This Was the Crazy-Long Line to Get Into Tokyo’s New Taco Bell

(Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

By Clint Rainey

Taco Bell left Japan in the ‘80s, but Doritofied Tex-Mex-ish food made its triumphant return to the country yesterday with the opening of a much-hyped new Taco Bell in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo’s equivalent of Times Square. Taco Bell International president Melissa Lora tells the Japan Times the brand felt 2015 was finally the year to head back because of “social media and all the focus on new, interesting foods that are in the world today.” (Many of which, of course, are owed to Taco Bell’s overworked R&D department.)

Related: Taco Bell Is Going to Start Delivering Food

You have to hand it to the Bell. The powers-that-be tend to know what works, and based on the massive lines that formed outside Tokyo’s new Taco Bell, the move is looking like yet another success — people just can’t wait to try shrimp-and-avocado burritos, apparently.

It was a sunup-to-sundown affair:

After wolfing down a shrimp burrito, you could get a selfie with Taco Man, a.k.a., a “real live yuru-kyara mascot”:

Even this American guy waited hours for a beef crunchy taco:

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