Referenced By / Anpanman

Anime and Manga

• Doraemon: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen has a quick Take That! towards Anpanman early on; when Nobita is looking through the Dream Machine's tapes, the first one he sees is an Anpanman Captain Ersatz superhero with a bread roll for a head. Nobita complains, "Nah, too childish." It prompts Doraemon to reply, "Really? I thought it kind of suits you."
• A rather infamous example was the Osomatsu-san segment "Horike! Dekapan-man", involving Dekapan saving people by pulling rather suggestive objects out of his pants (for instance, a brown karintou), with the show lampshading this by having Osomatsu yell at Dekapanman after each item is presented. Moral Guardians complained about these segments, causing them to get removed.
• One-Punch Man:
  • The name of the series in Japanese, Wanpanman, sounds very similar to Anpanman.
  • Saitama's superhero costume is a Whole Costume Reference to Anpanman; they wear very similar costumes, with the colors of Saitama's cape and costume (red and yellow) being inverted from Anpanman's.
  • Vaccine Man, Saitama's very first opponent, is a reference to (and parody of) both Baikinman and Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z.
• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In Chapter 39, Rentarou mentions Anpanman when Mimimi claims that soiling her clothes would sap every ounce of strength from her body.

Music

• The song "Anpanman" by BTS talks about heroes who might not fit the Batman or Superman idea of a hero, but use the best of their abilities to help people. It parallels between him and themselves as artists ("I'm a new generation Anpanman!"): while they might be imperfect people with weaknesses, they aim to inspire and help people with their music.
  • This song is currently used as the intro on Korean broadcasts of Anpanman.

Web Animation

• The Refreshing Stories chapter The girl thought she would always have a sugar daddy. The nicest man snapped and… has Hiroshi mock his ex-girlfriend Akane after tricking him into paying for her plastic surgery by saying she looks like "Bread Superman". To this effect, Anpanman's head is superimposed over Akane's face.