English Version Files Behind the Scenes: Episode 15 - Anpanman

Behind-the-scenes notes about episode 15 of English Version Files: Anpanman!

General Notes

Back in 2021, Anpanman was an EXTREMELY popular request on my channel. In the early days of my channel, I was known for covering series like Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan (I kind of am now, too), and Anpanman is in the same realm, so it makes sense this would be a popular request.

I knew close to nothing about Anpanman back then (a recurring theme you will see in these retrospectives), so I decided to put up the series as a choice for Extra Life, a fundraising program that supports local Children's Miracle Network hospitals (in my case, Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio). The series was up against Cyborg Kuro-chan, Rave Master, and Sgt. Keroro, and Anpanman raised $210 for Nationwide Children's Hospital, way ahead of the other options. I suppose Anpanman winning is fitting seeing as he is known for being charitable.

I would later make a CyKuro episode in 2023 (CyKuro was an INCREDIBLY hot request -- that series has a super devout following), but I've yet to make episodes on Rave Master and Sgt. Keroro... although one is a clearly more popular request than the other.

As critical as I am of my older work, I'm still happy with how this one turned out. There wasn't much content to go over, and I got the gist of the series pretty quickly. It seems the Anpanman fandom outside Japan was happy with this video, too. I take positive fandom reception as a seal of approval.

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Research and Editing Notes

My memory is hazy on when research started, but I want to say it was before I announced the Extra Life poll. I was doing a cursory glance at the scope of each project, and I talked to Tanukid and Koops, who are both way more in-the-know on Anpanman. I remember digging up whatever I could on English releases by looking at the Lost Media Wiki and newspaper archives. In hindsight, I am SO GLAD Anpanman won as that had the least amount of scope and could feasibly be taken care of in a month. Also back then, there was close to nothing known about the CyKuro dub, and by sheer luck, I uncovered a treasure trove of info, but more on that when I get to writing that retrospective.

I'm bummed I couldn't get a hold of Richard Dumont. I called his agent a few times, but he never answered my calls, so that's why I e-mailed him. A few years ago I contacted someone who used to work with Dumont, and she told me she was surprised he'd decline an interview like mine, so... maybe someday I'll talk to Dumont.

Luckily, though, this episode is how I got in touch with Catherine Fu, and by extension, Lili Troncale! They would be helpful as hell in later videos. It's been a hot minute since I've talked to ANYONE from Hong Kong, though, as I haven't really been covering HK dubs like I used to... I kinda miss it admittedly, but I digress.

But here's the most miraculous thing that happened... During development of this video, Ghia Burns (the voice of Anpanman in the Macias Group movie dubs) followed me on Twitter. I DM'd her to say hello, thank you for the follow, and so forth. We talked a bit, and it led to me landing an interview with her. She was SO HELPFUL beginning to end. She even reviewed the part of the script that talks about the Macias dub! Had this not happened, we would have ended up with a very different episode!

Burns tried to get me in touch with one of the dub's directors, but he never responded to my e-mails.

I did not rip any movie clips by downloading them. I loaded Tubi and recorded my screen using Streamlabs. I let a few of the movies play while I went for a walk.

Also, I did not watch all the movies. I watched three. Given I was making these videos in the span of a month, I didn't have time to watch all of the movies, and they're all formulaic from what I've seen. The formula I've seen is generally this: There's a new character with some kind of character flaw who needs help, Anpanman to the rescue, Anpanman is nice to the new character, the new character is helped and learns a lesson about kindness and friendship. The movies are nothing to write home about. They're cute and safe, and given Anpanman is a favourite in Japan, kids over there clearly love it. So really, this episode didn't require me to watch much content since so much of it is lost media.

The VERY FIRST THING put into the video was the BTS clip immediately followed by the clip of Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons. That joke came to mind quickly upon adding the BTS info to my outline. My brain runs on Simpsons references, so they often quickly and naturally come to mind. I never FORCE a Simpsons reference. If I think of one, I think of one.

Cut/Edited Content

Well, this is awkward... Despite my best efforts, I can't find my Anpanman script... Except one part.

Remember when I said I had Ghia Burns review the Macias Group part of the script? Well, I still have that saved on my Google Drive, so enjoy these notes from that part of the script!

Cut Content

Auditioning didn’t start for this dub until around this announcement in September or October 2020 with recording starting a few weeks later.

Felt redundant since I had JUST brought up the announcement. I also rearranged the wording in the first half of the sentence.

How do I know so much about this dub? You know how I had problems interviewing anyone regarding the two other confirmed dubs?

I felt the line was redundant.

Originally, Burns auditioned for the role of Princess Vanilla, but the director saw the potential in her to be the lead role, Anpanman himself! [excerpt from video interview]

I didn't have a good clip from the interview to use relevant to this talking point.

She left the audition trying to remember how she knew the name Anpanman, her neighbour said the name sounds like One Punch Man, and everything clicked for her. [excerpt from video interview]

Seeing as Burns says the underlined part in the interview, I decided to just have her explain it. I also changed "She" to "Burns" for clarity's sake.

Many other actors on this project have not done much else in terms of voicework, or in some cases this is their first major foray into animation, much like Burns. To quickly go through the rest of the colourful cast of characters:

Felt redundant.

If YOU’D like to check out Anpanman, well, the only legal way to get it right now is through the movies recently released on Tubi. If you’re in a country with Tubi, you’re in luck!

Felt redundant. I also slightly adjusted the wording of the rest of the first sentence.

Edited Content

The dub was to be handled by Macias Group in Miami.

This was something I added while recording I believe.

Script: Macias Group’s movie dubs keep the majority of the characters’ Japanese names, with two exceptions.
Video: Macias Group’s movie dubs keep the majority of the characters’ Japanese names, with a few exceptions.

I originally just noted the names "Bread Head Man" and "Horror" being different, but there were more I had overlooked during the scriptwriting process.

Script: You know how I had problems interviewing anyone regarding the two other confirmed dubs? Well, as they say… the third time’s a charm.
Video: You know how I had problems interviewing anyone regarding the two other confirmed dubs? Get a load of this.

I believe this line change was because I got a hold of Catherine Fu, and by the point I wrote that line, I hadn't heard from anyone in the Hong Kong dub.

What I Did Differently

This was the first episode that used music from Epidemic Sound. I was frustrated with using YouTube Music's limited library and/or hoping the Content ID gods would not smite me for using copyrighted tracks. I found Epidemic Sound through Nick Robinson as he had previously advertised the service. I've used ES since. I love the quality and quantity of music, and many tracks have become staples of the channel.

This would be my final video to use a character background, though.

What I Would Do Differently Now

ABSOLUTELY shorten the intro, but this is another one of those running themes across videos. I was not "playing by the rules"; I didn't even know what those "rules" were. I wanted to be thorough, so I shoved as much info in as I could in three or so minutes. Now I try to bake that info into the analysis as things become relevant. I also would've mentioned One Punch Man and BTS right away instead of saving them for later. What I did was the panelist in me thinking. I always love to surprise audiences, but YouTube is such a different beast. There are similarities, sure, but leaving a panel and leaving a YouTube video... They're VERY different.

I also would have gone through the list of movies more quickly. There are too long of pauses between titles in my narration.

Otherwise, I feel this episode is as good as it could have been for the time. This video took off like a rocket pretty quickly compared to other videos that I made back then. Recently, the Anpanman video became my second most viewed video, dethroning long-time champion Doraemon (Part 1), which was dethroned as #1 in 2025 by PaRappa. I know a lot of people discovered my channel through the Anpanman video, and I think it's a good place to start with EVF. It has a bit of everything: a character well-known in Japan and unknown stateside, a Hong Kong dub, word from people that worked on the projects, and thorough notes on a series' release.

Trivia

Voice Actor / Director Profile Debuts: Lili Troncale, Alex Machado, Barry J. Tarallo, Elaine Flores, Ghia Burns, Jason Kesser, Krystal Valdes, Natalie Perlin, Oscar Cheda, Paul Louis, Rio Chavarro

Since This Episode...

I went over this in a separate video, but I found out in 2022 thanks to Muriel Hofmann that Candice Moore was the voice of Anpanman in the Hong Kong dub. Moore confirmed this.

I've since spoken to the director of the Hong Kong dub, Jack Murphy. He talked a bit about that dub. He mentioned things like how they made up stuff for the episode end segments, and he certainly hopes nobody tried making whatever recipes his team made up!

Netflix recently released some new dubs of Anpanman movies using a new cast. Literally an A.I.C.O. situation. Maybe one day I will revisit Anpanman to go over this LA dub and the new info from Jack Murphy...

As for the question I posed at the end of the video... DID these movies have an impact on Anpanman's notoriety in the West?

...No.

People in America still don't know much about Anpanman. These movies kinda came and went. Even the new dubs on Netflix don't seem to have people talking, but then again, these movies (and Anpanman as a series itself) are targeted at young children, not teenagers and grown-ups who would much rather watch the parody series One Punch Man... Okay, maybe not Season 3 of OPM, but you know what I mean.

The children's entertainment market over here is not an ecosystem in which Anpanman can thrive. He has a long-lasting legacy in Japan which keeps him relevant. Kids know him. Parents know him. Grandparents know him. Over here? It's hard to advertise something like this. One Punch Man isn't a good angle since that series isn't for children. BTS isn't a good angle since that's not exactly something most kids are into. The movies aren't exactly the pinnacle of Japanese animation by any metric, and there is so much competition in the kids' entertainment market that's much more stimulating to kids' minds. Parents seem to always want something meaningful and safe for children to watch that doesn't involve annoying singalong songs, and I think Anpanman fits the bill nicely. Perhaps that's the angle TMS should go after: "Parents, get your kids to watch THIS instead of slop like Cocomelon!"

Extras

Background

Memes

Next time is Fullmetal Alchemist... as badly as I wanted to cover this topic, I have mixed feelings on how things went. More than anything, I bit off more than I could chew at the time. I think I should have waited until I had more experience and a bigger audience to cover such a daunting topic. I'll have more to say in that post. Stay tuned.