Happy Anpan is, or was, a webcomic co-written by bluepenguin and a friend and drawn by bluepenguin, abandoned quite abruptly after 21 strips because the friend moved to Scotland and bluepenguin realized that she actually couldn't draw. Thus, while part of it does exist on the internet, most of it doesn't and never will exist anywhere but in bluepenguin's head (and the friend's, if she hasn't forgotten about it).
bluepenguin is too embarrassed to provide an actual link to the comic; if you really want to see it, you can Google it yourself. She is writing this up only because she is bored and because she realized that the comic was extremely full of tropes (even just in the few strips that were posted).
At any rate, Happy Anpan was, like a good half if not more of the webcomics on the internet, a parody of anime/manga; specifically of shoujo manga of the Trapped in Another World variety (see: Fushigi Yuugi, Inuyasha, Magic Knight Rayearth...) plus whatever elements of other genres/subgenres of manga we felt like poking fun at. It was the story of an ordinary, clumsy schoolgirl who fell into another world, was attacked by monsters and rescued by a mysterious bishounen, and was then charged by a Divine Being to find the Six Sacred Stones so that she could make a wish to go home (and, coincidentally, save the world in the process), all while a shadowy, mysterious villain tried to stop her so that he could take the stones for himself and take over the world.
The colorful cast of characters included:
Karaoke Kawaii, the aforementioned schoolgirl.
Toshiba Kawaii, her brother, who had no real role in the plot but somehow didn't get cut out during the planning phase. His schtick was (supposed to be) to be overprotective of Karaoke and Ambiguously Gay, but neither of these traits actually showed up much.
Sakura Tsunami, essentially the Yui to Karaoke's Miaka.
Divine Being #703, a dragon god.
Kawasaki and Suzuki, henchpeople (or more accurately, hench-satyrs... yeah, I don't know why either) who were supposed to become a Quirky Miniboss Squad.
Mitsubishi Honda, a Bishounen who was angsty and had a mysterious past and kept disappearing off on his own and returning just in time to save Karaoke from danger. The main Love Interest, of course. He would have been later revealed to have been in an assassin squad and have had to kill his first love.
Toyota Subaru, the other love interest. He was the brash and hotheaded one concerned with training and becoming stronger to protect people and all that. Had a dead sister who, he claimed, looked like Karaoke (though she would have been shown in flashbacks to look nothing like her), leading to some... interesting implications when he fell for her (Karaoke, that is).
Sanchan Sensei... yeah, we were running out of "brand name and/or common Japanese-English loan word" ideas at this point. Anyway, Sanchan was an assassin who had a history (and some Ho Yay) with Mitsubishi — and a contract on his life. It would have been revealed later that he was in fact a really bad assassin who had never managed to kill anyone. He was also secretly Really 700 Years Old and under a curse which made him unable to die until he found his true love.
Karate, who first appears as a mysterious cloaked person who offers to guide the heroes through the woods. Would later have been revealed to be The Mole. She was a former catgirl who was turned into a rodent-girl as a result of a conflict between the Divine Being of her people and another Divine Being, and was working for the villain because he promised to restore her to her former catgirl glory when he took over the world.
Kamikaze, the main villain. Wanted to take over the world, apparently For the Evulz.
Rachel, who had not actually shown up in the comic yet when it was abandoned. The villain's beautiful female henchperson who was in love with him.
The comic provided examples of:
- Bilingual Bonus (The resizing and JPEG compression — not to mention the artist/writer's poor handwriting — makes it nearly illegible, but the Ancient Master's incantation is written in actual Japanese, and consists of a bunch of Japanese 101-type stock sentences. "Hello! Nice to meet you! How are you? The weather is nice today. Would you like to go to the movies? Where is the bathroom?")
- Censor Box (Karaoke got one for the "implied nudity" in her transformation sequence.)
- Chekhov's Gun (A vending machine early in the series bears an advertisement for "Revival-In-A-Can," which would have been later used to revive a major character after his death. Despite being set up early on, this still manages to be something of a Deus ex Machina.)
- Face Framed in Shadow (The only way the Big Bad, Kamikaze, had been shown thus far in the comic. Lampshaded.)
- Lampshade Hanging (on pretty much everything — because if you take a cliche plot and characters and lampshade the hell out of everything, that makes it a parody and therefore funny, right?)
- Old Master (Subverted. The Guardian of the First Stone is set up to be one, but when it comes time for him to fight the heroes, he can't perform, and instead just gives them the Stone, saying he's too old to go fighting all the adventurers who challenge him for it.)
- Paper Fan of Doom (Karaoke occasionally wielded one, labeled the Paper Fan of Righteous Anger, against her brother.)
- Shout-Out (At least three in the course of the strips posted.)
- Transformation Sequence (Karaoke got one when she was first endowed with the power of the Dragon God. The only thing that changed, however, was that her skirt got shorter.)
- Verbal Tic (Despite no longer being a catgirl, Karaoke had a tendency to end her sentences with "nya.")
-
Wangst (Mitsubishi) - Word Salad Title ("Happy Anpan" had nothing to do with anything in the comic.)
The comic would have, had it gone on long enough, provided examples of:
- Calling Your Attacks (Karaoke and Sakura would have done it had they actually gotten around to fighting. Sakura's main attack, incidentally, would have been called Cherry Blossom Tidal Wave.)
- Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends (Would have been done in a fairly ridiculous manner and lampshaded, of course)
- Heel–Face Turn and Face–Heel Turn (Sakura would have become evil, then good again)
- Heroic Sacrifice (Mitsubishi would have made one, then been brought back to life)
- Lethal Chef (Karaoke would have been established, in a later strip, to have once set fire to the kitchen while making herself a bowl of cornflakes.)
- Odd Name Out (Rachel was the only one whose name was not Japanese. I cannot for the life of me remember the reasoning behind this.)
- Talking Animal and Non-Human Sidekick (Karaoke would have gotten a magical cat sidekick called Sushi.)
