Reviews

Yakitate!! Japan is one of those series where I can not even begin to guess what was going on in the author's mind as the series progressed. It's obvious that the initial pitch was a comedy food manga that was equally interested in using food science in creative and interesting ways while also being a bit of a screwball comedy. The "reactions," as they become to be labeled, are initially pretty tame, relying on puns and visual metaphors to hyperbolize things. The initial battles are pretty simple, and the manga seems to be shaping up to be a pretty standard comedy battle shonen involving bread instead of physical fighting. But then we get to the international competition.
Where once this was a comedy manga *somewhat* grounded in reality, it's clear that the author was trying to find a way to spice things up and stand out. Suddenly we have a circus clown that can do Naruto shadow clones, a French team that is basically a PG body horror monster, a guy in a Pyramid that can dig under the entire Pacific Ocean. What was once a moderately tame shonen comedy was now a Looney Tunes adventure of death defiance and reality-shaping foods. But the biggest thing that really separates Yakitate from its contemporaries is how every single gag is not a one-time thing. A bread causes a person to transform? They are like that for several more chapters, possibly even the rest of the manga. A bread causes a person to time travel? That has permanent consequence on the story's world. A bread causes someone to do something to another character, that can shape how they interact for the rest of the story. The author repeatedly points out how ridiculous it is that the manga has evolved to this point, but it's clear he can't stop, he won't stop, not until he makes it so bread changes the entire world as we know it.

I think it's the author's unapologetic attitude towards this shift in absurdity, as well as the genuine quality of the gags themselves, that endears this change to me rather than alienating me instead. It also helps that by now I've read enough manga and watched enough anime that also portray insane nonsense such as this that I've grown accustomed to it. Just look into if you enjoyed Saiki K or Gintama (the nonserious archs).