Yanase Takashi

 Yanase Takashi is known as the founder of Anpanman. However,there were careers that he played an active part as a designer,an editor,an stage artist,a composer and so on. He composed that popular song, "Tenohira wo Taiyo ni ". He did multicolor work, but when "Anpanman" became popular, he was already about fifty years old. As a cartoonist, it was a very late-blooming.
 He was married, but had no children. So, he and his wife regarded Anpanman as their child. And,he surely eats bread for breakfast because rice sits heavy on the stomach for him.
 At present, he is over ninty years old so, he thought of retirement. But, because of "The Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake", he still continues activity regularly.

The outline

 The model work of  present "Anpanman" was published serially in a magagine for adult in1969. The character was human who had head, but he gave hungry people bread.  In 1973, the character who had head which was made of a bean-jam bun appeared in the picture book for children.he is Anpanman. In 1975, "Soreike! Anpanman"which was the continuation of that was published. The title of early works was written in hiragana ,but it was changed for katakana later,because writing in hiragana was strange.
 At first, the contents of Anpanmann was helping people who were suffering from poverty, so there were a lot of criticism. But,gradually,it became popular among children.The center of  readers were little chidren,so the shape of  Anpanman was changed from well-proported figure to three figure.
 At present,Anpanman is one of the national character, which is very popular among children.