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| Baikinman, Doki-Chan and Shokupanman socializing |
However, in the recent months Toddler Sunshine has gotten a taste for the classic Japanese kid's anime "Anpanman". I find the whole premise somewhat confusing and bizarre, but the main character is a superhero with a head made of bread with sweet red bean paste filling and most of the cast are based on some form of popular bread as well. I haven't been watching the shows in detail, but they seem to involve a lot of singing and some occasional conflicts between Anpanman and his buddies against the mischievous Baikinman (Germ-man).
From a parent perspective, the Anime is quite ok. There's no promotional stuff thrown into the shows (although the number of toys and merchandise featuring the Anpanman is too many to count) and there is generally some soft nice friendly message about how you should be nice to people baked into the stories. The popularity of the show and the characters is also quite amazing, basically all kids from ages 2 to 8 loves Anpanman, boys and girls. I tried to think about it a bit, but can't really come up with any Western cartoon that has the same level of popularity among the toddlers.
So at the moment, Toddler Sunshine's life seems to be focused around Anpanman. Whenever she sees a picture of the character anywhere (which is quite often considering the amount of t-shirts and goods that other kids carry around) she gleefully exclaims "Anmaman" (she's yet to master the correct pronunciation) and in the house she often brings the remote control to the TV and demands to be shown Anpanman...
Me and Mrs. Sunshine has braced ourselves that Anpanman will be a substantial part of our life for quite a few years to come as Baby Salaryman is bound to follow suite in a year or so...
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8 comments:
"there is generally some soft nice friendly message about how you should be nice to people baked into the stories."
"Baked." Nice. I see what you did there ;)
Shokupunman reminds me of Powdered Toast Man. Awesome post picture!
I know these things because my students tell me but you just gave me more detail than I ever got. An adult seems to analyze different from a kid who eats the character he/she loves...it's kinda odd actually....I don't wanna eat my favorite character.
My boy and I say goodbye to each other thusly: "Bye-baikin!"
Love the picture. I'll never look at Dokkin-chan the same way, but at least Baikin-man finally caught a break.
Kamo - That was actually not intentional, but don't tell anyone, I look more clever if people think so!
Hardkoret - I like the picture as well and am quite curious on who spent the time on making it...
Chris - Oh yeah, I can see how the information you get on tv-shows, characters and stuff is a bit filtered from the perception of the kids and their age. They have a different take on most stuff.
Ἀντισθένης - Yeah, Baikinman deserved the break, he's a great guy deep inside
lol nice picture
Dora the Explorer. I swear anytime my little sister knows there's an "appearence" at a mall or something, we're in line the whole day with about a thousand other kids from ages 3-10. Though I think it's good because it teaches a lot of Spanish and latin American values, so it's nice that something like that is popular in the States. Maybe there is hope on getting rid of the racist policy makers yet.
most educational programming in the USA is on PBS, the non-profit public broadcasting station. In addition to dora there is also barney the purple dinosaur,blue's clues, the wiggles and elmo from sesame street. but i guess those aren't exactly cartoons.also arthur, bob the builder, thomas the train,curious george,and my favorite that i still watch when no one is around, clifford the big red dog. But american kids are spoiled. my nephew didn't want to sleep over his other aunt's house because "they don't have real cable". his dad was like yes they do, they have basic cable. My nephew replied if they can't get disney channel, nickelodean or the cartoon network (all of which are a part of the digital expanded cable package) then that's not cable. I remember when cartoons only aired on saturday mornings and 3-5pm mon-fri. Wait until Baby Sunshine is old enough for her own playstation.You'll have to get her her own system and tv so she won't be hogging yours. My two nephews share a room and they have two tv's(they both got 42inch)in their room so they both can play their xbox and ps3 without fighting or commandeering the living room tv. The sad part is, I'm the one who first taught them about video games, and anime and comic books. I'm such a gooood auntie.
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