Why This Topic Landed in Japan
"Foreign reaction" boards on 2ch are an established genre, and May 19 happened to deliver three of them at once: Russian food rankings, Chinese ugliest-building takes, and a McDonald's evaluation thread. The Asahi Super Dry Hall — the gold flame sculpture often called "the golden poo" — has been a 2ch in-joke for over twenty years, so foreign mockery of it is treated as a chance to revisit the long-running gag.
Key Reaction Themes
- Self-deprecation as humor — Posters embraced the foreign criticism with jokes ("freeze the aspic and we'll grill it" / "kusaya is the best dried fish I've ever eaten") rather than getting defensive.
- Meta takes on architecture and townscape — Commenters argued that Japan has plenty of uglier buildings than the Asahi flame (especially religious-sect headquarters) and noted that the building's "Dr. Wily base" silhouette never gets old.
- Generational nostalgia in McDonald's takes — Discussion split between people who love Ebi Filet-O, those who defect to Burger King, and a chorus mourning the era of 100-yen burgers as the real peak.
What Japanese Netizens Are Saying
- "Best dried fish I've ever had in my life was kusaya."
- "Anything offal — motsu, hormone — I just can't. Texture kills me."
- "If even the Brits hate aspic, easy: freeze it and ship it to Japan. We'll grill the lot kabayaki-style."
- "An egg-slicer made the list — I laughed."
- "In Japan, plenty of new-religion HQ buildings are way uglier than the Asahi place."
- "I thought it was Dr. Wily's base. Then I learned it was a bank — shock."
- "Now I want teriyaki."
- "Ebi Filet-O is my favorite, but I keep ending up at Burger King."
- "Kei (the returnee from the Kei & Zuukatsu duo) complained that the nugget sauce options are way too few. True — only BBQ and mustard is bleak."
- "Peak Japanese McDonald's was the 100-yen-burger era, full stop."