Anpan-man!

One of the beloved characters in Japan is “Anpan-man”.
”Anpan-man” was created by manga artist, Takashi Yamase in 1970s. The main character is an anthropomorphic bread super hero. “Anpan” is a Japanese popular bread filled with sweet red bean paste. Many other bread characters appeared throughout the series of stories such as Melonpan-man, shokupan-man, currypan-man, etc. They are all traditional Japanese breads so everyone likes to eat them!

The characters cute looks attract children around 1-3years old. It is also said Anpanman’s circle face is looks like the mother’s breast, that is why babies like it a lot. Apparently, my daughter is a fan of Anapan-man just like other children. She doesn’t speak yet, but she recognizes Anapan-man’s face and she takes Anapan-man’s stuffed toy everywhere.

I wonder why anpan-man hasn’t become popular globally. It might be An (red bean paste) is not familiar with foreigners. In addition, when Anapan-man helps someone, he gives his part of the body to eat them. It means he gives his energy to someone. I guess it looks weird for foreigners that super-hero sacrifices himself to support someone. I’m wondering he hasn’t been accepted in other counties because of these facts.

I think every country has long running hit characters, such as Sesame Street in U.S. (It’s popular in Japan as the animation is used for children to study English.)

Now I feel I would like to know more about Anpan-man because it’s a good way to learn about Japanese-culture and their way of thinking.