Ranked #1344

Antique Bakery

Antique Bakery is a pleasant anime about the lives of four men who work in a cake shop.

Sounds a little flaky, doesn't it? Not so. Despite the very simple premise of Antique Bakery, what we have here is an atmospheric anime that is a lot heavier than what its summary says about it.

Honestly, this has an original story. When last have you seen an anime that follows the lives of people who are adults who have jobs? In fact, when was the last yaoi anime in particular where both men in a romantic entanglement were about the same age (and not with one being a grown man and the other being his younger, naive counterpart)? I would say as far as I know, it's very rare. And yes, Antique Bakery has yaoi themes. A fair amount, actually. But it shouldn't just be pegged as just another yaoi romance with a sprinkle of humour. This anime attempts to be rather thoughtful at times and have many mature (but not explicit) themes in it.

It's Tachibana's story. He opens a cake shop and ends up employing a skilled pâtisier who happens to be an openly gay man whose affections he spurned when they were both high schoolers. Eventually, he ends up employing two more men to help with his well-received cake shop. But things aren't all that sweet for Tachibana--shadows from his scarred past come back to haunt him as the city around them suffers from the workings of a deranged criminal. While the first half of the anime seemed to be headed in a lighter direction, the second half turns into a deeper drama.

Antique Bakery has a unique look. It utilises a lot of pastel colours. The character design tends to go for a more realistic look, although there are many instances in which the characters suddenly become super-deformed. There's some decent 3D artwork used as well in the anime. Sometimes the art wasn't very consistent, and the style may not be for everyone.

However, the sound truly stood out to me. Antique Bakery has a wonderful score that does not overwhelm the rest of the anime. The sound is used subtly, complimenting the scenes rather than distracting the attention from them. There are soft acoustic pieces, some wonderful violin compositions, and nice piano work. It gives the anime a richer quality.

The characters are pretty good concepts, but unfortunately, I can't say they are much better than that save for Tachibana. He is a weathered gentleman who has excellent charm and great business savvy. But he is haunted by a terrible memory from the past that affected his behaviour as a young man. He has grown, and he has learned. And throughout most of the anime, he quietly learns how to accept what has happened to him and the reason why he is the way he is presently.

Then there's the gay playboy pâtisier Ono. He is a devilish flirt and can get any man under his belt. He isn't a bad person, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of good things happen to him. His love life is a tremendously fickle one--he falls for a lot of men who end up hurting him in some way or another, or he ends up breaking a lot of hearts himself. I felt as though his character had a lot of potential to explore, but Ono isn't truly developed.

Another main character is a young, upstart former professional boxer named Kanda. Again, some potential to work with, but all he ever comes across as is a loud, aggressively enthusiastic person.

And there's Chikage, who I felt is the weakest character in the bunch. He is a very tall, very shy, clumsy crybaby who has a history with Tachibana as being his servant. While he has the skeleton of being a sweet, lovable character (to some extent he is--I didn't dislike his character per se), he just comes across as a mindless pile of cute attributes without a strong personality to back up his actions.

Is Antique Bakery enjoyable? Yeah, it is to some extent. Is it unusual? Yes, it is very much so. Hardly ever have I seen an anime that deals with some heavy issues such as homophobia, molestation, emotional and physical abuse, and criminal activity.

While there are a lot of convenient moments in this anime, a lot of gooey moments, some melodramatic moments, Antique Bakery manages to be a rather good anime with a strongly original storyline and some important themes. Plus, there is a lot of eye candy. Or should I say 'cake'? Either way, there are some very sweet sweets showcased in this anime. Which brings me to another point about this anime: the characters love their jobs. It's always fun to see people doing something they love to do, whether it's chatting up the customers to get them to buy cakes or making the cakes themselves, the characters in Antique Bakery love their job with their all. That just makes for a pleasant change over people moping about their careers.

Antique Bakery isn't a strongly recommended watch, but it is a nice one. If you like cake, if you like yaoi, if you like anime about mature adults, then this might just be something that could suit your tastes. Try a slice--who knows? It just might be what you were hankering for. read more

What we have here is a delicate anime series based on the award-winning manga by Fumi Yoshinaga.
The animation style is very unusual for a shounen-ai type of anime, because it merges together 2D characters and (mainly) 3D backgrounds, which often occurs in mecha and sci-fi. In my opinion it takes some time to get used to it, especially if you don't favor 3D in general...

Compared to other shounen-ai anime, antique bakery has a storyline that is not as overused as it could have been and it holds an unique flare that makes you almost nostalgic. A solid and continuing plot shows us enough without getting overly confusing and reveals necessary background information bit by bit, in order to make the viewer curious as well as avoiding repetition ... even though it moves along at it's own pace.

And well... the characters... it's hard to tell weather they are exaggerated drama-queens, or just a bunch of winsome eccentrics. On first sight they seem to be relatively uncomplicated personalities, Or at least they're acting pretty predictable. As for the second sight... I have yet to find out if there is more going on in their heads... but together they make an interesting group of people, that will quite likely make you raise a smile.
The character-design itself is, if nothing else, rather unique. Beautiful would be too demanding... like they say: Different strokes for different folks.

All in all Antique Bakery is a likable shounen-ai anime... despite the lack of actual boy's love and other odd behavior. And if the series fails to satisfy your expectations, the opening and closing are special enough to make it up to you. read more