Antique Bakery Japanese Drama

[Flocka Bilodeau]

AntiqueBakery follows the lives of the four workers at Antique, a ptisserie in residential Tokyo: store owner and manager Keiichirō Tachibana, pastry chef Yusuke Ono, apprentice pastry chef Eiji Kanda, and waiter Chikage Kobayakawa. Antique is so named because the ptisserie is located in a former antique shop, and uses antique tableware and furniture in its caf. The series focuses on the men as they encounter a variety of comedic and dramatic scenarios, often focused around workplace comedy, the creation and development of pastries, or romantic intrigue. Though the series largely proceeds as a slice of life story without an overarching plot, Tachibana's desire to find the man who kidnapped him as a child is a recurring storyline; the series climaxes with Tachibana working with the police to find a child kidnapper.

Antique Bakery was serialized in the monthly manga magazine Wings from June 1999 to September 2002.[8] Upon its conclusion, the series was collected into four tankōbon (collected volumes) published by Shinshokan. In North America, Digital Manga Publishing published an English-language translation of Antique Bakery as four volumes published from 2000 to 2002, making Antique Bakery Yoshinaga's first manga series to be translated into English.[9] Volumes in the English language release feature scratch and sniff covers.[10]

Following the conclusion of the Antique Bakery manga series, Yoshinga began writing and illustrating Antique Afterwards (それからのアンティーク, Sore kara no Antiiku), a spin-off manga published as a series of dōjinshi (self-published fan comics).[8][19] In contrast to the main manga series, Antique Afterwards is more overtly influenced by the yaoi (male-male romance, also known as boys' love or BL) genre, and has sexually-explicit content. This includes both sexual encounters merely alluded to in the original series and slash fiction-inspired scenarios that depict same-sex sexual encounters involving the series' canonically heterosexual characters;[20] for example, in one such story, three female customers tell each other improvised erotic stories involving Antique's staff.[21] Fourteen dōjinshi in the Antique Afterwards series have been created by Yoshinga.[19]

In 2001, the manga was adapted into the live-action television drama Antique: The Western Cake Shop (アンティーク 西洋骨董洋菓子店, Antku: Seiy Kott Ygashiten), which aired on Fuji TV from October 8 to December 17, 2001.[22] The series was directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro and Eiichirō Hasumi, and written by Yoshikazu Okada [ja]. Its theme song, "Youthful Days [it; ja; zh]", is written and performed by Mr. Children.[23] The series removes all depictions of same-sex romance and LGBT identity present in the original manga; for example, Ono is not gay, but has a fear of women and is romantically pursued by an original female character not present in the manga.[24]

In March 2008, Nippon Animation and Shirogumi announced that they would produce an anime adaptation of Antique Bakery, which aired on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block from July to September of that year.[27] The series' primary production staff included Yoshiaki Okumura [ja] as series director and Natsuko Takahashi as scriptwriter; the cakes and pastries depicted in the series were designed by pastry chef Toshihiko Yoroizuka [ja].[28] The series' theme song "Life Goes On [ja]" was written and performed by the band Chemistry.[29] In North America, the series was licensed by Nozomi Entertainment, which released Antique Bakery on DVD on April 5, 2011.[30]

Antique Bakery is noted as Yoshinaga's first major commercial success as a manga artist, following a career in which she was best known as an author of boys' love (BL) and dōjinshi.[8] In Manga: The Complete Guide, writer Jason Thompson gave the manga series four out of five stars, writing that it avoids "cliched sitcom plot while managing to be both character-driven and totally hilarious," and praised its pacing, artwork, and dialogue.[1] Reviewing the series for The Comics Journal, Noah Berlatsky wrote that its "pop Freudianism is depressingly ill-advised" in regards to the tragic backstories of the primary characters, while he praised the series' art and character designs.[35] In his review for Anime News Network, Jason Thompson commended the series' simple art, and praised it as "one of the few bishonen manga which depicts gay characters and prejudice in even a remotely realistic way."[9]

Reviewing the anime adaptation for Anime News Network, Carl Kimlinger praised the series' animation and characters but criticized its romance and kidnapping subplots, writing that Antique Bakery "top-loads its plot with preposterous romantic entanglements and forces unnecessary structure onto it with Tachibana's kidnapping."[36] Cathy Yan lauded the series' voice acting in her review for Manga Bookshelf, but criticized its animation as overly reliant on CGI elements.[37]

Tomoko Aoyama has considered the depiction of cooking in Antique Bakery in relation to the Japanese concepts of hare (晴れ, used to describe things that are special and exotic) and ke (ケ, used to describe things that are mundane and trivial). While the elaborate cakes and pastries of Antique Bakery are self-evidently hare, she notes how Antique Bakery complicates the hare-ke dichotomy through its presentation of gender.[42] While male professional cooking and connoisseurship are generally regarded as hare and female cooking is seen as ke, the main characters of Antique Bakery subvert "assumptions based on age, gender, sexuality, appearance, occupation, education, class, [and] status."[42] For example, Ono is a skilled chef but is coded as female as a result of his homosexuality, while Kanda is regarded by others as cute (a feminine trait) but vulgar (a masculine trait).[43] Desserts in general are seemingly ke for being delicate and "unmanly", but their exoticism as French pastries for a Japanese clientele, as well as the level of skill and craftsmanship required to create them, renders them as hare.[43]

Akiko Mizoguchi discusses Antique Afterwards in her research of yaoi dōjinshi, noting that while most dōjinshi are derivative works created by fan artists, Antique Afterwards is notable as a fan work created by the artist themselves.[20] Mizoguchi considers the series a form of underground comics despite being created by Yoshinaga, noting that the series contains material that would be regarded as too explicit by shōjo editorial standards, and that Antique Bakery publisher Shinshokan has not acknowledged the existence of Antique Afterwards in either Wings or in the series' tankōbon editions.[20]

Antique Bakery is an anime series about a newly opened bakery shop. The protagonist hires a talented and openly gay pastry chef, despite sharing a troubled history together. They are joined by other employees with colourful personalities, as the characters work together to help this business flourish.

Adapted from a manga, Antique Bakery will keep you entertained with its endearing characters and charming storylines. Admittedly, the BL content is minimal and won't satisfy those expecting a full-fledged gay romance. Nonetheless, this anime mixes lighthearted comedy with bittersweet melancholy to create a consistently enjoyable series.

Tachibana is the son of a wealthy family. He used to work for the family business, but recently quit his cushy job to open a pastry shop instead. The bakery is called "Antique", decorated elegantly with a vintage aesthetic. Despite not liking sweets very much, Tachibana claims to have opened this bakery to meet and charm many women. Indeed, he has a magnetic personality and a beguiling charm over the opposite sex.

Tachibana hires Ono, a famous pastry chef known for his excellent culinary skills. They were high school classmates many years ago. Ono had given a love confession to Tachibana, who rejected his classmate harshly with homophobic slurs. Tachibana still remembers this incident, although Ono doesn't recognize his former crush anymore. Despite their thorny past, the two of them begin working together at the Antique bakery.

Since coming out in high school, Ono has lived freely as an openly gay man. He studied in France for a while, learning from a talented patisserie and developing his culinary skills. Ono has a seductive allure over men and engages in many casual hookups. However, his complicated romantic history often brings unpleasant drama in the workplace. His past relationships caused Ono to get fired from other bakeries across town, until he started working at Antique.

The bakery has two additional employees. Eiji is a former boxer who switched careers after an injury, even though he has no culinary background. Eiji loves sweets and begs to work at the bakery after tasting Ono's delicious foods. Ono accepts Eiji as an apprentice, and the two of them begin a teacher-student mentorship. The other bakery employee is Chikage, Tachibana's childhood friend. Despite his big, burly appearance, Chikage is clumsy and hilariously incompetent at everything he does.

After the bakery opens, the four coworkers learn to adapt to each other's quirks and eccentricities. There are often disagreements between Tachibana and Eiji, who clash over their personality differences. In addition, Eiji and Chikage develop a romantic attraction immediately upon meeting each other. Despite their occasionally chaotic relationship dynamics, all four characters are invested in this bakery's livelihood. They will work together to turn this small business into a success.

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