is a Japanese character from the company

San-X is a Japanese stationery company known for creating and marketing cute characters such as Tarepanda, Rilakkuma, and Sumikko Gurashi. The characters are usually anthropomorphic representations of animals or inanimate objects. Each character has ...

, who, like

Sanrio is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and produces products focusing on the ''kawaii'' ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories which are sold ...

creations

Hello Kitty , also known by her full name , is a fictional Character (arts), character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphi ...

and

Badtz Maru This is a list of characters from Sanrio, a Japanese company specialized in creating kawaii (cute) characters. Sanrio sells and licenses products branded with these characters and has created over 450 characters. Their most successful and best kno ...

, can be found in books,

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

, toys, stationery, and a number of other formats. The character is a burnt red bean bread bun who lives in a ''panya'' (Japanese bakery), trying to fit in and make friends with the other bread items. The name comes from ''kogeru'', meaning to burn or char, and ''pan'', a ''

gairaigo is Japanese for "loan word", and indicates a transcription into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed in ancient times from Old or Middle Chinese (especially Literary Chinese) ...

'' word taken from

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

and meaning bread. There are a number of other characters (breads) in the ''panya'' with Kogepan, including ''ichigopan'' (strawberry bread), ''kireipan'' (curry bread), ''kuriimupan'' (a burnt cream bread), and Sumipan, a bread even more burnt than Kogepan.

Media

Anime

The

series, animated by

Studio Pierrot is a Japanese animation studio established in May 1979 by former employees of both Tatsunoko Production and Mushi Production. Its headquarters are located in Mitaka, Tokyo. Pierrot is renowned for several worldwide popular anime series, such as ...

and produced by

Pony Canyon , also known by the shorthand form , is a Japanese mass media publishing company founded on October 1, 1966. The company publishes mainly physical home media on compact discs, including music, films and TV shows and video games. It is affiliate ...

, consisted of ten 4-minute shorts, the majority of which introduce simple aspects of the character.

Books

There have been three children's picture books published in the Kogepan series, written & drawn by Takahashi Miki: * * *

References

External links

San-X Official Kogepan Page

* Animax original programming Fictional food characters San-X characters Pierrot (company) {{fict-char-stub