll probably be reprimanded for holding up orders.

jdorfman•about 17 hours ago

I believe it has to do with

https://boingboing.net/2026/04/08/japans-truth-in-packaging-...

raincole•about 16 hours ago

I don't think so. Mos Burder and Burger King's websites don't look like that.

https://www.mos.jp/menu/category/?c_id=1

https://www.burgerking.co.jp/menu

jamesrom•about 9 hours ago

Mos takes it even further, the top bun is completely off.

qnleigh•about 3 hours ago

I would love to believe that a regulator got served a crooked McDonald's burger, looked at the pristine menu photos, and said 'nope.'

I'm half joking but this feels plausible.

jmcgough•about 16 hours ago

It isn't showing anything that would otherwise be hidden, I think this is a stylistic decision. Looks cute and more natural to me.

ZeWaka•about 17 hours ago

https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2303/e...

>No Entrepreneur may make a ... representation where the quality, standard or any other particular relating to the

>content of goods or services is portrayed to general consumers as being much better than that of the actual goods or services

Fwirt•about 16 hours ago

To me the buns still look far too perfect and fluffy. I don't know if I've ever received a wrapped McDonald's hamburger that hasn't been smashed flat to some extent, with cracks in the bun. The ones that come in boxes fare a little better but they still look as if they've weathered some turbulence.

bschwindHN•about 16 hours ago

I'll admit to McDonald's Japan being a guilty pleasure of mine. Most things I get are pretty close to the picture. It's not perfect of course, but it's McDonald's, I'm not exactly expecting gourmet food and presentation. The fries kick ass though, I almost always get them hot and perfectly golden brown.

qmarchi•about 16 hours ago

At least, in Japan, they're generally as advertised.

taeric•about 16 hours ago

Honestly, this looks far more like a stylistic choice that the company thought was fine? And... it is? It actually gave me a bit of a smile. :D

junon•about 15 hours ago

Isn't that more about size? Instagram video seems to corroborate that.

nomilk•about 15 hours ago

Greek and Roman columns would have a slight curve because it was more pleasing to the human eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entasis

> Its best-known use is in certain orders of Classical columns that diminish in a very gentle curve, rather than in a straight line as they narrow going upward. The human eye would allegedly perceive that the middle of the column was diminishing in a concave curve halfway up the column, and entasis corrects this.

crazygringo•about 16 hours ago

Some of them, it seems like it could be to show the sauce more clearly:

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/en/products/4530/

But others, it's just inexplicable:

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/en/products/1010/

Burger King isn't doing this though (close the two popups to see the menu):

https://www.burgerking.co.jp/menu

Is it some kind of trendy style? It does feel kinda... cute.

goosejuice•about 16 hours ago

Yes, my guess is that this is the result of a few food stylists or a single agency holding an opinion. It's not at all unusual as far as styling food goes, but maybe so for fast food.

recursivecaveat•about 16 hours ago

I know that burgers are usually stacked to tilt away from the camera in photography to show the contents. (ie the bottom bun is laterally closer to the camera than the top in a downward view) I don't know why you would stack them to the side because it's more obvious, and in this case you can hardly see anything different at such a shallow angle. It's almost like they stacked them and then took the picture from a randomly selected angle or something.

wahnfrieden•about 16 hours ago

BK is doing it in the very first one.

peddling-brink•about 16 hours ago

Honestly, it’s adorable and I love it.

wahnfrieden•about 16 hours ago

It's to get people on social media posting about it so more people go look at it out of curiosity. Result is lots of people looking at the McD's menu.

squidsoup•about 17 hours ago

It's just burger wabi sabi.

silves89•about 9 hours ago

I think this is the reason.

For a deeper look at this philosophy of craft you won't do much better than The Beauty of Everyday Things, by Soetsu Yanagi: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-beauty-of-everyday-thing...

platinumrad•about 16 hours ago

You guys learn one term...

tenpies•about 12 hours ago

I was going to say feng shui, but the handful of times I've seen it brought up in the context of food plating the whole point was harmony and balance . . .

Having food askew is probably messing with the eater's qi.

zeroCalories•about 15 hours ago

Yeah just say horse radish geeze

msephton•about 13 hours ago

You're missing a syllable

glhaynes•about 16 hours ago

This seems the most likely explanation to me.

It's just much more visually interesting than a page full of perfect burgers. Each one looks like a unique thing from the real world; they don't "look AI", as the kids say these days.

neves•about 9 hours ago

Japoneses aesthetics favor assimetry. There's a lovely book , Book of Tea, that have fun with west tastes https://www.gutenberg.org/files/769/769-h/769-h.htm

observationist•about 16 hours ago

Burger chizutsugi needs to be a thing.

ramon156•about 3 hours ago

"I like how mine's a bit off-center"

jmount•about 15 hours ago

Like go pieces being deliberately too large for the board they are used on.

kristianp•about 8 hours ago

Doesn't that make it impossible to place the stones in the correct positions?

rdevilla•about 8 hours ago

Yes, exactly.

HarHarVeryFunny•about 1 hour ago

If you have OCD then do not look at those pictures!

I find these annoying. I guess they are going for organic/realistic rather than too perfect, but every other aspect of the photos - the aesthetically melting cheese, etc - follows the norms of fake fast food photography, so why bother?

NathanielBaking•about 15 hours ago

Anyone notice that the plain burger is only 190 Yen ($1.20) vs $3.99 in the US. https://www.mac-menus.com/

nothrabannosir•about 15 hours ago

> The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It "seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible."[1] The index compares the relative price worldwide to purchase the Big Mac, the flagship hamburger sold at McDonald's restaurants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

cammikebrown•about 15 hours ago

Food in Japan is incredibly cheap. I never paid more than $6 for noodles, sometimes just $2. In the US it’d be $12-$20 (and worse).

brandall10•about 15 hours ago

In recent years Japan has been cheap due to the weakness of the yen, which has been trending 160/1 USD. Just 10 years ago it was nearly twice as strong. When I visited a couple years ago (2 weeks in Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto), everything seemed to be surprisingly cheap.

- Yes food, as well as alcohol, was quite cheap. Had very few meals that came out to more than $10, alcohol (about $3-4/drink) included.

- I purchased a couple pairs of running shoes that were about 30% cheaper than they were offered for sale in the US.

- I purchased an umbrella for $45 that sells in the US for $75.

- An all-access pass at their premier amusement park, Fuji-Q Highland, was only about $40 - when entry to comparable parks in the US can easily be twice as much.

- I recall the subway came out to around $1.50 a ride, roughly half what the NYC subway costs and the 1 and 3 day passes made it ridiculously cheap (IIRC something like $5/$10).

- I only used capsule hotels, but those were only $15 to up to $38 for a luxury one, almost all in desirable/touristy areas.

- I also took a look at apartments, and in decent areas in Tokyo you can find small apartments for about $1500 that would cost ~$3500 in Manhattan, or maybe $2000 in medium sized US city centers.

yen223•about 15 hours ago

this is incredibly weird to read. once upon a time japan was notorious for its high food prices

AngryData•about 15 hours ago

Is that in comparison to the US? Because US food was cheaper than dirt in the past before all the food processing conglomerates decided to leverage their dominant market position to increase margins.

dfxm12•about 14 hours ago

If you want to pay a lot for food you still can. I imagine this is the case anywhere. If you care to look, you can find an amazing meal on the cheap. If you don't, you may end up paying a few bucks for a single apple.

rapind•about 15 hours ago

This is so strange to me. Hasn't Japan been printing money for like decades? How isn't their inflation completely out of control by now?

donavanm•about 15 hours ago

Your causality is backwards. The relatively loose monetary policy is because inflation (and economic activity) is too slow.

pjc50•about 7 hours ago

Printing does not of its own cause inflation. In Japan it seems that efforts to inject money into the economy end up immediately stuck in low interest savings accounts.

Tiktaalik•about 10 hours ago

Folks are not paid terribly high wages in Japan. I saw McDonalds "we're hiring" signs when I was eating there and I don't recall the wage but it was below 1000¥.

(That being said I tried to calculate the ratio of hourly wage to McChicken sandwich and Japanese workers came out with a better deal than Canadian ones)

throwaway2037•about 7 hours ago

    > ... I tried to calculate the ratio of hourly wage to ...

Are you familiar with the Big Mac index that The Economist (magazine) publishes? It is a cool spin on PPP (purchasing power parity).

sorbusherra•about 15 hours ago

Big mac is 10 euros where i live. (11,8 dollars). Japan has extremely cheap prices and i feel like i'm ripped off.

owlninja•about 15 hours ago

A little curious about this website, I just pulled up the local menu (Texas) and the same burger is $2.19.

TurdF3rguson•about 15 hours ago

I remember when they were $0.49

pimlottc•about 17 hours ago

I would imagine this is to make them look less machine-perfect and more "home-made"

Loughla•about 17 hours ago

If that marketing works on anyone they need to be examined. McDonald's is the definition of machine repeatability.

Except with pickles. They never get the pickles on the actual burger.

john_strinlai•about 17 hours ago

>Except with pickles. They never get the pickles on the actual burger

there should be some sort of named law (in the "law of headlines" sense, not legal sense) about mcdonalds and pickles.

i dont like pickles. i ask for no pickles. i always receive pickles. the people that want them? too bad, they put them on mine instead apparently

jldugger•about 16 hours ago

One of the benefits of the move to app ordering is that I know for certain the order-taker got it right. And I can bookmark the custom order for later reuse.

Now it's just down to the kitchen to fulfill the order correctly, and while it's not 100% it's a lot, lot better.

kbutler•about 15 hours ago

Once I ordered extra pickles and I got them - in a vertical stack of about 6 pickles.

qwertyuiop_•about 16 hours ago

Imagine ordering online late a night from a hotel room and the MCD missing my required condiment ketchup with the order.

tkgally•about 16 hours ago

That's my guess, too. I live in Japan and eat at fast food places from time to time. One feature of McDonald's is that the food preparation area is almost always visible from the customer area; I can see the people assembling the burgers, handling the fries, etc. At Yoshinoya and other domburi places, even though the shop is much smaller than a McDonald's, I am usually unable to see the person actually putting the rice and toppings into the bowls.

I suspect that efficiency of layout is the top priority in both cases, but I wouldn't be surprised if McDonald's is also consciously trying to show that their food is human-prepared, both in the store design and in their food photos.

TurdF3rguson•about 15 hours ago

It's about communication, the cashier needs to be able to shout "I need a Big Mac no pickles" and have the grill person hear it.

The new ones near me now have touch menu that customers enter and swipe payment instead of cashiers and the grill area is no longer visible.

booleandilemma•about 14 hours ago

Biggumakku!

boomboomsubban•about 11 hours ago

It also makes them appear larger, there's so much in there the bun can't contain it all.

spacebacon•about 2 hours ago

Jealous of various foreign McDonald’s menus.

McDonald’s Germany has a Philly stack.

https://www.mcdonalds.com/de/de-de/produkte/alle-produkte/bu...

haunter•about 14 hours ago

Japanese food prices are ridiculously cheap. Well that's true to pretty much whole Asia too. Even in HK which I consider more expensive than Japan a Big Mac is only 2.9€ (27 HKD). And that's McD, local food spots are even cheaper. If you have the money there is no better time to have a holiday in Asia.

A Big Mac is 10€ in France...

We are ripped off big time in the US and Europe for nothing.

throwaway2037•about 7 hours ago

My guess about how/why McDonald's is so cheap in Hongkong: (1) Guangdong province is just north which means there are lot of farms with very cheap labor. (2) Minimum wage in Hongkong is frightening low. As a counterpoint, I would offer that retail/commercial real estate is crazy expensive. I have no idea how this translates into my McD's is so damn cheap in HK!

chrneu•about 14 hours ago

american fast food learned that if they try to hit the business market they can sell higher mark up items. it's why mcdonalds for a long time went to premium chicken and premium burgers that were more expensive. they changed strats, but for a while in the US that's what a lot of fast food was doing. they were chasing whales.

gib444•about 2 hours ago

France has a 12.02 EUR minimum wage, plus the high employer social contributions.

We (it's a similar story in the UK - 14 EUR minimum wage) are indirectly paying a lot of extra taxes

Not forgetting 20% VAT of course

And our governments doing all they can to ensure property prices stay high and rise even higher (don't listen to what they say, look at the data)

jnellis•about 16 hours ago

When I was in cooking school there was a brief lesson in photo presentation. For something like a burger you would skew from front to back, going upward to the top bun to show the layers better but it wasn't visually noticeable that it was skewed on the photo. This seems like the same thing except the ai has chosen the side view instead of the frontal view, thus making the skew very noticeable.

darepublic•about 1 hour ago

I need to buy one of these sandwiches so I can correct the alignment

harvey9•about 3 hours ago

I think some of those 'localised' menu items would sell well in the Uk and I hope McDonald's puts my hunch to the test.

jrochkind1•about 3 hours ago

Also look at the breading on that chicken, and I want a "shrimp filet-o" bad.

nfgrep•about 6 hours ago

Aren't there more strict laws on marketing imagery being similar to their actual products in Japan? Wonder if that plays into it, or if the photography team was just having fun.

HardwareLust•about 3 hours ago

Their menu looks so much better than ours (U.S.)

kelnos•about 11 hours ago

Seems like the right way to display them, no? If the buns (and all the layers of ingredients) were stacked perfectly, you wouldn't see very much of the ingredients inside.

The US site doesn't use this placement strategy, though. The Japanese one looks better. No surprise there.

4ndrewl•about 8 hours ago

They're not askew, they're in _italics_

nandomrumber•about 8 hours ago

I think you mean italics.

OwlsParlay•about 5 hours ago

Is it me or are those prices dead cheap compared to UK / US?

fhd2•about 5 hours ago

They are, wow. I had this age old Yen conversion wired into my brain: 100 Yen is one Euro. Boy did that change in the last decade or so, it's only half that now.

jhack•about 17 hours ago

Wonder if this is due to Japan’s marketing laws? Doing it this way exposes more of what’s between the bread.

sans_souse•about 8 hours ago

They must get a kick too when they see our stoic, rigid, perfectly postured McWiches. Great post, OP +1

Lucasoato•about 4 hours ago

Another mysterious thing is that McDonald's Japan burgers taste completely different from European or Americans. The spices and sauces there are not the same, I suspect they made it that way to make it tailored to the local preferences!

ButlerianJihad•about 4 hours ago

This is not so mysterious, when you consider the state of any ethnic food in the United States.

It is basically expected that any foreign chef must adapt their idea of cuisine to fit the available ingredients and processes in the host country. It is simply a fact of life that there are many fruits and vegetables, to begin with, that are rare or nonexistent here in the USA. And centuries ago, Chinese food as we know it originated in San Francisco, based on ingredients that could be readily acquired in San Francisco on an immigrant's budget.

Some produce and even animals can be cultivated stateside by immigrant communities, but it's simply prohibitive to try and exactly reproduce foreign cuisines here. You will basically find that American fruits, vegetables, and animals are adopted and "Western fusion" cuisine rules the roost here.

It may be surprising that a "Three-Ring Binder" franchise like McDonald's should have local variation, when their pride is being completely uniform and predictable in the USA. On any American highway I can pull into a McD's and count on having exactly the same meal as anywhere else. But if you cross an international border, a hemisphere, into new climates and terroirs, you should expect significant variation.

anonu•about 12 hours ago

I remember in India's McDonalds there was a Maharaja Burger. In Lebanon they have falafel on the menu. This Japanese menu looks really enticing to be honest.

ryanmcgarvey•about 15 hours ago

This is doing a bigger number on me than it has any right to.

...why are they all skewed, save for the buns that are already lopsided? Those I'll note are perfectly seated. Some are more skewed than others. Like the Big Mac is only slightly skewed.

Is there a pecking order to how skewed they are? Some social hierarchy of sandwiches?

strogonoff•about 16 hours ago

Often (not always) the top bun is the worst offender, but it’s most certainly not just about the buns: if you look closely, the unique characteristic of Japanese McDonalds (separating it both from McDonalds in other countries as well as from other similar chains in Japan) is that in each photo every burger layer (be it bun, meat, lettuce, etc.) is offset by a seemingly-random factor on its X axis.

I’m sure discussions like this is exactly why they did it. Considering other chains in Japan don’t do this, it clearly has nothing with regulations (unless those are really unevenly enforced).

panny•about 16 hours ago

Why are Japanese burgers significantly cheaper than the ones in the US? A Big Mac is 500 yen, that's like $3.

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/en/products/1210/

Big Macs haven't been that cheap since 2008 in the US.

TheGRS•about 16 hours ago

If you've been to Japan any time recently you'd probably know that just about everything is cheaper in Japan, especially food and drink. I've been twice, most recently back in October, and I'm blown away by how relatively affordable things are. USD goes a long long way in Japan.

Oddly I could not find any cheaply priced Japanese Whiskey, and I looked around quite a bit. It was all about as much or more than what I could get it for in the states.

nine_k•about 15 hours ago

Japan's salaries are much lower than those in the US. Even adjusted to PPP, the median salary in Japan is still significantly lower that in the US. Few would be able to afford food at US price levels.

throwaway2037•about 7 hours ago

    > Oddly I could not find any cheaply priced Japanese Whiskey

Any bog-standard supermarket will carry a variety of very low end Japanese Whiskeys. You can easily find 750ml for about 1000 yen. It won't poison you(!), but it is pretty rough. At this price point, it is rarely drunk neat. Also, Japan has nationwide uniform alcohol taxes. Alcohol taxes vary widely in the US by jurisdiction.

chuckadams•about 16 hours ago

Three decades of deflation will do that. That ended a few years ago, but there's clearly lingering effects.

kalleboo•about 13 hours ago

The US median salary is twice that of Japan, prices follow what people can afford to pay.

gandreani•about 16 hours ago

I don't know about McD's exactly, but food in general is very cheap in Japan compared to the U.S.

Source: I watch a lot of behind the scenes restaurant videos on YouTube and I'm always shocked at the prices. Most dishes are cheaper than if I were to go to the grocery store and cook it myself...

quickthrowman•about 15 hours ago

Probably like 50%+ of the cost of restaurant food is labor and rent. Labor and rent are cheaper in Japan than in the US.

ranger_danger•about 14 hours ago

Their meat also tastes like actual food compared to the US. McDonalds Japan is more like a gourmet meal experience, everything is delicious and the service is much faster and way more polite and pleasant in my experience.

alliao•about 14 hours ago

they're all tilted so the new comer don't feel so awkward with that bump on it's head --source: me

*edit: I'd like to also comment on the crazy lighting going on.. if the photographer of this can see this comment, please take a pic of the setup..this look quite intense

JKCalhoun•about 14 hours ago

The sandwiches are wearing their hats, cocked a bit, in a devil-may-care kind of way.

selcuka•about 14 hours ago

It could be to reduce discrepancy (and the disappointment) between marketing and reality.

Reminds me of this monologue from the 1993 movie Falling Down [1]:

> See, this is what I'm talking about. Look at that. See what I mean? It's plump, juicy, three inches thick. Look at this sorry, miserable, squashed thing. Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this picture?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciG8AKdp-GM

vegetablepotpie•about 4 hours ago

Wabi-sabi.

yanko•about 15 hours ago

I relate McDonald's with the famous movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me And avoid at any cost

swivelmaster•about 15 hours ago

You shouldn't. It was revealed later that Morgan Spurlock, the star of the movie, was also secretly drinking himself to death while he was making the documentary. Not to shame an addiction OR defend McDonalds too much here, but being a raging alcoholic and blaming your health problems on hamburgers and french fries on a massive public stage is/was extraordinarily irresponsible.

Alupis•about 7 hours ago

He also ate nothing but McDonald's - three meals a day, even if he was already "full". In one scene, he literally vomits, then continues eating the food.

Literally zero people do what Spurlock did in that film.

sp0rk•about 15 hours ago

You should check out "Counter-claims" section of your link, especially the last paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me#Counter-claims

timmg•about 15 hours ago

FWIW, there is some controversy around the “methodology” and honesty in that film. Not saying you should change your view of McDonald’s, but possibly of that movie.

JCTheDenthog•about 15 hours ago

The maker of that documentary was a massive alcoholic, that's what caused his liver problems, not eating McDonald's.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r•about 15 hours ago

OK.

InMice•about 15 hours ago

Why doesnt USA get an egg cheeseburger :(

toast0•about 15 hours ago

You might be able to put something together if there's still overlap between breakfast and lunch on Sundays?

satisfice•about 14 hours ago

  A sweet disorder in the dressing  
  Kindles in food a wantonnessing;  
  A bun about the burgers thrown  
  Into a fine distraction;  
  An erring lettuce, which here and there  
  Enthrals the growling stomacher;  
  A sauce neglectful, and thereby  
  ketchup to flow confusedly;  
  A spilling salt, deserving note,  
  Into the rumpled sandwich tote;  
  A careless side dish, in whose fries  
  I see a wild ed'bility:  
  Do more bewitch me, than when meals  
  Are too precise in their appeals.

lizardking•about 14 hours ago

Adding "trying McDonald's" to my long list of reasons to travel to Japan.

mc3301•about 13 hours ago

the shrimp burger is great! https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/products/1030/

jokethrowaway•about 17 hours ago

Generating media attention or protecting from Japanese regulations?

I wonder if it's related to their strict rules on realistic pictures for advertising products

fontain•about 17 hours ago

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/en/products/4600/

The Bai Egg Cheeseburger achieved more than slightly askew, it is defying gravity.

ertgbnm•about 17 hours ago

It's going for a rendition of the leaning tower of Lire.

yk•about 16 hours ago

I've seen an interview with a food stylist and she pointed out that when putting pins and needles into a burger, then you have to pay real attention to that burger because you have a really great looking burger, full with pins and needles.

ZeWaka•about 17 hours ago

No way they didn't prop that one up behind the burger.

wavefunction•about 17 hours ago

noone says you can't use industrial adhesives imperceptible to the advertised eye

dhosek•about 16 hours ago

Oh man, my son would go nuts for that burger.

jamesrom•about 9 hours ago

A lot of odd takes in the comments.

I think the most correct take is that seeing a the top bun slightly off is more realistic and honest.

Respecting your customers, even in advertising, is appreciated.

homeonthemtn•about 15 hours ago

Silently screaming "Why?!" As a scroll

colpabar•about 16 hours ago

I don’t think this is a japanese thing. The way they are askew feels familiar; I have definitely seen food that looks weirdly “off” on other menus. It’s probably just a way to stand out, like how so many models have gaps between their two front teeth. You’re gonna remember the one that’s different.

msephton•about 13 hours ago

Any other examples of burgers shown like this?

sonzohan•about 11 hours ago

This is the content I come to orange site for.

drob518•about 14 hours ago

Dang! Now I can't unsee it.

hecanjog•about 13 hours ago

This isn't interesting.

Does it imply there is a cultural difference that would make this style more lucrative in Japan than other places? Does it suggest compositionally the alignment of asymmetric shapes in a regular form is more satisfying than a regular arrangement of identical forms? Does it imply that given an array of nearly identical choices it's important to add some noise visually to distinguish?

I'm a cynical person by nature but I'm seriously not understanding what makes this interesting.

We might as well discuss the effectiveness of simulated grime in the most recent Clorox advertising campaign?

Liftyee•about 6 hours ago

The 192 other comments from interested people seem like pretty strong counter-evidence to your claim.

You've also listed a few questions that seem pretty interesting to me, from a curiosity perspective.