Yoshinaga Fumi - Antique Bakery, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.)
Thu, Aug. 16th, 2007 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterPeople have been reccing this to me for just about forever, seeing as how it's manga about tasty pastries! Unsurprisingly, I adored the first two volumes.
I'm a little less fond of the latter half of the series, but that's more because it goes more into the personal lives of characters I don't care that much about, and it features some BL tropes that I'm not particularly fond of.
Tachibana is a rich playboy who decides to open a French-style pastry shop called Antique Bakery. He ends up hiring master patisserie Ono, who despite his prodigious talent is unemployed because he is "a gay of demonic charm" and ends up getting into troublesome romantic entanglements anywhere he works. The shop soon acquires ex-boxer Kanda, now apprentice patisseries, and Tachibana's servent/childhood friend Chikage, who is generally useless but very cute.
I love all the characters except Tachibana, which is a little unfortunate, as the last volume is all about his angst. I just don't seem to have that much sympathy for scruffy, rich playboy womanizers with angst any more.
On the other hand, I adore the other characters, and oh! The pastry porn! There's not much of a plot in the first two volumes; instead, we get looks into the lives of various Antique Bakery customers and glimpses of the day-to-day behind running the store. I loved these parts so much. They're small and quiet, and I loved that Yoshinaga included women as well.
Later on, the series gets a little too melodramatic for me, particularly when it comes to Tachibana's angsty past and Ono's angsty past love affairs.
I'm not particulary enamored of Yoshinaga's art or paneling; the paneling in particular gets very crowded by word balloons. On the other hand, I will forgive that, as the word balloons contain words like these:
Yum!
I'm a little less fond of the latter half of the series, but that's more because it goes more into the personal lives of characters I don't care that much about, and it features some BL tropes that I'm not particularly fond of.
Tachibana is a rich playboy who decides to open a French-style pastry shop called Antique Bakery. He ends up hiring master patisserie Ono, who despite his prodigious talent is unemployed because he is "a gay of demonic charm" and ends up getting into troublesome romantic entanglements anywhere he works. The shop soon acquires ex-boxer Kanda, now apprentice patisseries, and Tachibana's servent/childhood friend Chikage, who is generally useless but very cute.
I love all the characters except Tachibana, which is a little unfortunate, as the last volume is all about his angst. I just don't seem to have that much sympathy for scruffy, rich playboy womanizers with angst any more.
On the other hand, I adore the other characters, and oh! The pastry porn! There's not much of a plot in the first two volumes; instead, we get looks into the lives of various Antique Bakery customers and glimpses of the day-to-day behind running the store. I loved these parts so much. They're small and quiet, and I loved that Yoshinaga included women as well.
Later on, the series gets a little too melodramatic for me, particularly when it comes to Tachibana's angsty past and Ono's angsty past love affairs.
I'm not particulary enamored of Yoshinaga's art or paneling; the paneling in particular gets very crowded by word balloons. On the other hand, I will forgive that, as the word balloons contain words like these:
This rhubarbe fraise is a tarte made of rhubarbs stewed into a sugary-sweet compote, then topped with a fluffy, sour strawberry mousse, and is a seasonal cake offered for a limited time only.
One of our recent best-selling items is the chiboust chocolat framboise -- a chocolate chiboust placed atop a layer of raspberry-flavored custard cream on a crumbly chocolate tarte shell.
And over here we have a new item today -- the pave' au caramel. A caramel-butter mousse has been paired with a biscuit base loaded with chocolate, and is a divinely rich dessert perfect for anyone who loves cakes!
Yum!
(no subject)
Thu, Aug. 16th, 2007 09:53 pm (UTC)The BL trope-ness of Ono's story did bug me. But I loved that he had gay friends and went to gay bars and wasn't all, "I am not gay! I merely love other men!"
I ended up liking all four men quite a bit, and also many of the supporting cast: not immediately, but they grew on me.
But yeah, the best part was definitely the pastries. YUM.
(no subject)
Thu, Aug. 16th, 2007 11:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Sun, Aug. 19th, 2007 09:26 pm (UTC)In Japan, shounen ai's actually referred to as BL but got retranslated into "shounen ai" over here (ditto with ladies' comics and josei).
(no subject)
Sun, Aug. 19th, 2007 09:23 pm (UTC)I think one of my favorite moments of the manga was the preparation of the eclair Christmas tree thing and the spun sugar on top. Mmmmmm!