The cream pie is a traditional, delicious dessert. McDonald’s Japan is rolling out a version at its restaurants across the country with some unfortunate innuendo. Oh no!
In Japanese, “cream pie” refers to the dessert just like in the West. However, the English language “cream pie” slang is known in Japan (though, obviously, not as well known as its local lingo counterpart).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHlf4-wqvAY
There is an innocuous commercial and everything! But all that innocent creamy goodness is undermined by poor word choice.
McDonald’s is calling this tasty treat the “Otona no Kuriimu Pai” (大人のクリームパイ), which means an “adult cream pie” and inadvertently evokes the sexual slang. This was certainly not the fast-food chain’s intent. I hope.
Otona no (literally, “adult’s”) can have a neutral meaning of something that is for grown-ups or something with sexualized connotations. So someone should’ve known?
Even worse still, simply adding adaruto (アダルト or “adult”) to Japanese language cream pie (クリームパイ) searches results in a plethora of porn results.
Surely, someone there saw this coming?
