Title: Yakitate Japan
Story: 7/10
Character: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
i never thought I'd find a culinary manga as Yakitate Japan so enjoying.And further more I could never have expected that a contest between two bakers as to who would bake the best bread would be as exhiting and action-paced (in some scenes perhaps even more) than your typical shounen manga with fists, blood and fights. Now I'll never be the same person again when I visit the kitchen. Everything I see there I'll regard as weapon and tools to increase my Health and Magic points.
The story starts with a boy, Azuma, who posseses ''solar hands'', that means hands with the perfect temperature for making bread. He joins a large bakery store called ''Pantasia''. His ultimate goal is to make the perfect bread for Japan, called Ja-Pan (Japanese bread). He meats two other characters, a samurai who combines the samurai code with baking (!) and another clumsy guy who performs well only when he's cornered. Other characters include a food judge, a manager, a company owner's granddaughter (she's the only normal person), a boy genious, the girl's two evil sisters and later in the manga a clown. Many other characters are introduced later on. The manga's main plot goes like this. Another rival company seeks to throw Pantasia out of business and so the staff of Pantasia participate in a competition in Monaco to gain money. After that (I read till volume 17) they return to Japan where other contests take place in order to save the company.
But thats not so important. What makes the manga hilarious is this: whenever the contenstants bake a bread or any other bread-like food everything is shown in detail. If you dont find cooking boring this manga is for you. I didnt expect to have agony whenever an ingredient was missing. Or whenever the judge had negative reactions. But when they had positive reactions, there is where the manga shines.
The judges reactions are of the funniest I've seen in any graphic novel medium. The mangaka was a comedian and so he certainly knows about humour a lot. One taste of bread can make the judge go to a time machine or straight to heaven or even send him to Galaxy Express 999 manga.
References to other manga and events from Japan (some of them were unknown to me) are appropriately inserted, making this one of the most hilarious mangas. In volume 17 two ninjas from an old arcade make an appearance.
The design is very good and the bread depicted makes the reader's stomachs groan...The characters are also very funny, in fact of the funniest I've seen. No wonder the mangaka received a prestigious award for Yakitate.
I would recommend this title to fans of comedy and cooking especially. And if you're tired of typical shounen or sports mangas or animes Yakitate is a refreshing change. As a culinary manga it also includes many detailed recipes for various bread types and not only that. Reading it I learned there's also a bombay blood type. So you could learn one or two things.
I dont know how many volumes it will take. It is currently in volume 22 in Japan. But it is one of the mangas where recipes and reactions never end and it can be addicting till the end.
