The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2025
McDonald's Japan cancels its One Piece card Happy Set before launch after resellers
McDonald's Japan cancelled the One Piece card Happy Set before it launched, blaming resale mass-buying and the food waste left by August's Pokemon card chaos.
McDonald's Japan · Bandai · 2025-08-20
What happened
In August 2025 McDonald's Japan ran a Pokemon card Happy Set meant to lure children into its restaurants, but the cards proved so valuable to resellers that stores were stripped, families came away empty-handed and uneaten meals were left behind.
On 20 August, before the next One Piece card Happy Set was due to launch on the 29th, McDonald's Japan announced it was cancelling it, citing the resale mass-purchasing and food waste that followed the Pokemon set, and said it would substitute past toys and review how it sold and developed its toys.
Coverage in Nikkei, Asahi and Sankei framed the cancellation as a children's promotion defeated by its own secondary market — a campaign killed before it began because the machine that scalps a Happy Meal was already running.
Why it happened
- McDonald's Japan had scheduled the One Piece card Happy Set to start on 29 August 2025, meant to repeat the Pokemon card promotion that came before it.
- The August Pokemon card Happy Set had already been overwhelmed by resale mass-buying, emptying stores and leaving food behind.
- Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency had warned about the resale chaos, and McDonald's Japan cancelled the One Piece set on 20 August, promising past toys instead.
The lesson
A children's meal promotion that gets scalped stops being food marketing: once the cards are worth more than the meal, the real customer is the reseller, and the actual customer gets leftover food.
Aftermath
McDonald's Japan's notice on 20 August 2025 scrapped the One Piece card Happy Set due on 29 August, citing the mass-purchasing and food waste seen with the Pokemon card set earlier that month. The company said it would hand out past toys instead and would 'reconsider' its sales and toy development methods. Japanese media including Nikkei, Asahi and Sankei covered the cancellation, and the episode was read as the resale market breaking a promotion the brand had not yet even launched.
Sources
- マクドナルドが｢ワンピース｣カードセット中止へ 転売や食べ残し受け (Nikkei)
- マクドナルド、ワンピースカードのハッピーセット発売中止 (Asahi)
- マクドナルド「ワンピースカード」ハッピーセット中止 (Sankei)
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