Beyond Anpanman: Understanding Takashi Yanase's Unlikely Rise to the Pinnacle of the Japanese Popular Culture Pantheon

NHK's upcoming Asadora morning drama, Anpan tells the fictionalized story of Nobu Komatsu (1918-1993), the wife of the Anpanman (Mr Bean Bun) cartoon creator Takashi Yanase (1919-2010). Yanase, who will be played by actor Takumi Kitamura, is widely acknowledged as one of the most successful children's manga and picture book illustrators of all time.

Indeed, this manga series is now a $1 billion commercial empire. It is built on character goods that are as ubiquitous in the Japanese entertainment and marketing media as even those of Hello Kitty and Doraemon. By contrast, his wife Nobu Komatsu, to be played by popular actress Mio Imada, is among the least-known characters ever to be chosen by the Asadora series.

Anpanman Furmanovsky — *Anpanman creator Takashi Yanase and his wife, Nobu Komatsu, in 1964. (Public domain)*

This leaves the writer of the upcoming Asadora, Miho Nakazono, with little choice but to build much of her screenplay around events in Yanase's life. It seems likely she will give considerable attention to the early 1970s since that is when Yanase created Anpanman, a character who flies to the assistance of any hungry person and tears off parts of his face to feed them.

Yanase's Early Life

Yanase and his younger brother Chihiro grew up in Kochi. The brothers benefited greatly from an indulgent upbringing by an adopted uncle and aunt following the tragic early death in Shanghai of his highly educated, journalist father. At home, the bookish, but shy teenager enjoyed the work of early manga artists in the magazine Shonen Club, especially Tagawa Suihō's highly popular Norakuro about a human-like dog.

His uncle, a modern and open-minded doctor accepted Yanase's disinterest in medicine. He agreed to allow Yanase to enter Tokyo Higher School of Design, an unusually progressive school. There, Yanase's teachers encouraged students to spend time enjoying the exciting world of Ginza's café and movie-based entertainment culture.

In Ginza, Yanase also spent time in the used bookstores devouring the early 1930s stories of avant-garde writers Osamu Dazai and Masuji Ibuse. Meanwhile, he also enjoyed movies such as Frankenstein (1933) and Gone with the Wind (1939). Both of those would influence his later work.

Shortly after graduation, Yanase was drafted into the army and sent to Fuzhou, China (opposite Taiwan). He served there as a propagandist and codebreaker. Because the United States decided to attack Okinawa instead of Taiwan, Yanase would never fire a gun at an enemy. However, he found himself with time to develop his illustration skills.

Yanase used his skills to entertain locals and fellow soldiers with self-created Kamishibai picture stories and songs. In 1944, however, his regiment was ordered to march on foot to Shanghai. It was a 1,000-kilometer journey in which he experienced firsthand, the pain of hunger.

Starting Anew in the Postwar Era

On his return to Japan in March 1946, Yanase heard confirmation of his missing brother Chihiro's death. It left him with no close relatives and a sense of deep grief and guilt at surviving the war. His sadness was tempered, however, by a whirlwind romance with his future wife Nobu.

Nicknamed Hachikin, a Tosa (Kochi area) term for a strong or tomboyish woman, Nobu was the only woman at the Kochi Shimbun where he also found a job. A few months later the couple moved to Tokyo, Here he spent most of the next decade unsuccessfully trying to match his prewar idols as a serious adult manga artist.

With Nobu's unwavering support and encouragement, he managed to make a name for himself as a picture book illustrator and theater play designer. In this capacity, he met music composer Taku Izumi. They co-wrote a novelty children's song in 1960, "Te no Hira wo Taiyo ni" (Hold Your Hands in the Sun). The song made its way to NHK's Minna no Uta TV show and later became a standard of children's music books. It is still considered Yanase's greatest composition alongside his later "Anpanman no Machi."

Connecting with Young Students

That success later led to an offer to be a manga teacher on NHK's Manga Gakkō (Manga School). On the program, Yanase quizzed elementary and middle-school students on their manga knowledge. This in turn led to requests to contribute to the new wave of children's magazines, which carried into his breakthrough success with the Yasashī raion (The Gentle Lion) (1969), later made into a prize-winning anime.

In the same year, he produced a series of 12 fairy tale-type short stories for the magazine Kodomo no Ehon. These included the dark Chirin no Suzu (Chirin's Bell), "Chiisana Janbo" (Little Jumbo), and a short novelty story called "Anpanman."

In this early version of Anpanman, the protagonist is portrayed as a chubby old man flying in a damaged superhero cape who gives anpan donuts to children. Yanase later pointed out that while 1940s American comic heroes such as Superman and Spiderman were champions of justice, they mostly showed off their fighting ability without ever getting dirty or helping the weak or hungry.

The Anpanman story received little attention until October 1973. That year, Yanase decided to revive him as the round-faced child-friendly non-human version we know today. The new version featured just two characters, the Anpanman and his maker Jamu Ojīsan, a kind old baker and chef.

Many critics, librarians, and kindergarten teachers expressed strong reservations about the cruelty of a head being eaten. They also disliked the references to poverty. Despite this disapproval, it struck a note with kindergarten children, and copies of the book were always checked out of libraries.

Finding the 'Perfect Fit'

The key to its mass acceptance as a picture book, however, was the addition of a villain, the all-important antihero Baikinman. This character's monomaniacal drive to make a germ-friendly planet was a perfect fit for pre-schoolers, especially given Japanese kindergarten teacher's renowned emphasis on hygiene and handwashing for their pupils.

Surprisingly it would be over a decade before Yanase began adding the vast array of other personalities that are now associated with Anpanman, such as Melonpanna, Rollpanna, and Currypanman. In almost every story, Jamu Ojīsan is the epitome of helpfulness and sacrifice. And he bakes an endless supply of new faces for Anpanman following the use of the latter's head for feeding the hungry or its disintegration due to water attacks by the devious Baikinman.

The other key protagonist created at this time is Dokinchan. Her name was based on the onomatopoeia doki doki (heart beating in excitement). Given a very attractive design, Dokinchan's personality was apparently inspired by Scarlett Ohara, as portrayed by Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind.

Record-breaking Success and Personal Loss

In 1988, the success of the book series finally led to an animation series for children's TV. It was a year of national gloominess triggered by the Japanese Emperor's sickness and the impending end of the Showa era. However, Soreike! Anpanman reached an unexpectedly high 7% rating in its first month. The next two years saw it become a national children's favorite with booming sales of character goods and many movie spinoffs.

This recognition and income from the anime allowed Yanase to found and pay for an Anpanman museum in his and Nobu's beloved Kami, Kochi. Sadly, however, this success coincided with his hitherto healthy wife's diagnosis of untreatable pancreatic cancer.

Following the death of Nobu and the passing of Osamu Tezuka in 1989, Yanase took on a role as the wise old manga grandfather of Japan. In 2009, the Anpanman series entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest number of characters in a series ー more than 1,700.

'Anpanman March' as a Theme Song of Hope

The peak of Yanase's saint-like status came two years before his death, in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The "Anpanman March" was adopted as a theme song of hope, resilience, and reconstruction by the mass media.

This prompted the 92-year-old to come out of retirement and create a series of posters encouraging displaced and bereaved victims of the disaster areas. His private funeral two years later in 2013 at age ninety-four was attended by many prominent manga artists and his show business associates.

Although Yanase does of course have considerable name recognition, there are many Japanese who cannot connect his name with the Anpanman story. Even fewer, outside his beloved Kochi, are aware of his enormous contribution to Japanese picture book history or know Nobu's role in his long life's trajectory.

It is fitting therefore that the 2025 Asadora is about him and Hachikin Nobu. It will not only increase the ubiquity and variety of Anpanman merchandise but also elevate the man, who is Japan's most successful children's picture book writer, to a new level of fame and recognition.