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McDonald's to Put Tamagotchi DVD in Japanese Happy Sets

posted on by Egan Loo
New Tamagotchi! toy line to tie weekly downloads to TV anime episodes this fall

Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: The Japanese entertainment conglomerate Bandai has announced on Tuesday that the McDonald's Japan restaurant chain will include a DVD with exclusive Tamagotchi! anime in each Happy Set meal during the November 7-8 weekend. (Happy Sets are the Japanese equivalent of Happy Meals in North America.) As part of the limited-time promotion, the Tamagotchi! Special DVD will include exclusive animation and the music video of "the hit song 'Every Lovely' by the Tamagotchi Planet idol, Lovelyn."

McDonald's November campaign will promote Bandai's new Tamagotchi iD virtual pet toy line, as well as the new Tamagotchi! television anime series. The Tamagotchi iD toys will be available in six colors in Japan on Tamagotchi's "birthday" on November 23, while the new anime will premiere on October 12. (The first Tamagotchi were launched on November 23, 1996, and most new incarnations have been launched on the same day ever since.) The new toy line will feature the ability to download weekly items that appear in the Tamagotchi! anime episodes. Tamagotchi owners can then use the items to customize their "pet" or trade them wirelessly with other owners.

Bandai has been streaming the 2007-2008's Saikō! Tamagotchi television series on the YouTube video-sharing site for free in seven languages since last December. Before that, there was a 1997-1998 Anime TV de Hakken! Tamagotchi television series and a 1997 Tamagotchi Honto no Hanashi theatrical short. The first full-length Tamagotchi! feature, Eiga de Tōjō! Tamagotchi Doki Doki! Uchū no Maigotchi!?, opened in December of 2007, and Bandai Entertainment announced in 2008 that it had licensed that film for North America. The second film, Eiga! Tamagotchi Uchū Ichi Happy na Monogatari!?, opened in Japan last December.

According to Bandai, the first generation of Tamagotchi virtual pets sold 40 million toys worldwide, and 36 million more have been sold since the toyline was revived in 2004. The company aims to sell 500,000 Tamagotchi iD toys in Japan by next March.

Images © Bandai, WiZ/TV Tokyo, 2009 &TEAM Tamagotchi! TV


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