Anpanman’s Cheese Dog, Cast in Metal by Banpresto in 1992

Banpresto 1992 Anpanman Cheese Metal Token

What This Token Is and the Character It Shows

This small circular token — roughly an inch across, cast in a brass-toned metal — comes from the early years of one of Japan’s most enduring children’s franchises. The face shows Cheese, a white dog from the animated series Sore Ike! Anpanman, rendered in shallow relief with the thick outlines and rounded proportions characteristic of the show’s art style. Three handprint-and-star symbols appear on each side of the portrait, and the code A-014 is stamped at the top — a series identifier suggesting this token was one of several designs within a single release. The reverse carries the Banpresto name and the year 1992. Whether it circulated as an arcade claw-machine prize or as a standalone collectible is not definitively documented, but the format aligns with the prize merchandise Banpresto was producing for the arcade market at the time.

Worth noting: where English speakers write “Cheese,” the token reads TIZU — a romanization that follows Japanese phonetics rather than standard Hepburn transliteration. It is an authentic period detail, not a misprint.

Cheese, Batako-san’s Dog, and the Anpanman Universe

Anpanman began as a picture-book series by Takashi Yanase in 1973, then expanded into the television anime Sore Ike! Anpanman, which first aired on Fuji TV on October 3, 1988. Now more than thirty years on air, the series holds a Guinness World Record for the largest number of characters in an animated franchise. The title character — a superhero whose head is a steamed bun filled with red-bean paste — leads a cast of food-themed heroes against the villain Baikinman. Within Japan, the franchise is a fixture of early childhood; its merchandise spans toys, food packaging, stationery, and apparel.

Cheese sits just below the main leads in the ensemble. He is the pet dog of Batako-san, one of Anpanman’s close companions, and a recurring presence throughout the series. His name comes from his fondness for cheese. On this token, the engraving captures his signature look — compact, four-legged, with the bold outlines and wide eyes of the show’s visual style — in miniature relief. Compared to the volume of merchandise centered on Anpanman himself or Baikinman, standalone goods featuring supporting characters like Cheese are less frequently encountered.

Banpresto, the 1990s Arcade Prize Boom, and This Token’s Place in It

Banpresto, founded in 1977, became the dominant supplier of prize merchandise for Japan’s arcade claw-machine market. The UFO Catcher’s spread from the mid-1980s onward drove rapid expansion in that sector, and Banpresto produced plush figures, plastic figurines, and metal medals to stock those machines. By 1992, the company was licensing characters across a broad range of popular franchises, Anpanman among them.

Metal tokens and medals occupied a niche within that broader prize ecosystem — less common than soft vinyl or plush, and therefore less frequently encountered in the collector market today. The A-014 code hints at a wider series of Anpanman character tokens, though the full lineup and total number of designs in the set has not been confirmed. Banpresto was absorbed into the Bandai Namco group in 2009, ending its run as an independent brand; its prize merchandise business continues today under Bandai Spirits.

For collectors interested in the 1990s Japanese arcade prize era, this kind of metal token sits apart from the more familiar gashapon or food-toy categories — a format tied to a historically significant manufacturer, one of Japan’s best-known children’s properties, and a moment when that property was still in its first decade on television.