WcDonald's sauce, anime part of new experience at McDonald's starting next week

Ronald McDonald is no clown.

It seems he's a marketing genius.

The fast food empire is dipping its McNugget in anime, and the fast-food chain is introducing WcDonald's to 30 markets across the country beginning next week.

"Anime is a huge part of today's culture, and we love that our fans have been inviting us into the conversation for years," Tariq Hassan, chief marketing and customer experience officer at McDonald's USA, said in a statement. "The WcDonald's universe is a reflection of what fans have created. It honors their vision and celebrates their creativity, while authentically bringing it to life in our restaurants for the first time ever."

According to DMX, the WcDonald's universe will make the leap from fiction to real life starting on Feb. 26, with a new sauce, new manga-inspired packaging, and the first official WcDonald's anime.

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The sauce, called Savory Chili WcDonald's sauce features ginger, garlic, soy and chili flakes. The company suggests pairing the new sauce with WcNuggets!

The packaging will look sharp, too. They're working with Japanese manga artist Acky Bright to design the new packaging, which features WcDonald's crew characters.

"I had a great time partnering with McDonald's to help make WcDonald's a reality for manga fans who have a genuine love for the brand," said Acky Bright. "From the details of the diverse Crew characters to the manga plot itself, I loved being able to use my artwork to bring to life the dynamic, vibrant world of WcDonald's for people around the world."

It's not just packing either.

From Feb. 26 until April 8, an anime short will be released on WcDonalds.com.

DMX reports fans will be able to scan the code found on the packaging to access weekly digital manga installments starring WcDonald's customers and crew, including WcDonald's regular Hashirune, Crew jokester Mr. Bev, and a WcDonald's mecha, WcDizer 3000.

McDonald's has long had great characters, including Ronnie, Grimace and the Hamburglar. The hope is the new anime guys catch on.

Animation house studio pierrot will produce the four episodic shorts in favorite anime subgenres: action, romance, mecha and fantasy.

"The Race to WcDonald's" will follow two heroes on an epic race to WcDonald's, and "Love from Across the Booth" will see the two protagonists "discover the WcDonald's Sauce and WcNuggets aren't the only perfect pairing." In "WcNuggets Space Frontier 3000," WcDonald's pilots will protect the last WcNugget from an "ominous force." In "The Wisdom of the Sauce," three women will travel to a distant land to solve the mystery of the sauce before it disappears.

On March 9 and 10, fans will be able to visit the WcDonald's Immersive Dining Experience in Los Angeles. The immersive food and entertainment experience inspired by the isekai anime subgenre will feature 360-degree projection mapping and tabletop projections based on the WcDonald's anime shorts.

DMX contributed to this story

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: WcDonald's sauce highlights McDonald's dive into anime