Day of Anpanman

The Day of Anpanman (アンパンマンの日, also known as the DoA) was a special event that occured on the 19th of May in 2013 and 2014. During this event, ABS Television affiliates, Nippon TV and NHK World devoted their entire schedule to the ''Let's Go! Anpanman'' anime series, and related content.

History
Kenji Yukimura (founder of Kabushiki Gaisha ABS) first proposed the concept of a day dedicated to the Anpanman series in June 2012.

Takashi Yanase (creator of the Anpanman franchise) and Shichirou Minami (founder of Shikoku Television Broadcasting) then expressed interest for the idea, and then created a poll asking the public for approval. Over 2,000,000 people then showed their interest, and an estimated 1,600,000 Anpanman fans supported the concept. After 5 months of campaigning, Kabushiki Gaisha ABS officially announced in November 2012 that the inaugural Day of Anpanman would take place on the 19th of May 2013, coinciding with the 25th anniversaries of ''Soreike! Anpanman'' and Chubu-ABS Television, as well as coinciding with Nippon TV's 60th year of operation. Advertising posters were placed all over ABS Broadcasting Center, and the quarters of other ABS affiliates. The posters had an image of Anpanman (or one of his sidekicks) with the caption "SOREIKE" written across the bottom (as in Soreike! Anpanman), in a spoof of the Barack Obama "HOPE" campaign. The posters are still being used as advertisements for other Anpanman-themed events on the ABS Television network.

In January 2013, it was announced that Day of Anpanman programming would be shown on Nippon TV. The Euro-Japanese pay channel JSTV (operated by NHK Cosmomedia) announced that it would follow suit in February.

NHK Cosmomedia Europe announced that Day of Anpanman content would not be shown on JSTV in 2014, and would instead be shown on NHK World TV, a free-to-air satellite service owned by the NHK.

Some regularly-scheduled ABS programming is moved to Asahi Kokusai Terebi (which, in regular circumstances, is an international simulcast of TV Asahi) on the day. The practice started in 2014, after viewers complained of mass cancellations of their favourite programmes due to the events of the 2013 Day of Anpanman.

The 2015 event and all further DoA events, as well as the main Anpanman series and ''Let's Go! Anpanman Club!'', were cancelled after many postponements, accidents and delays.

Preparation phase
The "preparation phase" sees ABS affiliates airing their most popular programmes 3 days before the DoA. This is done to free up space on their schedule for the DoA. This phase lasts from 5:30am on the 16th of May to 7:45am on the 19th of May.

On May 18, 2014, the entire ABS network was knocked off the air for over an hour after a transmitter failure during this phase.

Opening phase
This phase lasts from 7:45am to 8:02am on the Day.
 * At 7:45am, ABS shows its "Special Presentation" ident, and the ABS News team explains the premise of the Day of Anpanman from a temporary studio outside the Yokohama Anpanman Children's Museum and Mall. For the 2013 event, Takashi Yanase was invited into the studio for a short interview (the practise was dropped in 2014, as Yanase died after suffering cardiac arrest that year).
 * At 7:50am, ABS airs a short 2-minute news update from their temporary studio.
 * At 7:52am, the team enters the Mall area of the Yokohama Anpanman Museum. Here, they talk to fans of the show (referred to collectively as Anpanfans) before the start of the day.
 * At 7:57am, the team returns to their studio.
 * At 7:59am, a final countdown to the official starting point of the Day of Anpanman begins.
 * At 8:00am, the Day of Anpanman officially starts, the Anpanman characters gather on the central stage, and they dance to one of the show's ending songs. For 2013 and 2014, they danced to San San Taisou, but it was announced that Do-re-mi-fa...Anpanman! would be used as the Day's opening theme in 2015. This never happened owing to the event's cancellation.

Programming phase
At 8:02am, the ''Let's Go! Anpanman Club!'' programming block starts as normal, albeit 17 minutes later than scheduled.

From the hours of 9:00am-11:15am, 11:30am-6:00pm and 6:20-2:15am, content aired on ABS stations is comprised of: ABS N11:15 and ABS N6 air within their regular timeslots.
 * Episodes of Let's Go! Anpanman
 * Screenings of the Anpanman feature films
 * Stage shows from the Yokohama Anpanman Children's Museum and Mall
 * Interviews between Anpanman characters and the ABS News team
 * The ABS News team's participation in Anpanman-themed activities at the Yokohama Anpanman Museum
 * Music videos from the Anpanman series, and
 * 2-minute regional news updates (which air once every 5 hours).

Ending phase
The Day of Anpanman ends at the following times:
 * 12:10am for viewers of Kyushu-Ryukyu Broadcasting (signs off)
 * 1:55am for viewers of ABS Television Hiroshima (hands over to ABS N24)
 * 2:15am for viewers of the following stations:
 * The Aso Broadcasting System and ABS Sat.1 (hands over to ABS N24)
 * The Sapporo Broadcasting System (hands over to ABS N24)
 * The Hyogo Broadcasting System (signs off)
 * Tohoku-ABS Broadcasting (signs off)
 * Shikoku Television Broadcasting (hands over to ABS N24)
 * Chubu-ABS Television (signs off)
 * Nippon TV (hands over to Nittele News 24)
 * BS Nittele (signs off), and
 * NHK World (resumes normal operations with NewsLine).

SBS Dokin-chan assault
At around 4:15pm on the 2013 Day of Anpanman, SBS (the Sapporo Broadcasting System) invited the Anpanman character Dokin-chan to SBS Television Center for an interview. The interview went as planned, however immediately afterwards Dokin-chan was seen in a corridor, immediately outside their studio, being attacked by an SBS staff member. The presenter of the interview immediately addressed viewers, stating;

"It looks like Dokin-chan is being attacked here in the SBS Television Center. In addition, our main presenters in Yokohama are currently off-duty. We'll hand you to our co-presenters in Sendai [TAB], who'll introduce you to more shenanigans from Anpanman until ABS gets back to work in Yokohama, OK?"

The staff member responsible for the attack was named as Jeong Hwan Chung. Hwan Chung was unable to recall the event. After extensive interrogations and briefings, and 2 days of treatment for "psychological abnormalities", the attacker was eventually fired, and was also fined roughly 500,000 yen for 3rd degree assault. The person in the Dokin-chan costume was identified as Yoshirou Hamasaki, who was scheduled to appear in Dokin-chan's guise later at TAB (an ABS affiliate in Sendai). Dokin-chan never appeared at TAB after she was assaulted at SBS.

Shokupanman stage show mishap
During a stage performance on the DoA, the Anpanman sidekick character Shokupanman was seen stumbling across the stage, struggling to keep balance, whilst the others performed a dance. Shokupanman then attempted to leave the stage, before tripping and nearly falling down a small flight of stairs. Staff believed that the actor had suffered a heat stroke, leading to 119 calls requesting an ambulance. He was kept within an ABS equipment van in the Yokohama Anpanman Museum's car park before he was transported to a nearby hospital by emergency services.

Repeat of the Shokupanman incident?
On the 12th of February, 2015, Shokupanman was once again seen having a heat stroke. This incident occured in the ABS Broadcasting Center. With conditions being much cooler, the other Anpanman character performers, attending fans, and ABS staff were baffled as to how this incident occurred. As another performer in Shokupanman's suit (who had no relation to the 2014 incident) was put to blame, costume redesigns were mandated by order of ABS staff.

Postponement
The 2015 Day of Anpanman was postponed for 1 week due to a large wave of rebelling ABS staff members attacking the host, and live-action character performers, of the Let's Go! Anpanman Club! when it was on the air. The incident, on the 15th of May, lead to set damage. As the show is (on the day) intended to start the Day of Anpanman after the "Opening Phase", Froebel-Kan, Nippon TV, and numerous ABS affiliates requested that the set be repaired before the DoA. Due to logistical issues, the previous Shokupanman incident at the ABS Broadcasting Center, a last-minute announcement that the set would be completely revamped and rebuilt, and ABS mainly concentrating its efforts on the production of the new PaRappa The Rapper series, the DoA had to be postponed until the 29th of May, 2015. ABS originally hoped that the DoA would go ahead without any further disruption, but it was soon held back even further, when the schedule date was delayed to the 10th of June, 2015. The "final" date was scheduled as the 20th of June, 2015, with ABS stating that the event will be cancelled if the event cannot be held on that day.

At 3:40am on the 17th of May, the Hyogo Broadcasting System announced that the 2015 DoA and all further DoA events, as well as all other Anpanman content that had aired on ABS, had indeed been cancelled. The news was confirmed by ABS at 4:25am. A nationwide statement regarding the cancellation was broadcast at 4:30am on the ABS Television Network.

ABS soon cited the following reasons for the cancellation: ABS has now scrapped the event entirely, and cut all links with the Anpanman franchise, ending ABS' relationship with the franchise and forcing all Anpanman content out of ABS' schedule for good after twenty-six years.
 * The DoA's "final" date would conflict with, and shut out, PaRappa The Rapper 's premiere date (which conflicted with the DoA's "final" date of 20/6/15),
 * That ABS "could not sustain such a brittle franchise-themed special event as the Day of Anpanman", and
 * ABS viewers turning away from the series, and tuning into rival channels for the duration of the day.