Yume-iro Pâtissière

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You know what you're going to get and it delivers.

Even though it's not the most original or has the best twists, it is still an enjoyable read if you like light-hearted manga about baking and romance. The main is likeable enough and the side-characters have different personalities.

One of the downsides for me is that it's not my favourite art style, so that sometimes didn't incentivise me to binge read it. However, it's not so glaringly bad that it became an active distraction and the food still looked great in it so it did its job well overall

It's cute and will satisfy you if you're looking ... for something light and sweet~

As a shoujo tagged with romance, I found that aspect to be lacking. This manga is all about making sweets, so that's the main theme. There is romance, but it develops in the last chapters and toward the end feels a little rushed.

The art was nice, it really was, but I had a hard time distinguishing between some of the girls like Ichigo's best friend and her enemy, both having long hair but slightly different bangs. Some of the adults have young faces but are taller than the students, so I thought they were also kids. I wish there was more of a difference between ... adults and children in eye structure or something else distinct.

There were some funny parts, though, where I actually laughed out loud. And I really enjoyed seeing what they would come up with in their next creations. They were really pretty. It was fun to see what they would try in terms of baking and cooking to solve problems, since I literally know next to nothing about making sweets.

If you're looking for something adorable, there's nothing wrong with starting here.

Please note that this review only encompasses the translated portion of the manga, which is up to roughly Chapter 35, Volume 10. The other thing to note here is that despite the presence of mascots, this is not a magical girl series.

Yume-Iro Patisserie is exactly what it looks like: a manga about a young girl named Ichigo who enters the Japan's St. Marie Academy to become a Patisserie, which means making lots of desserts and winning her way through various sorts of challenges. Along the way, she develops friendships with three gifted patissiers-in-training who the series sends mixed signals as to whether these are platonic ... or romantic. Not that this is a bad thing, as a romantic subplot does add something to keep the story going, though it is not its main focus.

The main focus of the series is its illustrated and descriptively evocative desserts, which feature new types of sweets (mainly cakes) in all issues. These are vivid and the characters describe them in painstaking detail, which extends to all four main characters and each of their enemies. While this is nice and provides a fair amount of eye candy (no pun intended), there are some elements which bog down the story or detract from the overall experience, depending on what you were hoping to see.

For instance, many characters (especially rivals) are one-note: frequently, they only appear once and seem to fade from existence in future chapters. However, some characters will reappear later, trying to give the story an extra layer of tension. The issue with this is that the characters tend to be written in stereotypical form (for instance, the psychotic Miya who's in love with Kashino, the main love interest) or some bullies who plagiarized Ichigo's cake design.

Unfortunately, the series also comes off as quite directionless at times, frequently getting itself distracted from the main events and preferring to focus on "bonus" chapters. There is also a considerable degree of filler here, as many chapters mark unimportant events, though the main problem with the story is its reliance on the status quo.

The series relies on the status quo to a fault, to the point it becomes formulaic. As an example, Ichigo typically wins most of the battles she faces, with a chapter typically dedicated to preparing for the event and the next chapter actually having it occur. While this is formulaic in itself, the tension is gone when you realize that Ichigo (as a character) will automatically win as a default because of the status quo. An example of this is around Chapter 33, where an enormous gambit is on stake that will determine whether the Sweets Spirits stay on Earth. Simply by mentioning this (ignoring the fact it's resolved less than a few chapters later), it's fairly obvious that if the manga intends to keep running, this turn wouldn't really seem plausible based on the direction the series appears to be going.

While I acknowledge its faults, I also acknowledge its strengths and realize that while it may not appeal to me personally, I'm sure many readers will be left with fond memories of it should they pick it up. So long as you are alright with beautifully drawn cakes at the cost of a more defined or evocative story, this may be a manga series that you should pick up. As mentioned, however, do be aware that, at the time of writing this, the last two volumes appear to be only available in Japanese. 7/10.