May
22
A very sweet summer
Filed Under Gastronomic, News, Seinen, Series Updates, Slice of Life | 4 Comments
For me, summer has come to an end, but for everyone else, summer’s just about to begin. Particularly this season, a couple of tastefully sweet mangas are either being animated or is being enacted into live action. And I say you shouldn’t miss them. And no, it’s not because they’re BL (actually, only one of them is) but it’s because for those who have a sweet tooth, it would be great to finally see, in full motion, how some of the sweets featured in these mangas were made. Because of series like Antique Bakery and Andou Natsu being animated, this summer is more than just watermelons.
To start with, we have strawberry shortcakes coming from the cast of Antique Bakery. By now, everyone knows about Antique Bakery. A lot of girls started professing eternal support for Fumi after reading this series. And boys pretty much got the jist from their girl friends and is relieved that at least the j-dorama didn’t make Ono gay. However, once Toshokan Sensou ends in July, Fuji TV’s Noitamina slot will be featuring Antique Bakery. And yes this time round, Ono will be gay. I will not go at length on how much I’m excited about this. I think I’ve mentioned it before already, but yes, expect to see some care in the creation of really yummy pastries from them. The detail Fumi places everytime Ono whips up a desert always made me hungry. I have to make sure that I have a cookie with me while watching this series. I think my tummy will be crying the whole time if I didn’t.
On the other hand, I am just as excited for Andou Natsu. It was announced last week that they’ll be bringing out this yummy manga about an aspiring pattisiere who eventually dedicated her craft to the creation of okashi or Japanese sweets. I first crossed this manga when I was reading Big Comic Original (blame Pluto). It really didn’t leave a great impact to me then, but somehow fate wants me to read this manga that when I asked my teacher1 to send me a manga of his choice as a recommendation, he sent me Andou Natsu. I know Karl loves his food mangas so I know that this has got to be something that he has sifted through the lot. And surprisingly, this manga is more than just sweets, but it also speaks of the preservation of the trade of Japanese sweets, one craft that is slowly losing out to the likes Antique Bakery (lol.)
Yes, I love Andou Natsu because it shares to us readers something that we can definitely find only in Japan (or if you’re lucky, at your local grocery). Okashi is a delicate trade of making sweets using ingredients that are indigenous to Japan. So some of these okashi are your mochi packed with sweet an, colored in naturally edible dyes, made painstakingly with much dedication and brute strength, and perhaps served fresh every day.
What is great about the story is it’s not just about a girl trying to get in the trade, but rather, just like the girl, it raises your level of awareness on how the sweets were made and the lengths that people are doing in order to protect their craft that is slowly losing to Hersheys and Meiji chocolates. More than that, the manga has a nice warm feeling to it wherein the characters nurture not only their associates in the store, but also the nearby community that supports and patronizes their sweet.
These two great mangas may not have big cook-offs and shining dishes, but their sweet tales is something that’ll make you think how life is more than a box of chocolates. My sweet tooth will definitely be spoiled this summer.
- I’m forever grateful, Karl-sensei!! [↩]
Feb
29
Animated Antique Bakery! Wai!
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Two weeks ago, I was in a Antique Bakery high. I got hold of some yummy Yoshinaga Fumi doujins of her work and I was thinking… why wasn’t this thing ever animated? I was thinking “Oh, maybe this should get animated someday… but could it be too late since a lot of time has passed?”
Gods of manga may have heard my perusings because now Antique Bakery will be animated and it will be in the noitamina slot (which means, it’s bound to be GREAT!). Based on the article, it will also stick to the original story, so Ohno will be our seductive homosexual pattisiere as well. Yes! I’m happy that it will because the drama was quite disappointing in that aspect. Of course the doujins made up for whatever was not said in the manga but this is really exciting.
The anime starts July in the Noitamina slot after Toshokan wars. Wow… Noitamina really has a strong set of animes this year. How exciting!
p.s. ANN has the english version of the news. lolz.
Dec
2
A movie for 20th Century Boys
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Urasawa fans, it’s time to celebrate as one of Naoki Urasawa’s masterpieces, 20th Century Boys, is currently being made into a movie. A friend of mine gave me a hint that came from eiga.com and the hint directed me towards the the 20th Century Boys Movie Site. So far, no details about the film are released, except maybe for the year that it’s set to be shown, 2008.
From the looks of the teaser, there seems to be a horror edge to this. Honestly, I didn’t feel this way with 20th Century Boys. It was more of a suspense thriller than a horror. Maybe the static image made me think of The Ring or something. Anyway, the movie is slated to be good, especially since the movie production behind it is the same one in the Death Note movies. I wish they would handle this movie in the same quality that they did with Death Note. Here’s me crossing my fingers, re-planning my travel plans to Japan.
Sep
9
Rebuild of Evangelion!?
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Gainax is out to destroy our lives again and leave us in a deep state of insanity. Not that Evangelion hasn’t done enough damage by raising a legion of otakus chanting Rei Ayanami’s name like an anthem. Having studied the otaku culture well (remember Otaku no Video?), they got to squeeze out a lot from their best effort yet.
From next year to 2008, there will be four new films coming out for Eva. It’s called “Rebuild of Evangelion.” Where does this go and how it will come about? Well, according to sources, the films will tell the story once more of Evangelion but not in the same breath and depth of the previously released Eva films. Hence, the fans won’t be troubled again by the same things that have troubled us before. For this set of films, a new story is going to be given to fans. I honestly don’t know how else they could expand the world of Evangelion, but I have firm faith in Hideaki Anno and Gainax to come up with something brilliant. How funny that it’s only now that Anno actually found his work “Interesting.” I think it does take 10 years to detach yourself to a project and really see the beauty in it. Ahhhh~~ I can’t believe it’s been ten years. It just feels like it was yesterday that I cried.
Sep
8
Obata breaks the law with… a knife!?
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Apparently, Takeshi Obata, the lovely artist for the uber popular Death Note manga and Hikaru no Go, was arrested last wednesday after having been caught with an 8 cm knife in his car. He was actually stopped for not having his car lights on. It turns out in Japan, people are not allowed to hold a knife with a blade longer than 6 cm. Obata reasons that it was for camping, but he was still arrested by the police.
Shounen Jump has released that they aren’t pulling out the books that have been published for Obata unless there is a viable reason for his arrest. Nippon TV, who will be showing the animated episodes of Death Note, hasn’t given comments yet with regards to this arrest.
In all honesty, I think it’s silly, but a run in with the law is a run in with the law. I am half amused with this current turn of events. But I must add, thank GOD he’s not drawing for a manga now else I’d be so devastated to miss a week of his drawing. In fact, I quite miss him already. I hope things sort out for Obata-sensei. I mean, he should be able pay the fine of thirty thousand yen, right?
Source: MDN
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Otaku Champloo is...
a small serving of bittersweet manga bits by a manga addict named Khursten.
She currently digs mangas about boys who live to be men. -
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