Voiced by: Dred Foxx (Games), Irino Miyu (Anime), Oosuka Jun (PJ Berri's Munching Mumbling)
PaRappa is a small dog resembling a terrier or beagle.
He has cream or light yellow colored fur and black ears, which are
usually colored with the same color as the outline of his body.
His signature headpiece is an orange beanie, which is noted to have
an eliptic patch of a frog in a yellow background.
PaRappa has a variety of outfits, but his main one is a sleeveless
shirt with blue baggy pants.
He almost always wears the same red sneakers with white waves shaped like the letter "M" on the sides, the only exceptions being formal ocassions and other situations where it wouldn't make sense for him to wear them.
He also has a pair of plaid pajamas with a matching hat, and he has been seen wearing other outfits in the 2001 anime, such as tuxedos and a karate uniform.
In PJ Berri no Mogumogu Munyamunya, he replaces his usual shirt for a long-sleeved one with white and navy horizontal sprites alongside a grey apron - switching over to a yellow one featuring the Chop Chop Fruits Cafe logo on the left front pocket.
Parappa is for the most part an outgoing and cheerful guy.
He's easily moved by the things that happen to him, but just as quick to pick up his own slack when there are problems to be solved, best said through his own catchphrase of "I gotta believe!" (ボクならできるさ！ in Japanese). This is because he knows himself and thus believes he can do anything as long as he can push himself through it.
However, even PaRappa can falter sometimes, and when he does end up feeling down, he becomes doubtful and nervous, requiring the support of his friends and family to put himself back up.
Another aspect of PaRappa is his ability to bring people together,
as he's seen to be able to befriend others very quickly and help
people with all sorts of problems.
However, that doesn't mean he lets himself be walked over, as he
knows to distinguish what's right from wrong very well.
Although PaRappa has a tendency to daydream, especially when it concerns Sunny Funny, he doesn't let it overtake his life... for the most part. Whenever he does get lost in fantasy, mishaps are soon to follow.
PaRappa is the main protagonist in the games titled after him.
In this first game, he's introduced as a happy-go-lucky dog guy who spends his time hanging around with his friends PJ Berri, Katy Kat and Sunny Funny, whom he also has a crush on.
The story starts when him and his friends, after watching Jet
Baby at the movies go to Chunky Burger. Stunned by Sunny, PaRappa
only manages to order a glass of water.
Soon after, however, they are harrassed by a group of bullies - but
Sunny tells them to stop it, which causes Joe Chin to suddenly
burst into the scene.
After defeating the bullies, Joe Chin proceeds to start rambling,
which causes everyone but PaRappa to leave. Instead, PaRappa starts
thinking of how to become a "hero", which leads him to find out
about Chop Chop Master Onion and his Fruits Dojo, kickstarting his
character arc.
Throughout the game, Parappa ends up learning all sorts of new skills and dealing with Joe Chin's involvement with Sunny Funny, which culminates on the day of her birthday as he manamges to finally spend some time with her... only to start desperately wanting to go to the bathroom.
This brings him into a panic as he starts driving to the gas
station in order to refuel both the car and himself - only to find
out that all of his previous teachers were also in line to use the
bathroom.
They allow Parappa to be first in line - but only if he raps against
them, which he accepts and succeeds.
Some time after that, PaRappa receieves an invitation by a man named Rodney to perform at Club Fun and to bring one other person with him, which he accepts. In there he meets MC King Kong Mushi and performs with his teachers by his side.
In Um Jammer Lammy, PaRappa cedes the main character status to
Lammy.
However, you can play the same stages (with the exception of Stage 1
on the original console version) as PaRaqppa after finishing the
main story mode.
In PaRappa's story mode, we follow what PaRappa and his friends did in the week leading to MilkCan's first concert.
On Monday, PaRappa and friends find out about Katy founding
MilkCan and tell her if they can help her out.
Katy agrees, and gives Parappa and Sunny things to do, with
Parappa agreeing despite his initial reaction to Katy's demands
of carrying the equipment, buying snacks and giving them foot
massages on top of foot massages.
On Tuesday, they start making up ideas for what the concert venue
will be like.
Parappa likes the outfit Sunny made, but PJ's idea of making the
concert venue resemble a piece of beef puts him on his nerves.
On Wednesday, the gang reunites at Chunky Burger, and after
Parappa asks, Katy finally explains who the other two members
of MilkCan are to them.
Parappa and PJ, however, have very scary ideas of who Lammy and
Ma-san are and thus back into a corner.
On Thursday, however; PaRappa and PJ decide to start their own band.
They visit the Maxi-Music store, finding out that Fleaswallow is the one currently attending it. They ask for an instruments that fits them, only to end up getting wooden agogogs, which they play as if they were string instruments.
And on Friday, they finally get a guitar.
Parappa and PJ decide to make some modifications to it - and end up
making a bigger wooden agogo out of the brand new guitar.
PaRappa is one of the main characters in the RodneyFun Comic Collection.
His first appearance is in PJ's last dream in PJ's Dreamland, where it turns out that the invading army on PJ's nightmare was an army of PaRappa. AFter PJ wakes up, he actually sees PaRappa and Sunny, causing him to leave.
In Sunny Funny's Polite Garden Party, he accepts Sunny's invitation to her party. However, Sunny's food turns out to be so bad he ends up giving it all (including the drinks) to the squirrels.
His actual story, however, is the self-titled PaRappa Gets a Job,
in where PaRappa struggles with employment after overhearing his
parents' concerns over his obsession with video games.
He works at Dot's Diner, the restaurant Katy works at first and
does well, but his curiosity and boredom start showing up as he eats
a cake that makes him sleep, leading him to quit after a single
day.
The next day, he decides to ask Sunny for any places he can work
at instead. Sunny then manages to get him to work for Buttonose.
He works in the shop at first, but after an incident involving
a moody child and honey jars, Buttonose decides to make PaRappa a
delivery boy instead, which goes quite chaotically as PaRappa
struggles with all sorts of things regarding the customers he has
to deliver to and the places he has to go to in order to do so.
This leaves PaRappa fatigued, causing him to quit this job as well.
After that, PaRappa calls PJ if he knows of any jobs.
PJ tells him that he saw a "Help Wanted" sign at Techtom's Game
Cave, which interests PaRappa.
Once he's there, Techtom tells him that his job will be recommending
new games, which he agrees to.
Parappa then prvoes a hit with the customers, and while Techtom
can't pay him as much as his previous employers did, he lets Parappa
take a copy of any game and console he doesn't own yet, allowing
him to play even more games than ever.
He also makes some cameo appearances in Katy's Shopping Explosion.
After ceding the torch of main character to Lammy for the
previous game, PaRappa 2 once again gives the spotlight to
eponymous characdter.
It turns out that some time before the events of this game,
PaRappa won a 100-year supply of noodle products from Beard Burgers
alongside his father from a promotion. Once he's at Beard Burgers, however, he finds out that they
are now only selling noodles due to a so-called "technical issue".
However, this doesn't mean all the shenanigans would end. The day after, even more things happen - enlisting and training
in the Army, then finding an important item related to the noodles
incident - the cartridge for the game Food Court, which he decides
to play for everyone after being warned of the consequences by his
dad... and succeeding, finding out that, in fact, the real answer
to noodles is sweets. Armed with this, the gang starts an all-out war with the Noodle
Syndicate and soon enough manage to storm through its headquarters.
In the end, PaRappa manages to stop having to eat noodles so
much, as well as the heart of Sunny Funny... only to end up getting
a hundred year supply of cheese instead. The answer to this cheesy
problem is never revealed. In the anime, PaRappa behaves in a way similar to that of the
game1s, but in a much more childish way.
PaRappa reappears as one of the main characters in PJ Berri's
Munching Mumbling.
At first, he loved this, but he eventually started getting tired of
only eating noodles - which came to a breaking point when he decided
to visit Sunny's house in order to eat something else... only for her
to make noodles as well.
This causes Parappa to get out of her house over it, with PJ
following him to Beard Burgers in search of something that is, well,
not nooodles.
However, PaRappa's complaints about this lead to the legendary
founder of Beard Burgers, the Beard Burger Master himself to
return as a ghost and teach PaRappa how to make burgers.
He manages to spend some time watching TV alongside PJ... only to
end up being shrunk by a malfunctioning Denoodlizer made by his
dad; causing him to meet Guru Ant.
After everyone realizes that the much feared Colonel Noodle was
just the heir to Beard Burgers, PaRappa decides to rap against him
about food, managing to convince him that there's more to life than
just nooodles.PaRappa The Rapper (2001 anime)
He's also slightly shyer, and doesn't seem to use his usual
catchphrase yet, using pishi! (ピシ!) while holding
thumbs up in a similar manner instead.PJ Berri's Munching Mumbling
While having ceded protagonist status to PJ, PaRappa still plays an
important role in this series due to being his best friend, and has
a few episodes centering more on him, as well as his now-established
relationship with Sunny Funny.
Trivia
According to Rodney Alan Greenblat's website Whimsyload, there are
two possible answers to PaRappa's age - that he's "probably 18"
in the games and younger in the anime due to being portrayed as
attending school, with Pinto possibly being in a lower grade;
and that he, as a fictional character doesn't need to have an
exact age.
The latter answer is more likely, however, given the dubious
canonicity of the 2001 anime and Rodney having previously
said "in the game PaRappa could drive a car so you figure he's 16 or 17"
and referred to PaRappa as
"kind of like a young teenager" on interviews released
years before the answer to the question about PaRappa's age was
added to Whimsyload, as well as official art made by him
celebrating the anniversary of PaRappa the Rapper (1996) referring
to it as PaRappa's birthday.