Over this past weekend, what should have been a fun celebration of the Pokémon Trading Card Game's latest collaboration with McDonald's Japan quickly turned into a soggy mess. A limited-time giveaway campaign from August 8-11 would see purchases of Happy Meals paired with a special McDonald's stamped booster pack containing two cards, with a highly sought-after guaranteed 'Burger Pikachu' included in the pack.

Unfortunately, for both regular people trying to get their hands on one of these packs, and people who simply wanted McDonald's during this period, this all came to a screeching halt when scalpers did what scalpers do; this time ordering Happy Meals in bulk to simply get their hands on a pack and that coveted Pikachu card.

All of this came to a head with an official response from McDonald's Japan released earlier today, provided below:

While McDonald's was quick to accept responsibility for the mishandling of the release, many online were quick to point out that this could have easily been avoided by putting limitations in place to prevent purchases of Happy Meals over a set amount. Of course, those buying in bulk weren't going to eat the food itself, also resulting in numerous posts on social media lamenting the dumped uneaten Happy Meals littering the streets.

Highlighting just how bad of a problem this actually was, a quick scan of Mercari Japan showed one reseller offering a bulk sale of 100 promo packs at a price of 275,000 JPY, meaning they would have had to order 100 Happy Meals to get their hands on these packs.

Of course, this should have never been allowed, and with the sheer amount of images online showing mountains of wasted food all in the search of these Pokémon cards, it wouldn't be surprising if the overall public outrage directed towards McDonald's truly does make them reconsider doing this again in the future. With that being said, this is far from the first time McDonald's Japan has had scalping issues, and at the end of the day, for a corporation of that size, it really does all come down to the money.

For those interested in diving deeper into what McDonald's had to say about this, you can view their official press release here.