The McDonald’s Jujutsu Kaisen sauce did not overpower me

Jujutsu Kaisen is a notoriously gross anime — by the second episode, Yuji Itadori gobbles up a shriveled, dismembered finger. Because of this, Jujutsu Kaisen and weird things you can eat go hand in hand. So when I heard McDonald’s was running a collaboration with the series to bring a new sauce to consumers, I had to try it.

It’s called Special Grade Garlic Sauce — a term that references the strongest ranking for a fighter, cursed tools, or cursed spirits in the world of the anime series — and it’s available as part of a larger collaboration between McDonald’s and Jujutsu Kaisen that started on Tuesday.

This sauce will allow consumers to “harness the immeasurable power” of beloved jujutsu sorcerers from the show, according to McDonald’s.

The sauce’s name implies that it possesses a high level of dark sorcery in the world. For example, one of the Special Grade fighters in Jujutsu Kaisen, Gojo Satoru, can alter space-time. So the Special Grade Garlic Sauce should be just as powerful.

All this sauce managed to do was alter the olfactory fabric of my room. After I carefully peeled the foil face of Sukuna off the small plastic packaging, I immediately caught whiffs of garlic, soy, and a sweet syrupy scent, even though the sauce was more than a foot away from my face.

Unfortunately, the cursed techniques of the sauce ended there. I put some onto my chicken sandwich, to start. The first thing I noticed was that it tasted very garlicky, but that flavor quickly receded behind a wall of sugar. The sauce’s sweetness outshined any flavor I got from the soy and garlic ingredients. McDonald’s says that “even Sukuna wants to eat this,” but I’m not convinced it’s powerful enough for the all-powerful villain.

I was ready for a sauce so overwhelmingly intense that the taste would linger for days. Instead, it was just fine. Given the choice of this sauce or nothing, I’d pick the sauce — but knowing the grotesqueness of Jujutsu Kaisen, McDonald’s could have committed to the bit a little more.

I know Jujutsu Kaisen for its blood-curdling monsters and its manga creator Gege Akutami’s willingness to push even its most beloved and charming characters into the depths of hell. I want to dip Sukuna’s finger in the sauce — or, better yet, eat something inspired by the Frankenstein-esque monstrosity of Mahito. The McDonald’s Special Grade Garlic Sauce didn’t live up to the potential that the show laid out.

I get that McDonald’s technically has to sell edible food, but this sauce just didn’t have the stuff.