Anpanman Character Reviews - KAIJU WEEK!
RENKONMAN

Watch out, trypophobes! Today's giant monster from Anpan Land is quite possibly one of your worst nightmares, though perhaps he's not quite drawn with dense enough head-holes to be too disgusting?

Still, Renkonman is pretty damn weird. He's a gigantic lotus root monster, just the root, who spends most of his existence asleep at the bottom of an enormous lake. As far as we're aware, he appears in only a single episode and is yet another character Baikinman tricks into attacking Anpanman on sight, until the confusion is cleared up and the bread man adds yet another thirty-story monstrosity to the ranks of his allies.

Renkonman is the sworn protector of his lake, which is also home to a community of anthropomorphic catfish people. When called to their defense, he fends off intruders with his ability to spew mud from his porous head, but anything that plugs up those holes - such as rocks from an ungrateful Baikinman - will render him suddenly powerless and weak.

It's a lot of fun to see how different parts of this setting have their own designated, thematic guardians, as we also saw with Electric Jellyfish Man and Gomira's little girlfriend's pad. Renkonman is humanoid enough that he could have easily just been another human-sized hero like the bread folks, but they saw fit to make this mud-spewing lotus creature a giant, slumbering beast for no obvious reason, and I'm glad.

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