Why does Brad Pitt cameo in these manga?

Question

I noticed in some of the manga that I've been reading that Brad Pitt is appearing in them.

He appears in Yakitate Japan under the name Brad Kidd, showing up several times during the series (both anime & manga) , mostly related to the Pierrot.

And in Arakawa Under The Bridge, it's said that he could be their neighbour on Venus

I know it's not unheard of for hollywood movie stars to show up in shows, but he appears noticeably enough in Yakitate Japan and the second occurrence made me think there might be more to it.

Is there anything behind the choice of western actor? I mean, they could have chosen Tom Cruise or someone else.

Does he cameo in any other shows?

Answer 1

According here, cameo/cross-over/parody of a anime character from another anime or a real celebrity is done for several reasons..

Sometimes a character's entire shtick will be that he or she is a thinly disguised imitation of some celebrity somewhere. The more blatant examples will often have a parody of that celebrity's name. This can be done for various reasons, such as to serve as a homage and/or parody, to make a point using the character, or simply because the writers think that it would be cool. Though some consider it done because the writers are out of ideas.

The reasons mentioned above can be the reason why Brad Pitt appeared as a cameo in both Yakitate Japan! and Arakawa Under the Bridge. Actually, Brad Pitt isn't the only celebrity/character parodied in Yakitate, as stated in the link given above.

• Michael Schumacher doing an Initial D before going to Formula One.
• Azuma mistaking Lake Iglesia with Julio Iglesias.
• Kaiser's fans behaving like the Detroit Tigers fans?
• One of Kuroyanagi's overblown pun-based reactions to tasting a turtle-shaped dessert has him turning into Gamera, the giant, flying, fire-breathing turtle kaiju.
• Episode 68 appears to be a Lord of the Rings parody... with cooking.
• One of the earlier episodes has the manager Matsushiro pulling a Kenshiro (Fist of the North Star) on Kawachi. Matsushiro Ken -> Kenshiro? It makes sense! 'Omae mo hatsuga suru' note
• The Black Tri-Stars from Mobile Suit Gundam show up as three expert bakers from St. Pierre's Kyūshū branch. They tasted Kazuma's Black Ja-pan and had a reaction where they fought the Nobel Gundam from G Gundam which was piloted by Yukino (and had a caption reminding people they were still watching Yakitate!! Japan. ) They quit after the reaction.
• In one episode, Pierrot eats "Alexandria" Egyptian Bread, with Kodaimai Miso flavoring and turns into Detective Conan.
• In another episode, Kuroyanagi turns into Super Kuroyanagi (a parody of Super Sayain) by eating Takumi Tsubodzuka's Super Toro Aburi. He fights Kawachi in a DBZ-style fight. He turns into Super Kuroyanagi 2 (a parody of Super Sayain 2) and Super Kuroyanagi 3 (a parody of Super Sayain 3) as a result of eating Urchin-roe Chawanmushi bread.
• In another episode, Kuroynagi turns into a parody of Monkey D. Luffy by eating Kazuma Azuma's Ōkuchi Wafuu (Japanese-style) Ja-pan Man.
• Kawachi Kyousuke tries some kelp marinated in soda and turns into Pepmiman, a parody of Pepsiman. He rescues a girl from drowning at sea. He also beats two sharks that tried to eat the girl.
• And there was yet another sequence involving Kawachi as a blond ninja in bright orange clothes.
• Then there's this, done in the style of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which gets several other shout-outs, to the point where it is hard to believe the manga-ka isn't a fan.
• When Meister Kirisaki decides to train Kawaichi, he talks about making him an iron man, complete with images of Kawaichi dressed as Gigantor

I'm not that familiar however with regards to Arakawa so I can't give examples. But the bottomline is, the reasons stated above might be the reason for having Brad Pitt cameo in Yakitate Japan and Arakawa Under the Bridge.