Poor Baikinman

When my kids were young, they used to love a popular Japanese cartoon called 「それいけ！アンパンマン」 (“Go! Anpanman“).

This cartoon is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most characters. A new one is constantly being introduced by the 90-year old artist!
I wrote a post about the world record. Click here to read it.

Anpanman‘s artist, Yanase Takashi, grew up in the city of Kochi, Japan.
Last month, the city decided to honor Mr. Yanase and the characters he created that have become a part of Japanese culture by renaming a street “Yanase Takashi Road” and placing large, stone statues on the street of the cartoon’s six main characters.

Well, late last Sunday, someone destroyed the statue of the cartoon’s main “villain”, 「バイキンマン」 (“Baikinman“).

Baikinman has two antennae on his head. But some cut off one of the statue’s antennae. In Japan, vandalism isn’t very common.

Here’s what the statue used to look like:

And this is what the vandal did to it:

Anpanman in the Guinness Book

There’s a very popular children’s cartoon character in Japan called 「それいけ！アンパンマン」 (“Go! Anpanman“).

2009 has been a big year for 「アンパンマン」 (Anpanman) and for his artist Takashi Yanase.

This year, Takashi Yanase turned 90 years old, he’s been a professional artist for 60 years, the 「アンパンマン」 (Anpanman) comic started 40 years ago, and the 「アンパンマン」 (Anpanman) television series started 20 years ago. (Click here to see an earlier post I wrote about this).
And now, 「それいけ！アンパンマン」 (“Go! Anpanman“) is in the Guinness Book Of World Records for having the “Most Characters In A Single Animated Series“.

「それいけ！アンパンマン」 (“Go! Anpanman“) has over 2000 characters, but the Guinness Book only recognized 1768 characters…which still sets the record as the most characters.

Here are some of the main ones:

My kids grew up watching 「それいけ！アンパンマン」 (“Go! Anpanman“). It’s a wonderful cartoon for kids!

Have you ever watched 「それいけ！アンパンマン」 (“Go! Anpanman“)? I like 「バイキンマン」 (Baikinman), 「ホラーマン」 (Horror-man), and 「だいこんやくしゃ」 (Daikonyakusha) best.

Click here to see my post about the 「アンパンマン」 (Anpanman) Exhibit we went to last Spring.