Yume-iro Pâtissière (spoiler free) Review
Basic summary: This anime is about a young, energetic 14-year-old girl (in season one) named Amano Ichigo. She may be a bit clumsy, often falling down the stairs or she may screw up a recipe. Ichigo has a huge love for eating sweets and has an incredible food pallet. She can name ingredients in food with ease. One day, after an encounter with a famous pâtissier named Henri, he discovers Ichigo's amazing tasting abilities. Recognizing her talent, he offers her the chance to attend St. Marie Academy which is a prestigious culinary school that specializes in desserts. While her baking skills aren’t as good as her tasting skills, she is quick to learn the art of baking with practice and with the help of her sweets fairy, Vanilla, and the Grade A top tier sweets princes, Ando, Kashino, and Hanabusa. Ichigo’s dream is to make the same strawberry tart that her late grandmother made for her when she was a little kid.
The Sweets Princes:
Kashino is a chocolate master. His dream is to be a chocolate pâtissier just like his uncle. Kashino is very bull headed and sometimes struggles to control his anger. Although he can be hard on Ichigo due to her clumsiness, he does care about her a lot. Kashino’s sweets fairy’s name is Chocolat.
Ando is Kashino’s childhood friend. Ando specializes in Japanese sweets. His dream is to open his own sweets shop next to his family's confectionery, selling sweets that blend Japanese and Western tastes together. Ando is always calm and reliable and tries to reason with everyone. Ando acts as an older brother figure to Ichigo. Ando’s sweets fairy’s name is Caramel.
Hanabusa specializes in candy sculptures and flower-based cakes. His dream is to work together with his mother who is a master of Japanese flower arrangements and is also a teacher at St. Marie Academy. His father was a horticulturist who specialized in roses. His father died in a car accident several years before the story takes place. Ever since his father died, Hanabusa felt that he should be kind to his mother and towards women. As a result, he loves all beautiful things and is nice to all females, bordering a perpetual flirt. Hanabusa’s sweets fairy’s name is Café-kun who is the most polite of the 3 sweets fairies.
My Thoughts:
Story: 8/10
I have seen all 50 episodes of season one with my Blu-ray copy. As others have said, the main story isn’t exactly the most original (See: Yakitaté Japan or Kitchen Princess for similar bakery anime/manga series) though it does have its own little side stories that makes it its own and fun to watch. I do like that there is character development throughout the series. You can definitely see significant improvement in Ichigo’s talent as a baker as she goes from basically zero to pro. If she didn’t have her talent for tasting sweets, she would probably have had a much more difficult time becoming a pro baker.
Characters: 9/10
I would have liked to see a bit more romance involved. Especially with Kashino’s feelings for Ichigo but they are still just kids, both being 14 years old. Maybe a little more drama between him and Henri towards Ichigo to spice things up a bit between Kashino and Ichigo. The sweets fairies were all super adorable. Caramel is my favorite. Though I do wish they showed more of why the queen fairy was collecting recipe cards and what happens after enough was collected. They also never showed what happened to the card that was dropped after being sent by Vanilla. It also would have been nice to learn a bit more about the sweets fairies and how they’re born.
Enjoyment: 9/10
Definitely giving this anime a close 10! Though I think it would have been even more enjoyable if recipes were given to the fans so they could make what was made in some of the episodes. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this anime! I also really loved the art and animation! The soundtrack isn't anything to write home about. Nothing too memorable except for the opening song, which I really love! This anime was made in the year 2009. For its time, I think it was very well done and aged nicely in 2023.
Blu-ray release: 9/10
Only reason I’m giving this Blu-ray release a close 10 is because there was one episode with some missing subtitles. Otherwise, it was translated very well into English. I would have liked to see a bit more extras included like textless openings and endings and maybe some original commercials that aired in Japan or any other content related to the series would have been nice. It’s a pretty barebones release but the video quality is at least sharp and clear. There’s also no episode guidebook.
Overall: 9/10
Overall, I think this anime deserves a solid 9/10. I enjoyed this anime very much and would definitely rewatch it again in the future. I hope one day, the manga will get an official English release!
Note: I may update this review after I finish watching the second season.
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