Quick, name the most valuable licensed character in Japan. If you went with Hello Kitty or even Pokemon, you chose wrong. The top character in Japan by market share is named Anpanman (“Sweet Bean Bread Man”), a popular bread-themed superhero who fights against the evil Baikinman (“Bacteria Man”) with his friends Currypanman (made of curry-filled bread) and Shokupanman (whose head is a giant slice of white bread) and his girlfriend Melonpanna (made of sweet “melon bread”). Anpanman is universally loved by all children in Japan, who wear his face on their T-shirts and underwear, and is enormously successful as a licensed property. The show is cute but can be weird at times, like Anpanman’s penchant for breaking pieces of his head off and offering it to people when they’re hungry since his head is made of bread and it grows back. Yesterday it was announced that Anpanman creator Takashi Yanase died of heart failure at the age of 94…which is quite an amazing number of years to be making children happy. Whenever the evil Baikinman bids someone farewell in the show, he always says, “Bye Bye-kin!” (pronounced ‘bye bye-keen’), and if you ever want to surprise a Japanese person use this phrase on them and watch them jump out of their shoes.
The creator of Anpanman has gone to that bakery in the sky.
