Anpanman

• 1. Introduction

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  Anpanman is a Japanese superhero whose head is a pastry filled with sweet red bean paste. When he meets someone who is starving, he lets them eat a piece of that head. The hero gives away part of himself, and the children watching love him for it. Takashi Yanase created him, and a rival named Baikinman, a germ, spends nearly every episode trying to ruin him. So what experience leads an author to build a hero out of bread? Why does a baker's creation need a new head whenever the old one is damaged? And how did a picture book character become a fixture of Japanese childhood?

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• 2. Hunger and a Shooting Star

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  During the Second World War, Takashi Yanase faced starvation countless times. In those years he dreamed of eating an anpan, a pastry filled with red bean paste. That longing inspired Anpanman. The hero's own birth story is gentler. A shooting star landed in the oven of a baker called Uncle Jam while he was baking an anpan, and the hero came to life. In films and other media, the shooting stars that brought him to life are called the stars of life.

  The name is a plain description. Pan is the Japanese word for bread, and anko is red bean paste. In English, Anpanman means Bean Bun Man.

  Anpanman's weakness is water, along with anything else that makes his head dirty. To keep dry underwater or in wet weather, he wears a bubble-like helmet. When his head is ruined, his eyes turn into X's and it flies off his shoulders. Uncle Jam then bakes a new head, and the hero regains his health and strength. Sharing his head with the hungry can weaken him too, so a fresh bake is the cure.

  He never needs food or drink to sustain himself, and no one has ever seen him eat. The bean jam in his head is believed to keep him going.

  Anpanman has two special attacks, the An-punch and the An-kick, each with stronger variations. Super hearing lets him answer anyone who calls his name in distress, anywhere in the world. Each day he patrols around Uncle Jam's house, and the patrols keep leading back to one rival, who is a germ.

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• 3. Germ Planet

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  Baikinman hails from the Germ Planet, and his Japanese name means Bacteria Man. He leads the Viruses. His ambition is to destroy Anpanman and spread bacteria across the hero's world. Yet he is just as happy playing tricks, stealing, and bullying anyone weaker than himself.

  Baikinman and Anpanman were born at the same time, which makes the pair physical representations of moral dualism. The media expert Thomas Hoeren sees in the two rivals a blend of Milton's Paradise Lost, Frankenstein, and Star Trek.

  Soap is Baikinman's weakness, and it shrinks him to the size of a fly. Against Anpanman's strength, he builds machines and dreams up intricate plans.

  His battle cry is "Ha-hi-hu-he-ho!", built from the h-row of Japanese kana. When Anpanman or another character sends him flying, he shouts "Bye-baikiiin!" The English TMS Entertainment website called him Bacteriaman. The English Tubi and Netflix dubs keep his Japanese name.

  In episode 2a, Moldyrunrun made their first appearance. These henchmen rot Anpanman's head with mildew, which is kabi in Japanese. The Tubi and Netflix dubs call them Rot-Rot.

  Episode 13a introduced Dokin-chan, Baikinman's female partner in crime. She is selfish, demanding, childish, and greedy, yet she sometimes shows kindness, as her crush on Shokupanman proves. Her name joins Doki, the onomatopoeia for a quickly beating heart, with baikin, meaning germ, and the affectionate suffix chan. The TMS website called her Spark, and the Tubi and Netflix dubs call her Dokeen.

  A skeleton named Horrorman often works beside Baikinman and Dokin-chan, but he is neither hero nor villain. He looks scary and is actually very weak. He often falls to pieces, which he can magically put back together. His special attack is the Bone Boomerang, and he is in love with Dokin-chan, often stalking her. He first appeared in Fly! Fly! Chibigon, and the Tubi and Netflix dubs call him Horror.

  Dokin-chan's younger sister Kokin-chan first appeared in the 2006 animated short Kokin-chan and the Blue Tears. She can cry fake tears that make nearby people cry for no reason. She and her sister are rivals, mostly over their shared love for Shokupanman. Sometimes she is not evil at all and helps Anpanman. Tubi and Netflix name her Coreen.

  Baikinman's influence also reaches the hero's side of the story, where one heroine carries a blue heart because of him.

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• 4. The Bakery Crowd

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  In 2009, Anpanman was verified as a Guinness World Record Holder for the most characters in an animated franchise. The count was 1,768 characters across the first 980 episodes of the TV series and the first 20 films. New characters keep arriving, which keeps the series fresh.

  Uncle Jam is the kind baker who made Anpanman's head. He is a skilled cook with knowledge of nearly everything in the world. His assistant Batako-san is dedicated and hard-working but prone to forgetting things. Her name literally means Butter Girl, and she makes and mends the capes of Anpanman and the other heroes.

  Cheese is a dog who lives in Uncle Jam's bakery. In the manga, he became Anpanman's loyal friend after Anpanman saved his life. In the anime, a young Anpanman finds him starving during his very first patrol.

  Currypanman has a head made from currypan, a pastry filled with red-hot curry. He first appeared in episode 2b. He is quick-tempered on the surface but sentimental inside, and he tends to be the strongman of the trio. He wields the Curry-punch and Curry-kick, and he can burn villains with the hot curry concealed in his head.

  Shokupanman debuted in episode 3b with a head made from sliced white bread. He is handsome, level-headed, and kind, though narcissistic. When he is not helping Anpanman, he serves lunch to schoolchildren. He drives a multi-functional delivery van called the Shokupanman-go. The Tubi and Netflix dubs call him Bread Head Man.

  Melonpanna first appeared in episode 200, with a head made from melon bread. She is extremely softhearted and sometimes clever. When she is in trouble, she calls out for her sister Rollpanna if no one else is around. Her Melo-Melo Punch makes bad guys woozy with affection or wakes others from a deep sleep.

  Rollpanna, who first appeared in episode 300, is Melonpanna's older sister, and she has two hearts. One is a red heart of goodness, and the other is a blue heart of evil. Seeing Anpanman can trigger the evil heart, while seeing Melonpanna triggers the good one. She began as a loner at Baikinman's beck and call, then broke from his power. Now she wanders the world doing good deeds, but she avoids others for fear of her blue heart. Her nickname is "The tragic heroine," and her weapon is a gymnastics ribbon that can wrap up enemies or cause tornadoes.

  Creampanda, first seen in episode 469, is the youngest of the friends and the foster brother of the two sisters. He is six years old, with a cream bun head and eyes like a panda's. Because his head resembles a hand, he uses a headbutt called the Guu-Choki-Punch, named for rock, scissors, paper. It is powerful when it connects, but it fails to connect more often than not.

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• 5. Pages Before Screens

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  In October 1973, the Anpanman picture book series debuted. The publisher Froebel-kan has since released over 150 picture books under different series labels. Yanase wrote and illustrated them until 2013, the year of his death.

  He also created three manga series about the character. The first ran from January 1975 to May 1976 under the title Nekketsu Märchen Kaiketsu Anpanman. Sanrio's monthly poetry magazine Shi to Märchen carried it, and Yanase was that magazine's editor-in-chief. Unlike every other version, this one was aimed at adults. Froebel-kan included the whole series in the 2013 box set Yanase Takashi Taizen.

  From September 1976 to July 1982, a second manga called Anpanman ran in Sanrio's monthly youth magazine Gekkan Ichigoehon. The title spelling changed from hiragana to katakana in January 1981. The series ended when the magazine folded in July 1982. It stayed commercially unavailable until 2016, when Fukkatsu Dotcom collected all of it in the volume Dare mo shiranai Anpanman.

  The third series, Tobe! Anpanman, ran from the 1st of January 1990 to the 29th of May 1994. It was a full color comic strip in the Sunday edition of Yomiuri Shinbun. In 1991, Froebel-kan published a selection of strips in three bilingual volumes. They were marketed as English learning tools for children aged 3 and up, and they used a vertical format the source calls the Garfield Format. The rest of the strip's run is still not commercially available.

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• 6. Screens Big and Small

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  On the 13th of March 1979, the first Anpanman anime aired on NHK General TV. It was a single episode, shown during Spring Break Children's Hiroba - Picture Book, and Meiko Nakamura narrated it. The title wrote the hero's name in hiragana, as the early picture books did. Its character designs were closer to the Kinder Picture Books label. This version remains very popular in Greece.

  The second adaptation, Soreike! Anpanman, means Let's Go! Anpanman. TMS Entertainment produces it, and more than 1300 episodes have aired on NTV since the 3rd of October 1988. Its theme music includes the opening "Anpanman's March." Its endings include "Courage Rin-Rin," "Christmas Valley," several gymnastics songs, and "Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Anpanman."

  The first full-length film, Go! Anpanman: The Shining Star's Tear, opened on the 11th of March 1989. Since then, a new film has reached Japanese theaters every year except 2020, for a total of 36. From at least 1993, each film has come with a storybook version that Yanase himself wrote and illustrated. The films share one general plot. A person, usually a princess, arrives from a foreign land. Baikinman unlocks a dark secret and controls a weapon or monster that can polymorph people. With the visitor's help, Anpanman defeats it. Sometimes the visitor dies but is brought back to life by a tearful song from the characters.

  In 1990, Tokyo Movie Shinsha began producing animated shorts of around 24 minutes to run alongside the films. The first, Go! Anpanman: Omusubiman, played on the 14th of July 1990. Omusubiman also starred in a short-lived spin-off show. Christmas specials began in December 1988 with Let's Go! Anpanman: Santa Claus Disappears, and more than two dozen have followed.

  The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this routine. In April 2020, voice recordings for the anime were reported on hold. On the 2nd of October 2020, it was announced that voice actors would record in separate booths, taking shifts. The thirty-first film, slated for the 26th of June 2020, slipped to 2021 and was released on the 25th of June 2021.

  Anpanman has also travelled abroad. An English dub produced for Turner International aired on Pogo in India alongside a Hindi dub. In 2020, Tubi announced a deal with TMS Entertainment to stream select films in English and Spanish. Six films were confirmed at first, and the catalogue grew to 10. The first, Apple Boy and Everyone's Hope, arrived on the 15th of April 2021. On the 19th of September 2025, Netflix added ten films with a new English dub.

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• 7. Japan's Favorite Character

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  In 2011, research by Bandai found Anpanman to be the most popular fictional character among people aged 0 to 12 in Japan for 10 consecutive years. In 2002, he overtook Hello Kitty as Japan's top-grossing character, and he still held that position as of 2019.

  The characters appear on virtually every imaginable children's product in Japan, from clothes and toys to snack foods. Video games form part of that spread. The anime has inspired 42 of them, ranging from adventure games to educational games, on platforms including the Famicom, PlayStation, Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo Switch, and Sega Pico. Only Soreike! Anpanman Eigo to Nakayoshi 2 Tanoshii Carnival was released outside Japan. As of March 2021, Bandai Namco had sold 2.39 million Anpanman PC units since 1999, counting tablet computers.

  The franchise generated 4.5 trillion yen in total retail sales by 2013. Anpanman-related products grossed at least 150 billion yen a year, year after year, for nearly 30 years. That makes it one of the highest grossing media franchises of all time.

  The books tell the same story. By 2006, the Anpanman books had sold over 50 million copies in Japan. When Yanase died in 2013, the picture books had sold 68 million copies. As of February 2019, the total passed 80 million.

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• 8. Echoes and Tributes

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  Five museums across Japan are dedicated to Anpanman, including the Yokohama Anpanman Children's Museum & Mall. A sixth place, the Yanase Takashi Memorial Hall, is dedicated to the creator himself.

  On the rails, Anpanman train livery decorates some JR Shikoku trains, such as the 2000 series DMU and the 8000 series EMU.

  On the 10th of September 2015, the Anpanman Official Shop Taipei opened at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi shopping mall in Taipei. It was the first overseas Anpanman shop specializing in products related to the series.

  Other creators have borrowed from the hero. The manga and anime series One-Punch Man was inspired by Anpanman, and its title plays on the hero's name. One created it as a webcomic and manga. In the manga My Hero Academia, the superhero All Might is shown to have read Anpanman as a child.

  The K-pop group BTS also carries the name forward. One song on its hit album Love Yourself: Tear is titled "Anpanman," and it contains many references to the series.

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