Manga Review: Yakitate!! Japan, Vol. 4

Yakitate!! Japan, Vol. 4

By Takashi Hashiguchi
208 pp., VIZ
Rating: Teen+ (Older Teens)

In the first volume of Yakitate!! Japan, we meet Kazuma Azuma, a teenager with an unusual dream. His great aspiration is to create a bread so beloved by the Japanese people that it becomes synonymous with the country itself: Ja-pan. Though he lacks formal training and, frankly, common sense, he’s a prodigy in the kitchen, blessed with “hands of the sun” (a.k.a. hands warm enough to jump-start the dough’s rising) and a jazz musician’s knack for improvisation. These skills land him at the modest South Tokyo branch of Pantasia, a popular chain of bakeries. There, alongside the loud-mouthed apprentice Kyosuke Kawachi, the cute but steely manager Tsukino Asuzagawa, and the bread master Ken Matsushiro, he hones his craft, develops new Ja-pan prototypes, and enters countless bake-offs.

Having introduced us to the principle characters, volumes two and three of Yakitate!! Japan then settle into a basic formula: Kazuma and Kawachi attend a competition where they’re regarded as the underdogs. When faced with a challenge—say, making mold-resistant bread or baking the perfect butter roll—Kazuma cheerfully devises a new recipe on the spot, wowing the skeptical judges and advancing to the next round. Though the stories trace a familiar pattern, I found much to love about these volumes. The ridiculous, Iron Chef-style competitions. (Today’s theme ingredient: melon!) The wretched puns. The impromptu science lessons. Matsushiro’s hairnet-defying ‘fro. But most of all, I loved the mouth-watering descriptions of baked goods, from Ja-pan #57—the deep-fried concoction that Kazuma fashioned out of day-old bread—to Ja-pan #32—the wasabi bread he improvised in volume 3. Those first 600 pages were pure pastry porn.

Then I read volume 4.

Volume 4 begins with the extras: a brief flashback explaining how Matsushiro became a baker, and a super-jokey short called Takitate!! Go-han. At first glance, Takitate!! appears to be a Bizarro-world parody of Yakitate!! Just as Kazuma encourages his family to substitute toast for their customary breakfast of rice, an American boy tries to wean his father off bread in favor of a Japanese-style porridge sold by a comely young foreigner. So far, so good. Then we get a glimpse of the vendor herself: a super scantily clad hottie in a bikini top and cut-offs that would make Daisy Duke blush. That initial hubba-hubba sketch is followed by several pages of utterly gratuitous fan service that sorely tempted me to abandon ship.

I’m glad I didn’t bail out at page 40, however, as the previous volume ended at a climatic moment in the Pantasia Rookie Tournament. Having survived the near-disastrous decision to use margarine instead of butter in a previous challenge, Kazuma must now overcome his lack of culinary skills to produce an “okonomiyaki sandwich.” (Imagine a hot dog bun filled with deep-friend soba noodles and a tangy sauce.) He and Kawachi face added pressure to succeed, as Tsukino’s honor rides on the contest’s outcome. Just as Kazuma and Kawachi are poised for victory, however, a hulking figure in a koala mask proves himself to be a formidable opponent. In other words, it’s another helping of business as usual: pratfalls, shouting matches, wacky new characters, and death-defying feats of bread baking.

So what have I learned from reading Yakitate!! Japan? First, that a little wasabi can stave off staleness. I’m not sure I want to read 20 volumes of this series, but the thin premise has a suprisingly long shelf life. Second, deep fried noodles make a nifty substitute for hot dogs. Try the bun-and-noodle combo on your next trip to the ballpark. And third, your mother was right: never eat dessert first. Whether it’s a bag of Twizzlers or a fan service spectacular, if you consume too many extras before dinner, you spoil your appetite.