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Splatoon 2 asks Japanese fans to choose: McNuggets, or Fries

The answer is hard, and requires much soul searching

chicken mcnuggets McDonald’s

Japanese fans of Splatoon 2 are gearing up for another Splatfest event, but this one demands they choose from McDonald’s tastiest fried items.

The next Splatfest, a joint promotion with McDonald’s from Sept. 9 to Sept. 10 in Japan, requires players to choose Team French Fries or Team McNuggets.

And that is a harder call that it sounds.

Stipulated: French fries are an essential companion to any McDonald’s order. Yes, even if you’re one of the weirdos who gets a salad from McDonald’s.

But Chicken McNuggets ...

(removes glasses)

(pinches bridge of nose)

I’m not sure you know what the world was like before Chicken McNuggets. I’m not making this up: This food item (stabbing table with index finger) did not exist until McDonald’s, in 1980, applied the unpatented design of Cornell University professor Robert C. Baker.

Soon after, in a decade in which ketchup counted as a vegetable on school menus, chicken nuggets exploded upon the landscape. They became ubiquitous in the lunchroom, in supermarket freezers, everywhere. It was the dinner of a million latchkey children watching Wheeled Warriors or Thundercats on a UHF channel. No franchise’s signature menu item, not Burger King’s formidable Whopper, not Wendy’s bowel-impacting Triple, nor the rara avis of fast food, the McRib, has had a greater cultural impact. Ever. Underline that sentence twice and sign my name to it.

I’m not laughing. This is damn serious. The Chicken McNugget was the first entrée designed for eating while driving. With McNuggets, Ronald McDonald repelled Kentucky Fried Chicken’s insurgency, beat the Colonel at his own game, and forced every other burger joint to mimic his creation. That’s power, my dude.

But the fries ... Burger King has kicked its own ass for decades trying to make french fries half as tasty as McDonald’s. They just can’t derive the proper formulation of vegetable oil and sawdust, like McDonald’s fries. Truly, these are two iconic foodstuffs. It’s like picking a favorite child. Choose well, Japan.

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