Minor nitpick: bread in portuguese = pão, bread in spanish = pan

While you're correct, it is historically a loanword from Portuguese, not from Spanish. You can verify this in your favorite 国語辞典 if you want to. Like many loanwords, the pronunciation got corrupted a bit. (An example in the other direction: Godzilla, which you'd have to take several stabs at before a Japanese person guessed you meant gojira.)

sorry, I don't have japanese installed. What's the romaji for the word you used after "favorite"?

kokugo jiten -- a Japanese language dictionary

Ão is a notoriously difficult diphthong to pronounce for many native speakers of other languages. Wikipedia says that it was even used as a shibboleth in the Paraguayan War, but it doesn't cite sources.

And Japan in portuguese = Japão.

japonês?

which sounds just enough like "pahng" that a non-portuguese, learning about bread might turn it into "pang" or "bbang" or "bao" depending.

The "Ja-pan #2" is likely in reference to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitate!!_Japan

From the "List of Ja-pan": "Ja-pan #2: Suihan ja-pan (a Suihan is any automatic rice-cooker)recipe in chapter 13"

Yakitake!! is deservedly one of my favourite all time Japanese shows. None of my friends understand why I like it, but then again, none of my friends have watched it.

As soon as I saw these images, I knew exactly where they were from (it's an audience participation segment of the show).

[edit] The protagonist of the show is upset that while many other countries have their own bread (eg French Bread) Japan does not. He sets out to find the perfect Japanese Bread, and in the process creates a series of different breads labelled Ja-pan #1, Ja-pan #2 etc. It's a great show. He has extremely warm hands, which help when kneading the dough.

In the anime, they actually explained how to cook bread in a rice cooker at the end of one episode.

I think I just died a little inside.

I get it. I'm dabbling in japanese currently and love puns like these.