Yakitate!! Japan

Category: Comedy, Slice of Bread
Episodes: 69
Year: 2004



What can I say, it's funny. Well, I suppose any review worth reading would have to say more than that, right?

The synopsis is as follows:

Azuma Kazuma is a boy from a small rural area of Japan. His family are rice farmers and he has been raised to believe that rice is #1. After a fated encounter with a local bread maker, Azuma realizes that he has a gift known as the "solar hands" which are perfect for baking bread. Azuma sets out on a mission to create the bread that will represent Japan, the Ja-pan.


So yeah, doesn't look like it would be too funny, right? I guess this really goes to show you that the devil is in the details. The comedy from this show comes from four basic areas. Puns, "reactions," parody, and slapstick. Normally, I'm not the kind of person who really laughs at japanese pun jokes, but when the pun jokes get combined with the 'reactions' (reactions when someone eats bread or an ingredient), it's hilarious.
Later in the series, parody kicks in when things start getting a little monotonous and it helps to pick things up.
If I have one complaint about this anime is that they took their damn time to get through everything and then the last couple episodes are RUSHED. So rushed in fact, that the characters even help you out by saying, "yeah, the scene changed, we need to make it shorter" or some such thing. 69 episodes should have been enough (certain 'battle' scenes could have easily been condensed.

I'd give it a solid B+

Here's the breakdown

Animation: 8
Story: 8
Music: 8
Char. Models: 8
X Factor: 3

Score: 8.75