If you've been to Japan any time recently you'd probably know that just about everything is cheaper in Japan, especially food and drink. I've been twice, most recently back in October, and I'm blown away by how relatively affordable things are. USD goes a long long way in Japan.

Oddly I could not find any cheaply priced Japanese Whiskey, and I looked around quite a bit. It was all about as much or more than what I could get it for in the states.

Three decades of deflation will do that. That ended a few years ago, but there's clearly lingering effects.

The US median salary is twice that of Japan, prices follow what people can afford to pay.

I don't know about McD's exactly, but food in general is very cheap in Japan compared to the U.S.

Source: I watch a lot of behind the scenes restaurant videos on YouTube and I'm always shocked at the prices. Most dishes are cheaper than if I were to go to the grocery store and cook it myself...

Probably like 50%+ of the cost of restaurant food is labor and rent. Labor and rent are cheaper in Japan than in the US.

Their meat also tastes like actual food compared to the US. McDonalds Japan is more like a gourmet meal experience, everything is delicious and the service is much faster and way more polite and pleasant in my experience.