Sunday, May 13, 2012

Japanese Pop Culture 101: Understanding Anpanman

8 comments:

  1. wow. I only know Doraemon. Is Doraemon's favorite food basically Anpanman's head???

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  2. Doraemon is also awesome! His favourite food is something similar to anpan, but it's called dorayaki (hence his name Dora-emon. Dorayaki is red bean paste sandwiched between two sweet pancakes instead of filled inside a bun). That's a lot of red bean paste connection.

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  3. Germany is really missing out without Doraemon. Italy is obsessed with him though.

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    1. I've noticed that about Italy---they show/used to show TONS of Japanese anime on TV that other European countries don't. Like Tiger Mask, Attack Number One, Captain Tsubasa and Doraemon. Weird eh!

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    2. and don't forget Sampei!

      We did have Mila Superstar and Kickers though.

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  4. I saw a lot of Anpanman and Doraemon stuff and merchandise when I lived in Japan. It's amazing to see how popular they are with kids.

    Also, anpan is tasty! I particularly liked the tiny ones you could get in packs of five at the university convenience store. Some of them were filled with white bean paste, and I kinda liked that more than regular anko. I guess it was called shiro-an?

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    1. Yeah, there is A CRAP LOAD of Anpanman and Doraemon merchandise, eh. This also makes me want to buy the Doraemon comics and reread them!

      OOoh, I like the little anpan too, although I'm usually not the biggest fan of anko. (I also prefer koshi-an (the smooth anko) to tsubu-an (the lumpy one). Kinda picky when it comes to anko.) I like shiro-an though! Nom!

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    2. Yeah, I like koshi-an better than tsubu-an too. A bit unrelated, but I have to mention that shiro (shiroi?) taiyaki filled with custard was one of the best treats I had in Japan! Speaking of taiyaki also reminds me of this song: http://youtu.be/Dq2xiLxAiIs

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