Anime: Yakitate! Japan

Welcome to the Underground Rising Zan here.

Now any good otaku has heard or read of some kind of sport manga. You know the kind where a kid discovers a sport of some kind and finds out about how great playing this sport is and putting all their effort and grit into being the very best, and of course learning a super secret technique or two doesn't hurt. Sports manga do this all the time, however there are other manga that also do this, but with subjects that are not sport related. So I like to wrap these two together and call them, HOBBY MANGA.

 Hobby manga is very standard in shonen magazines as you have boys/girls trying their very best at the things they love. Baseball, Soccer, and hell even American Football are prime examples of the things they do. But then there are the other hobbies, the not so well known but just as greatly passionate. And in this case baking is passion of one Kazuma Azuma; a boy with the gift of solar hands and with the dream of making a bread that Japan can call their own. This is the anime review of Yakitate! Japan

YOSH!

Music: 6/10 Above Average

Now you may be wondering what Yakitate! Japan is all about well let's have this guy explain.

Ah, see what I did there? The Opening feels very easy-going but also hopeful like "we are going to accomplish our dreams". However it makes it all seem like a slice of life (which this isn't). The soundtrack works with the show well but nothing you can really listen to on a OST over and over. However some pretty damn catchy ending songs.

Art & Animation: 7/10 Nice

The animation of the show is pretty standard for the most part. However, there 1 thing I will commend about the animation.

THE REACTIONS

By reactions I mean the reactions to when the characters eat bread, which is the biggest selling point on the anime/manga. They take one bite of the bread and in that instance they are thrown into a world of taste and flavor where they express how it tastes with big actions rather than words. The reaction settings a big, blown out and are one of the things that makes Yakitate Japan so interesting. However, they don't really do to much other than make things a bit more colorful or give it a different background, but a good job is still done with these great parts of the show.

Story: 8/10 Great

At it's very core Yakitate Japan is a comedy, filled with humor, big laughs and over the top reaction shots. It also works great as a Shonen creating suspense when making the bread there are times when Azuma is doing something completely unorthodox and everyone is unsure if he is doing the right thing only for the result to be that his bread to be on of his JAPAN masterpieces.

(Note: JAPAN is a pun, because Azuma dream is to make a bread specifically for Japan, with PAN being the word for bread in Japanese. Thus JAPAN)

So we've got humor and some decent suspenseful action sequences, however there is something more... eventually in the series a secret is revealed about their being a power struggle over Patisiere (the main bakery chain that Kazuma works at) between the 3 granddaughters of the owner of the chain and who will inherit it. One of which is the main heroine, and her mother isn't the same as the other two. So yes, drama does exist of this world of fantastic bread.

Speaking of which it's ROULETTE TIME!

My favorite character is...

                     Kuroyanaza Ryo

Now you may look at this guy and wonder why would I like someone like him? Especially in a series with such a wide and crazy cast of characters. Well the reason is simple...

HE HAS THE BEST REACTIONS IN THE ENTIRE SHOW!!!

This may be an opinion, but I also think it makes it even better for someone so serious to have such ridiculous reactions to bread. Not only that but he does tend to have some interesting back story from time to time.

However, there is also a "worst" character I would say. His name is mushroom head, I won't bother telling you his name because I don't like him. And all he does in the series is complain that no one notices him and that's it. He's a useless character and a waste of space, I don't know why he is in the series because he is certainly not funny. Anyway, needed to get that out of the way.

I wholeheartedly recommend Yakitate Japan, it's manga has been been published by Viz and  it's also available in French. As for the anime is so far only available online, be sure to support the official release of the manga first. Oh and one last thing to push you to watch this anime.

Overall, I give Yakitate! Japan and all of it's delicious delicious bread!
7/10 Nice