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

fontain

https://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/en/products/4600/ The Bai Egg Cheeseburger achieved more than slightly askew, it is defying gravity.

pimlottc

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

jokethrowaway

Generating media attention or protecting from Japanese regulations? I wonder if it's related to their strict rules on realistic pictures for advertising products

jdorfman

I believe it has to do with https://boingboing.net/2026/04/08/japans-truth-in-packaging-...

jhack

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

squidsoup

It's just burger wabi sabi.

crazygringo

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.

colpabar

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.

strogonoff

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

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.

jnellis

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.

tbeseda

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.

tpurves

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....

evanjrowley

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

NathanielBaking

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

InMice

Why doesnt USA get an egg cheeseburger :(

yanko

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

rappatic

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

Dwedit

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

homeonthemtn

Silently screaming "Why?!" As a scroll