PLOT: A shounen series with a twist – instead of martial arts the characters fight it out with epic bread making contests! As odd and uninspiring this concept sounds, Yakitate! Japan is anything but dull – it's been a while since I’ve enjoyed a comedy so much! Each episode is a riot – sure its formulaic and a touch over-long, but even though you know how things will turn out, its still a really fun journey to get there. Incredibly OTT most of the time, this is a series where a bite of bread can literally send you to heaven! (you get better though).
You also get a bit of lesson in baking/food science in this show – all the methods that Azuma & Co use to produce their delicious breads are thoroughly explained and based on actual bakery practices. There is even a recipe given for a bread that Azuma makes in a rice cooker! The little sequence after the credits called ‘Seed of Knowledge’ is also quite informative – a bit like the Bacteria Theatre segment of Moyashimon.
The characters are what really make this series fun though. Azuma is more or less the typical excitable male shounen lead but he manages to never gets really irritating thankfully – I quite liked him. Of the supporting cast the best are probably the bread judges – Kuroyanagi and Pierrot, as their reactions to the taste of various breads are just priceless! As a lot of the jokes are based on elaborate puns (even the title is a pun – Ja-Pan (literally Japanese bread) some of the humour is hit or miss – thankfully the subs I got had fantastic translators notes so I didn’t feel left out of the loop. There were also some priceless parodies of other shounen shows etc which generally reduced me to tears of laughter.
The only criticism I have of the series is that I think it went on a bit too long – the final arc didn’t have the same excitement that the previous arcs had, as they really got bogged down in a set formula and a lot of the supporting cast got shunted off to the sidelines (particularly poor Kowachi). That’s not to say that that arc was bad – it was still very entertaining, but lacked the freshness of the previous arcs. Also some may find the long technical explanations and elaborate word based puns a bit dull and incomprehensible after a while.
ANIMATION: Well its Sunrise so as you would expect the animation quality is of a pretty high quality and remains consistent over its 69 episode run. The character designs were nicely put together and distinctive and the backgrounds were well detailed – especially those of actual locations, like during the Monaco World Cup and the Paris training arcs. Of course this show really shone during the ‘reaction’ sequences which were hilarious to watch – the physical comedy was really excellent.
MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: All the OPs & EDs were pretty decent, and the BGM was really expressive too. The voice acting was just brilliant though – triumph of casting in this show. The standout performance for me was Takehito Koyasu as Kuroyanagi though. Although everyone was equally good……even if it did take me a wee while to get used to Yumiko Kobayashi’s performance as Azuma – it was a bit grating at the beginning.
So yes a very good comedy show – who knew baking could be so exciting!? Highly recommended if you want a good laugh and don’t mind a slightly quirky premise.
