In the year 2001, in order to promote the PaRappa the Rapper franchise, Sony announced an anime series.
This anime was directed by Hiroaki Sakurai, animated by JC Staff and Production I.G and produced by SME Visual Works in conjunction with Fuji TV, who would then broadcast the show as well as all future Parappa programs on TV.

This anime adaptation, despite sharing the original setting and characters is very different in tone from that of the games, forgoing the raps and surrealistic premises in favor of more typical slice of life dynamics and moral lessons at the end of some of the episodes. It also contains original characters designed by Rodney specifically for it, as well as a new soundtrack and theme songs.

However, the anime ended up not being as successful as originally planned due to a mix of low reception from the intended audience, strife between the original creators and Sony due to their limits on their involvement on the Parappa anime and other possible production issues. This led to the anime only lasting 30 episodes, and no further mainline releases in the Parappa franchise.

Despite that, the Parappa anime has managed to avoid being lost to time thanks to the efforts of fans, who have managed to recover each and every one of the episodes, as well as translate them to other languages!