Japanese Dopers! What is "Koge Pan"?

Cafe Society
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So I have this Japanese friend I met in high school when she stayed with us for three weeks as an exhange student. Ever since, we’ve been really good friends, keeping in touch via e-mail, snail mail, phone, and the (very) occasional visit. We’re both mildly pop-culture obsessed, so we send each other little ‘care packages’ of pop cult stuff we find in our respective countries. So a few days ago I got a package with these two really cute little keychains in them, and they said “Koge Pan” on them in English along with a lot of Japanese characters. One is a little Gingerbread Man-type guy (the mysterious “Koge Pan”) who appears to be holding a small lemon with eyes, and the other is a little pink guy with a giant bumpy head. (This is “Ichi Pan”- ‘strawberry bread’, right?)

So what the hell is this? I googled and got a bunch of sites, in Japanese, so I’m still confused. Are these just bread characters, or is there more to the story? I’d like to know more, 'cause these things are ultra-cute. Thanks for any help you can give me.

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Oh, oh! Is it a little brown bread guy who’s sometimes on a baking tray? I was told that it meant Burnt Bread - but I’m not absolutely positive. I’m sure someone will come along and correct me. :slight_smile:

If it’s Morning Glory stuff, I also love Afro Ken, the hamster people and the little cheese. :slight_smile:

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He’s like Burnt toast man or something similar. He is sad because he is burnt and no one will buy him. One of my co-workers has a doll of him on her workstation. The only person in my lab who knows Japanese is me, and i just started, so am not nearly fluent enough to translate his tag.

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Here’s a little more info about Kogepan

http://www.dreamkitty.com/kogepan.html