Spain’s “Otaku Burger” Draws Attention on Japan Twitter


The Christmas season is a time when restaurants and chains bring out special seasonal offerings. But Kentucky Fried Chicken in Spain has taken things one step further with a double homage to “Japanese culture” that’s left some scratching their heads.

Twitter user yuusuke_shimo garnered over 120,000 likes with his report from Spain of this poster of the “Otaku Burger.” “They say they’re having a ‘Japan Fair’ because we eat cake for Christmas, but I feel Spain’s Kentucky Fried Chicken got a few things wrong here,” they commented.

Screenshot of tweet by user yuusuke_shimo showing the Kentucky Friend Chicken Otaku Burger in Spain

The burger is two fried chicken patties slathered in a teriyaki sauce that the chain has dubbed “Otaku Sauce”. The ad above includes a couple of almost extraneous Japanese words, including お祝い (oiwai; “celebration”) and 美味 (“good taste”). (One user on Twitter also pointed out that the diacritical mark is missing from the お in お祝い.)

Spain KFC site's Otaku menu
The “Otaku” menu from the Spain KFC site.

The burger is a double-nod to Japanese culture, though in some…unique ways. Besides Christmas Cake, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas is itself a tradition dating back to around 1974. “Otaku” is the Japanese word for “geek” and is used – often pejoratively – to refer to someone who’s obsessed with a given subculture, such as anime or manga.

SPain KFC explanation of Christmas in Japan
Spain KFC’s video on Christmas in Japan

On Twitter, users expressed various forms of confusion. “This drives home how difficult it is to achieve mutual understanding even after 400 years since first contact [between Spain and Japan] and 150 years since opening up the country.”

Another user wryly commented: “‘Otaku’? Did they perhaps mean ‘kotatsu’?” – a reference to Japan’s famous kotatsu heated tables.

Spain KFC’s official Twitter account says it made the burger in honor of Japan’s chicken-eating Christmas tradition. The tweet ended with a strange comment about wanting to “cover everything in teriyaki sauce”. The Spanish KFC site also includes a video explaining Christmas traditions in Japan that show a woman in anime-inspired dress eating fried chicken.

First reported on Unseen Japan’s Twitter

Sources

Tweet by yuusuke_shimo. Twitter

「日本人はクリスマスにケンタッキーを食べると聞いて開発しました」 スペインのKFCが日本の独自文化に刺激を受けて“オタクバーガー”を発売. ITMedia Netlab

KFC Spain Web Site

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