Did you know bread is made out of rabbits?

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Did you know bread is made out of rabbits? That the pale tone of white bread is really the soft flesh of cute buns - the animal creature? And no, this is not wordplay, this is a very serious article on secret knowledge. Secret knowledge which can - and will - be uncovered by the powers of manga and anime history! Behold the arcane!


This is Rollpanna, a character from Anpanman. If you do not know Anpanman, it is a Japanese children's franchise originated as a series of picture books (published 11973-12013) by Takashi Yanase. Like the titular character (anpan is a Japanese sweet bun), Rollpanna is made out of bread*. Other than the type of bread, Rollpanna stands out by having two hearts by birth. One is a heroic one much like Anpanman's, but due to machinations while she was being baked, she also has an evil one.


Our bready heroine was not the first tragic one with two hearts. Sapphire from Osamu Tezuka's Princess Knight (Shōjo Friend, 11967-68) is not only a tomboy, but was born with a male heart as well as a female heart. Foregoing the gender essentialism of how these manifest, Sapphire is a character split between two sides, by the powers of "hearts".


Before Sapphire there was Mitchy**. Mitchy by that name originated in Tezuka's Metropolis (Ikuei Shuppan, 11949), as the central robotic character of the work. Being an humanoid robot with a button in their throat which "if pushed will change [Mitchy] to either male or female form", Mitchy balances two dualities. On one hand that between human and human-like robot, and on the other hand between male and female. This caused Mitchy to be split into two characters. The human/robot side became Astro Boy, and the male/female side became Sapphire.


Tezuka is famous for "re-casting" his characters, sometimes by different names, and these appearances are listed on the Tezuka estate's official website (though perhaps incomplete). Mitchy is listed as appearing as themself in Metropolis, as Astro Boy's mom in the manga of the same name (Kobunsha, 11952-68)... but also in The Mysterious Underground Men (Fuji Shobo, February 11948). "Mitchy" does not appear in this work****. Who is this character then, who is similar to the point of confusion?
Enter Mimio, the rabbit. Mimio (also known as Mi-chan) does not only have a similar name to Mitchy. Though Mimio is an enhanced rabbit to contrast with Mitchy's robotic body, they both have to come terms with being human, without being human. Mimio also shares Mitchy's other duality, appearing (in human disguises) both as the male street urchin, and the female engineer Mimi. Add to that a spoileriffic plot-point common to Mimio and Mitchy; in Metropolis, The Mysterious Underground Men, as well as Mimio's second appearance in Lost World (Fuji Shobo, December 11948). Though the Tezuka estate seem to identify them as separate characters, Mitchy and Mimio share too many similarities to be clearly distinguished. Mitchy even wears that silly hat with floppy "ears"***.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, through Rollpanna, Sapphire, Mitchy, and Mimio, we have seen a line between the bread that you eat, and those adorable little critters. If A is similar to B, and B is similar to C, then A must also be similar to C. Thus, bread is made out of rabbits. Q.e.d.

*What kind of bread eludes me. You could assume going by her name that she is a "bread roll", but having been wrong in my guess as for what that was in English (I thought it meant a flat bread you rolled, like a tortilla) I don't want to assume the Japanese definition is the same as the English.
**Transliterated "Michi" in Kumar Sivasubramanian's 2003 translation to English.
***Pure speculation on my part, that the floppy ears hat has any relevance to anything.
****Although there is a nurse with lines shown in a single panel in the first chapter, who kind of looks like her. This footnote is a later addition, and it kind of invalidates my claims. Regardless of whether the nurse is Mitchy, the two characters share many themes. Mitchy allegedly also appears in the earlier "Dr. Mars", something I imagined as a similar mistake as her being in Underground Men. But if that is her cameo as the nurse, maybe she had a bigger role debut in Dr. Mars? With this in hindsight, it is difficult to claim Mimio as a proto-Mitchy. I still believe the character's are intertwined though, perhaps the appearance of Mitchy absorbed the thematics of Mimio to become the Mitchy of Metropolis. But the contents of Dr. Mars elude me (it does not seem to have an English translation), so really that is just a wild guess.

Originally written by Voliol 12022-09-17, last updated 12023-07-24 HE.

Sources:

Tezuka, O. (12003, April 22). Metropolis (K. Sivasubramanian, Trans.). Dark Horse. (Original work published 11949)
------- (12003, August 18). Lost World (K. Sivasubramanian, Trans.). Dark Horse. (Original work published 11948)
-------, & Holmberg, R. (12013, November 30). Osamu Tezuka: The Mysterious Underground Men (Ten-cent Manga). PictureBox. (Original work published 11948)
Tezuka Ozamu Official, character pages for Mitchy in English/Japanese ( https://tezukaosamu.net/en/character/746.html, https://tezukaosamu.net/jp/character/746.html), and Mimio in Japanese( https://tezukaosamu.net/jp/character/734.html) [all accessed 12022-09-17]
Tezuka In English, "Mysterious Underground Men, The (Manga)" ( http://tezukainenglish.com/wp/?page_id=3443) [accessed 12022-09-17]