Antique Bakery

Title:Antique Bakery
Seiyou Kottou Yougashiten: Antique
西洋骨董洋菓子店 ~アンティーク~
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: FUJIWARA Keiji
HANAWA Eiji
MIKI Shinichirou
MIYANO Mamoru
Original Concept - Kodansha Manga Award Winner
R1 License - Right Stuf Intl
R1 License - Subtitled Only
Tachibana, grandson of a rich businessman and newbie in the world of managing; Ono Yuusuke, famous pastry chef and even more infamous "devilish homosexual"; Kanda Eiji, a retired young boxer with a thing for pastries; Kobayakawa Chikage, servant friend of Tachibana and current romantic interest of Ono, who is clumsy yet serious and stoic to a fault (most of the time). Together, these four men maintain a small yet elegant cafe known as "Antique", where they and all their customers can come together to cherish one of the few but truly important things in life: cake. (summary from ANN-Manga)

Based on a BL (boys love) manga series authored by Fumi Yoshinaga (wiki).

For more info - see Wikipedia Entry.
For info on live-action TV series - see D-Addicts Entry.
And there is also a Korean movie - viewable at MySoju.
R1 (English) manga series has been licensed Digital Manga.

Animation by Nippon Animation & Shirogumi Inc.
12 TV Episodes.
New series to aire on July 4th '08.
"西洋" ("seiyou") means "western countries" (usually the U.S. and Europe); "骨董" ("kottou") means "object of virtu, antiquity"; "洋菓子店" ("yougashi-ten") means "bakery". "アンティーク" is the Kana sound pattern "antiku" for "antique", the name of the bakery.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Buy 9 8 8 7 8 8 Ggultra2764 [series:1854#1552]
Don't let Ono's sexuality have you thinking this will totally be a shounen-ai melodrama fest. While his character is usually over-the-top in comedic gags and an element to his past is seething in melodrama, this is the only major flaw that I could pick apart from my watch of Antique Bakery. The series is focused on Ono and three other men of different backgrounds coming together to create and work at the Antique Bakery. The show's charm comes off the chemistry between the men and the fleshing out of their characters as they come to appreciate one another while working at the bakery. Sometimes funny and sometimes serious, Antique Bakery does enough of a good job at seeing the characters develop onscreen as they adjust to working at the bakery from former boxer Eiji being an apprentice baker to head chef Ono getting over his discomfort with female customers to owner Tachibana learning to move on from a tragic past. The visual presentation is quite slick featuring CG-rendered settings of city streets and the inside of the bakery providing a life-like presentation of the series mixed with the hand-drawn character designs and nicely designed pastry food. If you don't mind seeing attractive looking guys coming together to make a successful business while changing for the better as they bond with one another, you shouldn't have any problem checking out Antique Bakery.

Last updated Saturday, August 27 2011. Created Saturday, August 27 2011.
Watch Stretch [series:1854#628]
(All episodes watched):

I was several episodes into this show before I decided whether I liked it or not. A fairly eccentric cast of young men had collected; Tachibana was apparently traumatized by being kidnapped as a child, but how exactly that would influence the series was unclear. The comedy was enjoyable but not outrageously good; it seemed largely confined to characters occasionally going superdeformed. Chikage's clumsiness seemed overdone and unfunny at first. Overall, the pace was slow, but so far, so good. Tachibana will apparently overcome a loss of memory about what happened when he was kidnapped, but so far the story seemed to be dragging along at a slow pace, which was annoying.

...and then it gets better and I must eat my words. The kidnapping subplot really came together in episode ten (better late than never), which surprised me and left me thinking that it would play a much larger part than I had expected. The episode firmly held my attention, seemed to go much more quickly than most, and left me eager for the next one. The characters had become likeable and the jokes are fairly good; in the end I considered Antique Bakery not as a favorite which I would watch ASAP, but still a fun second-class show definitely worth viewing. The climax was surprisingly non-violent, considering how high the tension mounted; also surprising was that it came in the next-to-last episode. I didn't completely understand what had happened until the final one. Episode twelve was more post-climactic than anti-climactic; it just felt right. Not every issue is completely resolved, but you get the feeling that these guys will be OK and don't feel disappointed. "Life goes on" was a line from both the OP and ED songs, and that seemed to be the message of the series as a whole. All-in-all, a nice show.

My favorite line: "Two age thirty-something men dancing and spinning together in the rain. That can't be sane" --Ono

Last updated Sunday, September 28 2008. Created Friday, July 18 2008.

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