I worry about Anpanman a lot these days. Anpanman is a popular show for children that we get on the TV Japan channel and I get to see a lot of it because my son is currently a fan. All I can say is that Japanese children’s television is deeply concerning.
With Anpanman, my concerns are largely metaphysical. Anpanman is a bit like Superman, if Superman had a removable head made of pastries and sweet bean filling. Anpanman can fly, he is incredibly strong and he goes around helping people and punching out bad guys. This is all great stuff. I hope that Aito grows up incredibly strong with the ability to fly, help people and punch out bad guys, so there are many lessons that he can pick up from Anpanman.
Unfortunately, like Superman and kryptonite, Anpanman has a weakness - the fact that his head is basically dough and sweet beans. If his head gets dented, dirty, wet, or fed to hungry animals (as sometimes happens), Anpanman’s power wanes. The solution for Anpanman is to replace his head with an entirely new head. This brings him back to full power and allows him to “An-punch” his enemies so hard that they disappear over the horizon.
What I wonder, though, is whether or not Anpanman is actually Anpanman anymore after switching heads. Sure, we think that Anpanman is the same person because he does and says the same things, but isn’t it also possible that Jam Ojisan, Anpanman’s creator, is baking a new individual with each head? Could we be seeing the death of a hero every time Anpanman’s head gets changed?
Besides the existentially terrifying question of the disposable hero heads, there is the change that would have on the show itself. If each head is a different hero, then Anpanman’s nemesis, Baikinman, doesn’t actually fail each episode. In fact, he’s slowly working his way through all of the potential Anpanmans until the day when Jam Ojisan runs out of sweet beans and flour.
Of course, it would be easy to chalk up my worries about Anpanman to Japanese cartoons being quirky, but I’ve realized that it has nothing to do with Japan. Thomas the Tank Engine, another of my son’s favorites, also contains some big questions. Sir Topham Hat can’t go one episode without mentioning that all the train’s should be “really useful engines.” In fact, most of the episodes are about the trains competing to be more useful or agonizing about not being useful enough. The question I have is what exactly are the engines so scared of? What did Sir Topham Hat do to inspire that kind of fear? What happens to the engines that don’t measure up?
Now, you might say I am reading too much into both these shows - and you’d be right. I have a lot of spare time to think while watching these shows. Anpanman and Thomas tend to be a bit formulaic in the plot department. It’s almost like they were written for kids. As a person in an international marriage, I am all for understanding and appreciation between cultures. And one thing I think we can agree on is that children’s shows are crazy in any culture.
