Bakabon

**Bakabon** (バカボン), created by Fujio Akatsuka, is the initial protagonist of the series The Genius Bakabon. He also tends to appear as a part of Akatsuka's Star System, and is used as the lead in Katta Yoshi's 2014-2016 spinoff **Boy Bakabon**.

Though initially the lead in the original series, he was soon demoted to being the sidekick of his Papa and there would be various instances in which he would not appear in a chapter at all (similar to the case of Osomatsu in Osomatsu-kun, when Iyami took over in the 2nd run).

## Overview

As the original protagonist, Bakabon takes some of his personality and design inspiration from Bokeo; a much earlier "fool"-type character created by Akatsuka.

He is common across works as a dumb but still innocent and unassuming sort of boy who will be either going about his own way or winding up put in the middle of chaos.

## Physical Appearance

Bakabon is a young boy seemingly of average height, though usually looking rather tall in relation to his Papa. He is mainly drawn somewhat chubby throughout most early publications, and has a face that can be comparable to that of a hippo with its roundness. However, through the 1980s and 1990s, Akatsuka gradually slimmed down Bakabon's design through his style evolution, though his other familiar features remained. He is also generally much thinner in modern Fujio Pro art by Katta Yoshi, though may occasionally regain his better-known width.

Bakabon has a rather old-fashioned manner of clothing, opting to wear a kimono with his running shoes. In the early period of the manga and illustrations, he wore a pair of blue pants beneath the kimono but they soon disappeared (A similar evolution also had occurred with his predecessor Bokeo). This kimono often appears as green in color illustrations, and bears black swirls, or other color patterns such as a pale blue, lavender, pink, or orange can be seen; such palettes may have been decided at Akatsuka's whim, or an assistant may have been involved in making the choices. When it comes to animated adaptations, it is generally depicted as a deep blue with white swirls, though *The Genius Bakavon* film and the *Late Night!* series have Bakabon wearing a pink kimono with a blue swirled pattern.

Though depicted with black hair like his father in the manga, he was given brown hair in the five animated TV adaptations, only returning to having dark hair for the Bakavon film.

### Boy Bakabon

Katta Yoshi redesigned Bakabon somewhat in this series, gearing him to a more modern child audience that the magazine attracted. His eyes became larger and shinier, while he retained his later slim body type and had somewhat more ruffled hair.

He generally now wears an outfit identical to Papa, down to the hachimaki and haramaki being present.

## Personality

Being an incredibly stupid but also incredibly kind youth, Bakabon winds up having to play a bit of a foolish "straight man" to his father's mischief at times but can often be easily swayed into going along with the schemes out of his own glee and curiosity. Even so, there are instances where even he may realize that Papa's acts sound way too awful.

Though he may often work along with Papa to commit acts that may be quite terrible in their results on others, he himself has no wicked intent and may be confused by the result or also find it successful. In being as dumb as he is, Bakabon is very poor at studying subjects, but has a fairly decent amount of strength and in the first anime, can be seen to retaliate and punish those who bully his younger brother.

Bakabon generally likes to wander about aimlessly as one of his favorite hobbies, and see if there is anything interesting about. As part of his dim behavior, he is considered to be "off in tempo" with his actions compared to the other children around him in the neighborhood and this can lead to them manipulating him to do even more foolish things at his expense; telling him to raise up his leg and say "Hello" (instead of waving his hand), only for him to fall over, or to stare at their pants and wind up suffering others farting in his face. His density can also be seen in him attempting to go fishing in a puddle, or mindlessly giving money out to beggars.

Because of his innocent nature, Bakabon won't doubt a stranger's claims and he won't even doubt the existence of something like Santa Claus, still fiercely believing in him even when others in his grade won't. His innocence and ignorance extends to him being shocked and horrified when he learns that he was born via his parents having sexual intercourse, and that it is something adults naturally do. This can lead to surprise that in stories like "The Genius Bakabon after 20 Years", we can see that Bakabon himself had to have married and had a son relatively early and that he could exist as a full-fledged member of adult society.

## Appearances in other works

*See also: Akatsuka's Star System*

* *The Genius Bakabon's Old Man*
* *Extraordinary Ataro*
* *Osomatsu-kun*
* *Let's La Gon*
* *The Flower of Dekoppachi*
* *Nyarome's World Expo Surprise Surprise Surprise Guide*
* *Oh! Great Jailbreak*
* *Gag + Gag*
* *Cat's Eye News*
* *Wanpei and Mo-chan*
* *Waru Waru World*
* *The Great Stupid Detective Kogoro Hakuchi*
* *Occhan*
* *King of Gags*
* *BC Adam*
* *Kensaku the Architect*
* *Itaike-kun (1978 version)*
* *Wonderful Fool*
* *Nyarome's Fun Mathematics Classroom*
* *Nyarome's Fun Cosmology Classroom*
* *Nyarome's Fun Biology Classroom*
* *Nyarome's Fun Computer Exploration*
* *Nyarome's Fun Exploration of the Body's Mysteries*
* *Nyarome's Fun Sexual Education Classroom*
* *Nyarome's Big Blood Type Studies*
* *Fujio's Waru Waru World*
* *What Will Fujio Akatsuka Do!?*
* *Japan Laughter Story*
* *Sheeh! Comeback*
* *Akko-chan's Got a Secret!* (Nakayoshi remake)
* *Greatest in Japan, Putaro's Family*
* *MR. Masashi*
* *Gag Shop*
* *The Cat House Owner*
* *Hennako-chan* (Weekly Josei version)
* *Collapse of the Sheeh! Religion*

## Appearances in Animation

### Furious Ataro (1969)

Bakabon's first animated appearance came at the start of episode 48, where is depicted as an Edo-era citizen along with his Papa. They are both left as silent cameos, however.

### The Genius Bakabon (1971)

Due to the influence of the sponsors and Japanese PTA, this adaptation wound up putting a little more focus towards Bakabon and his own antics at school. He was given a love interest named Sakura (who had existed only in one manga chapter and was a transplant from *Kikanpo Gen-chan*), as well as a rival known as Nakamura, and his teacher existed to be exasperated by his foolishness.

As with the period of the manga that had been running at the time, Bakabon is a dumb child yet still bears more common sense than his father.

### We are Manga-ka: The Tokiwa-so Story

Bakabon and Hajime are seen playing fireworks at night, only to both cry out when the sparks turn out to be too great. He is then seen towards the end of the special, in being part of a crowd of Akatsuka Stars all running about after a stick of oden.

As Keiko Yamamoto was part of the voice cast for the special, she was able to reprise Bakabon for a brief line.

### Late Night! Genius Bakabon

In a difference from his usual portrayals, Bakabon is drawn to be shorter than Papa. He still exists as a foolish young boy (though once joked in a meta-comment to be "actually 22") who goes to school and can get lead around by others.

In another departure from classic *Bakabon* series formula, Bakabon is shown to be much younger than 10 in flashbacks of Hajime's birth, as to have Hajime be "kindergarten age" in the present day while his brother is still in late elementary school.

## Portrayals

### Voice Acting

* The Genius Bakabon (1971), The Original Genius Bakabon, We are Manga-ka: The Tokiwa-so Story, Hitachi Television City: Nyarome's Fun Mathematics Classroom- Keiko Yamamoto
* Heisei Genius Bakabon, CR Genius Bakabon pachinko game, commercials- Megumi Hayashibara
* Rerere's Genius Bakabon- Yoshiko Kamei
* That's How Things Should Be!! Fujio Akatsuka★The Movie- Takeshi Yamamoto
* The Genius Bakavon: ~Reviving the Dog of Flanders~- Inuko Inuyama
* Late Night! Genius Bakabon- Miyu Irino

### Live Action

Maki Inao (under her stage name of "Ocarina") played the part of Bakabon in the Nippon Television live-action specials from 2016 to 2018.

## External Links

* Bakabon profile at Koredeiinoda (Japanese)