Story: A young man fights for his dream of baking Japan's first "national bread". He has a talent for baking due to his "Solar Hands", and he has lots of determination. Weekly baking competitions are the name of this game, but the story has different ways of keeping you watching.
At first, I didn't realize it would be so...typical-shonen. I almost gave it up, but then I got to the REACTIONS. Easily the best part of the whole show is watching peoples' reactions to the breads. Touching and absurd, heartwarming and off-the-wall hilarious. The reactions kept me going through the whole show!
I also enjoyed the references to pop culture and other shonen shows. The Japanese cultural references were very informative, even if I had to pause a lot to read them all.
Art: Not the most artistically ground-breaking, but comfortable. Silly hair, bright colors and...delicious bread. The bread. Looks. Awesome. It made me so hungry watching this show.
Sound: The opening and ending songs were nothing special, and I found the background music to be unmemorable. I watched the sub, and I enjoyed the character portrayals. No one was overly annoying, but there were no Oscar-worthy performances.
Character: One of my biggest gripes is how one character (Kawachi) went from being an average baker in the first arc, to a complete butt-monkey in the second. It's like he didn't even know what bread WAS after the mid-point.
The other characters are all interesting, but they don't get much development. Azuma is his "everything I do will be fine" self all throughout the show, and the supporting characters are not very fleshed-out. I would have liked to see more from the other bakers, and not just "we're here because Azuma beat us, so now we'll help him".
Overall: I watched the show off and on for about a year. I couldn't handle more than 2 episodes a day. However, I am glad I watched it all. The reactions and the multitude of different breads baked made me keep watching. Bonus points to the studio, for doing their homework: every bread is real, or CAN be real. Every explanation of the bread is true, adn not just crazy magical bread.
TL;DR 5 words/phrases to describe Yakitate!! Japan
hilarious, informative, shonen parody, weekly "battles", drool-worthy breads
