My Manga Journal (Recent Reads #1): Yakitate!! Japan
Written & Illustrated by Takashi Hashiguchi
Score: 7
There’s a common trend for manga (especially shonen manga) to start on the ground and then shoot into the stratosphere. The rabid escalation from grounded action premise to world-ending consequences is a common observation made about many popular manga stories, and while I wouldn’t see it as a negative, it’s hard to deny the pattern when you see it.
Of the many examples you could possibly toss out that exhibit this phenomenon, there’s no series that exemplifies this pattern more than Yakitate!! Japan, a manga that is (ostensibly) about making bread. The manga follows young baker Kazuma Azuma, who dreams of making a “Ja-pan” bread that will represent the nation. As he joins a popular bread-making company, he is soon thrust into a number of bread-making competitions that will test his creativity and innovation.
At first, Yakitate!! Japan seems little more than a standard competitive cooking manga, with a large emphasis on humor. However, the manga soon starts to ramp up the antics, introducing bizarre characters, outlandish reactions to food that rival those in Shokugeki no Soma, and climactic scenarios that provide a parodic outlook on the bread-making industry, one that is cutthroat, strange, and full of oddballs.
Soon, the manga starts to bend the rules of reality, with the reactions starting to not just be metaphorical, but actual, as the characters start to twist the rules of the world itself. The manga starts to turn towards the surreal and absurd, with some characters changing permanently as a result of eating delicious bread. It’s certainly a sight to behold, and aren’t moments like these key to any great comedy?
Uh, not really. To be honest, at some point the manga starts to take it too far, and the absurdity reaches a point where it’s hard to get emotionally invested in what’s going on because what’s going on is simply too far out to relate to. The antics are still hilarious, of course, but I’m not of the mind that writing a comedy means you get to throw all logic out for the sake of a pun. It really does hurt the overall narrative of the series, and the repetitiveness of the series’ formula doesn’t help either.
Still, Yakitate!! Japan is a fun read, especially if you’re a fan of cooking. There’s still a lot of research done towards the bread-making process, and while I can’t say a word to its accuracy, the hard work put in by the author is evident. I still heartily recommend the series, if only because more people need to see the insane gags contained in this hilarious bread-making manga.
Originally published at http://talesfromsquareone.wordpress.com on January 9, 2024.