When it comes to an average neighbourhood anywhere in Japan, if you threw a rock anywhere there, you would have a better-than-even chance of hitting (besides a commuter): a) a karaoke box, b) a McDonalds, c) a café (franchise or independent) or d) a patisserie. Considering that three of the four choices have rather tasty fare, Japan is quite the foodie nation.
Patisseries, bakeries or bread shops...whatever you like to call them, when I was living there, I would always get some wonderful stuff whether it was the one near my school or the place right under my subway station. And it was there that I first came across the wonderful Bacon Epi. I'd had never had it before in Toronto, but it is a bread roll with bits of bacon in there and it's one of my most favourite things. I've heard that some bakers even put a drop of bacon grease into rolls just before they go into the oven, and that's all she wrote. Sold out! But getting back to the Bacon Epi, just one speck of deep-fried pork in the dough makes all the difference...the aroma, the umami and the flavour just spreads out and punches that bread into heaven.
Anyways before I end up salivating onto my desk, I will segue into the 2004 anime adaptation of the manga "Yakitate!! Japan"（焼きたて!!ジャぱん...Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan） which is all about a young man with ambitions of creating a national bread for Japan. Even the brief scene above has me swooning over the various types of bread there are all over the planet.
Not quite sure how a disco-influenced ending credit sequence fit into an anime about breadmaking, but hey, it's anime. Anyways, the second ending theme for "Yakitate!! Japan" was "To All Tha Dreamers" by the hip-hop/pop group SOUL'd OUT. Written and composed by the group, yup, I got the usual distinctive vocals of Diggy-MO' with some of the good ol' disco. Being their 8th single released on New Year's Day 2005, it was also the title track for their second album that came out a month later. Both single and album did well on the charts with the former breaking into the Top 10 at No. 7 and the latter reaching No. 2 (it eventually became the 56th-ranked album for 2005).
I love when Animation studio surprise us with some over the top ending. The first ending theme to Jujutsu Kaisen 「LOST IN PARADISE」 by ALI ft. AKLO was another one of those that surprised me. Hey, I lIKE both versions of SOUL'd OUT -- To All Tha Dreamers, but yeah the animation at the end of "Yakitate!! Japan" was hilarious when I first saw it years ago and it still brings a smile to my face today.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. I had never heard of this anime myself since this was before my reacquaintance with it from the mid-2000s onwards. How was the show?
DeleteI thought it was fun and that was very different from type of anime out at the time. I guess it was kind of the same genre as 「oishinbo」although oishinbo was a whole lot more serious.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of bleach not the storyline but something about it does. I think it is okay for f you like shonen jump style action anime. I am more of a slice life anime fan.
ReplyDeleteAs am I. There was another food-based anime about a decade ago called "Koufuku Graffiti" that I enjoyed a lot. Although I liked the first season of "Demon Slayer", I'm generally not a fan of horror-adventure or isekai stuff. Something nice, light and comedic along the lines of "Koufuku Graffiti" or "Grand Blue" is my thing.
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