OH NOES TEH GAY!!1
Well, not really, but that seems to be the enduring impression people have of this show.
As the show opens, we see a man dreaming of himself as a child, running breathlessly from a man whose face we never see. This turns out to be Keisuke Tachibana, a man who has recently quit the company he works to open a bakery, aided by his parents’ money.
But Tachibana hasn’t quite hired everyone yet, so we soon meet with Yasuke Ono, the infamous “gay of demonic charm”. Tachibana is disturbed to meet Ono, whom had confessed to him in their senior year of high school, only to be rejected. But Ono doesn’t remember him, and warns Tachibana of his “gay demonic charm”, as he states that Tachibana is his type.
Meanwhile, an overwrought young man, Eiji Kanda, is told by his boxing coach that he has a completely detached retina, and, therefore, can no longer box. As he breaks down in from of his coach, Eiji is assured that there is life after boxing, and that his coach has plenty of connections… all with ramen shops.
After being interviewed, Ono takes Tachibana out to a gay bar to prove that he is hazardous to work with. And promptly has the entire bar simpering over him, with one man in particular falling under his charms. However, Tachibana is completely unaffected, and when Ono attempts to come on to him, he shouts out that he was the one who rejected Ono back in high school. Apparently, though, Ono doesn’t remember the incident exactly, and tells Tachibana that it’s ok, especially since that allowed him to break out of himself and end up being who he is now. But, later on, as he walks along the street with one of the men from earlier, he abruptly remembered the entire scene, and it turns out that eighteen-year old Tachibana wouldn’t have exactly been welcome in a Gay-Straight Alliance club meeting.
Meanwhile, Eiji walks by Antique Bakery’s door and sees a help wanted sign… hmm…
Impressions:
*sighs* I’m so disappointed. This was actually worse that Junjou Romantica – at least Junjou Romantica didn’t seem to take itself seriously, but this does, making the outburts of over-the-top anything (angst, anguish, lust, etc.) seem completely absurd. This was a good manga, so seeing this is just terribly disappointing, but perhaps the original story simply does not lend itself well to screen – on paper the emotions don’t seem overdone, but perhaps that is since they lack noise and movement (this is what I think was the Vampire Knight TV series’s problem, honestly). What seemed ok on paper in Ono’s behavior suddenly becomes uncomfortably stereotyped on the screen, especially when he comes on to Tachibana. Ugh.
On the other hand, I have to give major props to the OP and ED. Curiously enough, they are both the same song, but different cuts of it, something I truthfully did not notice at first, as they have very different overall mood. The song is “Life Goes On”, by CHEMISTRY, designated ‘~side K~’ and ‘~side D~’ respectively. But the animation for the OP and ED is where it’s at, the OP giving us cardboard cut-outs in a doll’s house version of the bakery itself, and the ED featuring crumbling puzzles of the cast, with pieces falling into seriously well-animated water.
Anyway, I can’t see myself continuing to blog this. I will probably watch some more episodes, but I really don’t feel like devoting time to blogging it. Oh well – at least Birdy the Mighty Decode looks like it’ll be really good.
GAR GAR Stegosaurus 
I agree. It really surprised me to see people saying they liked this adaptation. Antique Bakery certainly didn’t have to turn out this way; it’s just that the direction is absolutely tone-deaf.
I haven’t read the manga, but I thought ep1 was pretty good. It didn’t seem overdone to me, just had its own style. Once again, I am glad of not having read a manga. We’ll see how the next couple of episodes go. But I am so glad to read comments on this show that don’t seem to come from the basic premise “oh noes, teh gay!” Lol.
As for your sideswipe of Vampire Knight, I loved that show. It had qualities that made it the equal of the manga, for me.
Oh didn’t notice that the OP and ED were two parts of the same song. As for the overdone feel you got from the episode, it’s the organ music I tell you, the organ music!!
Haha, I didn’t like this either!
Hmm I think it might be too early to tell if it’s that bad. I actually liked the first episode, I mean it’s kind of uncomfortable the tension b/w tachibana and ono, but I think once they start baking it’ll be more about life in the bakery, and how the characters change from working together. I liked the opening, very cool, and the nice animation. I guess the show takes itself kind of seriously, but I took it as a funny seriousness b/c the whole show is so focused on and obsessed with baking- which to me seems more weird/funny than pretentious. but I guess we’ll see how it goes from here…
@ Dagger, blissmo – Phew, good to know at least some people out there agree with me!
@ hashihime – I just felt that, in both cases, the addition of sound and animation seems to make them seem over-the-top where they seemed simply dramatic on page.
@ Susie Q – It wasn’t that I found the tension between Tachibana and Ono uncomfortable, it was that I found Ono’s come-on to Tachibana painfully stereotyped, along with much of the gay bar scene. While I’ll never claim that BL is realistic of gay guys and relationships, this just felt insultingly stereotyped in its depiction.
I skipped through it a bit and thought it looked pretty bad. But, that could just be because one of the parts I skipped to was the ridiculous scene with the leather jacket and CG feathers.