Otaku Champloo

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.

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1. I’m forever grateful, Karl-sensei!! [↩]