Anta Burger!? McDonald’s Japan Debuts Evangelion Burger Line

The latest innovation in anime marketing has arrived, with the limited Evangelion Burger line from McDonald’s Japan coming next month. Let’s check out the anime TV commercial creating lots of buzz in Japan this week!

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What Is the Evangelion Burger from McDonald’s?

This week McDonald’s released a new commercial on television and across the Internet featuring the characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion making McDonald’s-related gags. The commercial involves a strange new Evangelion M-Type robot, with the fast food chain’s famous red and white color scheme.

The commercial features all the voice actors from the original series and combines digital editing of clips from the Rebuild of Evangelion films to insert McDonald’s products into the frame. The 30-second piece fits a ton of fun Easter eggs for fans into the short advertisement.

Mcdonald's Evangelion Burger Potato Garlic Mayo

The three Evangelion Burgers are:

The Potato & Thick Beef Garlic Mayo Burger
The Mexican Cheese Chicken Burger
The Cheese Double Teriyaki Burger

I guess these flavors are designed to capture the social awkwardness of Ayanami, the red-hot fiery personality of Asuka, and the blandness of Shinji. They missed a golden opportunity to make the Shinji version the “chicken burger.”

You can even buy a set of transforming McDonald’s Eva figures. These toys morph from McDonald’s food products into the three familiar Eva robots. These can only be purchased via a lottery system, so I’m sure they’ll be quite hard to get.

A New Trend in Anime Marketing

Ever since the Rebuild of Evangelion movies arrived with real products — including Misato drinking actual Yebisu Beer by Sapporo instead of the parody Ebichu brand — it was clear that the anime industry was evolving. Suddenly, animation studios had another way to make money instead of Blu-ray sales: reaching out to famous companies to create marketing partnerships. This opened up new avenues for anime studios to secure project funding.

Of course, anime marketing can certainly be taken too far at times. There was a period when convenience stores would host “anime fairs,” offering rare and exciting products from popular shows. I remember driving around to various conbini near J-List, hunting for items that our customers would want to buy. However, these “limited” events eventually became overdone. After a while, fans began to expect them every week, diminishing their impact.

But 2024 has seen a new innovation in anime marketing. Last month, a hilarious anime commercial for Donbei instant noodles featured famed yandere voice actress Saori Hayami. She redubbed a famous scene in which she takes another character to task for only eating his usual Donbei noodle flavors when he could try a dozen new varieties instead. The economics of it must work wonderfully: all you need is someone to digitally insert the product into existing animation and then rent a studio for an hour of dubbing.

Could This Have a Global (Third) Impact?

I’m not privy to the numbers, but I’d assume there’s a “multiplier effect” to anime marketing campaigns that extends beyond specific events held only inside Japan. The Code Geass anime got much of its funding from a marketing agreement with Pizza Hut, and the company’s products were featured in several episodes. While Japanese fans responded by ordering lots of pizzas with art of Lelouche and C.C. on the boxes, the company increased its sales from anime fans around the world. Could the new Evangelion collaboration increase McDonald’s global sales?

I believe the new Evangelion Burger line could work too well for McDonald’s, with stock selling out in record time and possibly causing problems for the company if fans get angry. This has happened before. I’ll never forget when Lawson convenience stores held a limited Eva-related event at a single store in Hakone, near the fictional site where Tokyo-3 would exist. What do you think happened? Every Eva fan across Japan flocked to that one convenience store, creating traffic jams so severe that Lawson had to cancel the event.

The Full Evangelion Burger Commercial

Let’s check out the full McDonald’s Evangelion Burger commercial here!

Thanks for reading this blog post about the latest development in anime marketing and the Evangelion Burger series from McDonald’s. Tell us what you think of this new approach to anime marketing in the comments below!