There's English bread, German bread, and French bread, but Japan's bread, Japan, does not exist.
In that case, there's no choice but to create it.
This story is a serious, biographical ballad of a boy who possesses Solar Hands, Azuma Kazuma, who will create a Japanese bread made by and for the Japanese people, which can be presented to the world proudly.
- [ Opening Text for the Anime ]
Yakitate! Japan is the best anime I have seen. From the opening text, you can tell that this is an adventure of epic proportions. It's an anime about the creation of a bread to represent the nation of Japan, a Ja-pan (Pan being the Japanese word for bread). The show is filled with puns like this... and most of the time they get carried away to the point of absurdity.
One of the selling points of the anime is in fact it's absurdity. Y!J takes a simple concept like bread, and wraps it in all the cliches normally found in other anime, including power-ups, vast explanations of techniques and contains most of the archetypes found in other anime... such as the naive protagonist, the loser sidekick who'll never surpass the main character, the mysterious/serious guy, the random girl, and afro-wearing mentor-figure. Okay, maybe not the afro-wearing mentor figure.
The show itself has equal parts storyline and randomness, appealing to the two extremes of the anime-viewing public.
The storyline follows Azuma Kazuma in his quest to make a bread worthy of representing the Japanese nation, and his trials and growth as a baker through the various competitions in the show. Besides the fantastic baking segments, there is a back-story for every character, and an internal struggle within Pantasia (the main bakery featured in the show) for control and inheritance of the company, along with the mysterious pasts of several characters in the show...
With regards to randomness, most of it comes into play when the judging of the bread commences. The bread is usually so fantastic that it causes the person eating the bread to experience a reaction. The reaction itself usually references some pun on the bread's name, or alludes to Japanese / Western culture in some way, and just describing it like this doesn't do it justice. You should get out there and just watch it yourself.
Yakitate! Japan has often been called Iron Chef + Initial D in the fantastical nature of the baking combined with the in-depth analysis of the ingredients and baking procedures... but would definately appeal to fans of more random anime because of it's light-hearted nature and randomness. The only negative I can list is probably the rather weak conclusion of the anime that felt rushed and didn't do justice to the awesomeness of the rest of the show... I mean come on, it ended on episode 69. What kind of a number is that to end on?
Recommended for fans of: Iron Chef, Anime that take something normal and add fantastic elements (i.e. Prince of Tennis), Any Anime at all!
P.S. Be sure to have some Regent Cakes pastries with you while watching the show, because everyone I know who has seen it instantly felt an urge to go and eat some quality baking.
1 comment:
YAKITATE!!! i finished it all in a week. That's how fantastic i am...or how much of a loser i am. But yay very nice review pete *nods* initial d/iron chef??? hahaha isn't initial d like car racing...mmm anyway its good people should watch it. In melbourne we have a bakery sort of like Pantasia. Its called...*drum roll* BREAD TOP!!!! but they sell asian bread ohhh and they don't sell stuff like french bread, german bread lol wth is that.
Kudos to pete.
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