Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional Update

More details, more clarity.

Alright, at the close of episode fifty of Yumeiro Patissiere, some details about the next season were revealed, both in the content of episode fifty itself, and in a next’s week preview which was for episode one of Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional. Additionally, Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional’s website is up, running, and has some more details as well. And with all of that, the picture we’ve got for what this new season has in hold for us has cleared up quite a bit.

First off, Ichigo, et. al. will not be working as professional patissiere in this season, which is a tad disappointing. Instead, they will be first year high school students, and the new season will take place after they have spent two years studying in France. Ichigo and Makoto have also essentially admitted to each other that they like each other, but have also agreed to not actually say so since they’ve still got a lot of schooling left until they are patissiere. This last bit was shown in at the very end of episode fifty right before the episode preview queued up.

Other various details:

• Team Ichigo, at least to start with, will be broken up and its members will be working with other characters
• Lemon appears to have a larger role in the new season – she is the first to appear in the preview, and she is billed third on the character page for the new season (after Ichigo and Makoto)
• there will be a new male character whose name is ‘Johnny McBeal’ who is… American; what a shock, ha
• Johnny’s Sweets Spirit is named Maize, and is a female spirit
• Pierrot has released titles for thirteen episodes; thus, there are at least thirteen episodes for this series, although I suspect there will be at least twenty-six and possibly all the way up to another full year set
• everyone has updated character designs with the exception of Henri-sensei
• the new OP is ‘Sweet Romance’ and the new ED is ‘HOME MADE HAPPY’
• Henri-sensei will appear in the first episode and tell Ichigo about some ‘serious project’ that he wants her to help with

And, lordy, does Hanabusa look wicked gayed up. You can see them all here on the official page for the new series. Hanabusa’s hair is now long… and he has hairclips. And he appears to have a newfound penchant for purple and pink. Actually, his alternate outfit looks kind of like he took tips from Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence Apocalypse’s incarnation of Akio. Other commentary on the new designs:

• holy shit, Miya has boobs… Ichigo has some, and Mari has some, but Miya’s got everyone beaten out on that front
• Andou also has longer hair, but he’s gone a quasi-traditional route with it – so no hair clips here
• everyone definitely looks older; thank goodness no one took a page out of KyoAni’s book on this one – in particular, Mari’s design update does a very good job of actually making her look like an adult, and Lemon’s does a good job of aging her by two years, something that can be tricky when dealing with young characters who are still pretty young even after a time skip
• Makoto’s updated design is the weak link, if only because his basic look really hasn’t changed at all; with the other guys (excepting Henri-sensei), they’ve got different hair to help emphasize the change in age, but Makoto seems to have just gained some height and maybe become a bit broader in the chest
• the Sweets Spirits do not look different 😉

I’m happy that they’re rolling right into the next season with no break in-between, although it did mean a random break a few weeks back. And it looks like Crunchyroll is going to just continue carrying it without any separate page made for the new season, and without any particular announcement or new licensing deal. I’ll admit to be a bit surprised here, as Crunchyroll does have separate pages for Naruto and Naruto Shippuden.

I’ll admit that I’m a bit dissatisfied with how they are setting up Ichigo and Makoto for this season – with showing them as mutually interested right off the bat, I feel a bit cheated of seeing how they make the jump from Makoto being tsundere and Ichigo being crazy about Henri-sensei. Unless they are planning on doing major flashbacks, this will continue to be mildly irritating, as Ichigo was very far from being interested in Makoto romantically at the close of the Cake Grand Prix.

It also seems that Johnny will provide the third point in the romantic triangle this season, not Hanabusa as some were hoping or predicting. This actually makes more sense, as surely Andou and Hanabusa spend enough time with Ichigo and Makoto to have picked up on the fact that Hanabusa wouldn’t have a prayer. So at least we won’t be having to deal with the kind of melodrama that would arise were the competing guy within our core cast itself. It also means that we might be forgoing melodrama almost entirely, as Johnny already looks like he won’t have any chance either and will mainly provide humor in the manner that Miya already does.

Speaking of Miya, she will have a similarly-sized role in the new series as she did in the first one. She really grew on me as a character with the passage of time, so I’m happy about that, although I really, really hope that she isn’t as Makoto-crazed. I just want her to have matured a bit, you know? I also don’t want any more crazy-jealous ladies floating around, a la Mari in the first season vis-a-vis Ichigo and Henri-sensei.

Speaking of which, I wouldn’t be altogether too shocked if Mari and Henri-sensei did become romantically involved in this season. She’s an adult now, so…

Anyway, while this season will surely have romance involved, I do hope it remains fairly low-key. I just think that the first season was pretty solid, and that the lack of romance was actually very nice for a shoujo show, so I’d prefer it not become overly concerned with it. I tune in for the character development and for the competitiveness, so I’m all for going light on romance. But it’ll probably become apparent very quickly how heavy the season plans to go on the love-love aspect.

Uh, but with Ichigo and Makoto virtually a lock, and Hanabusa having stepped aside, you can lay a pretty safe bet on the incidence of HanabusaxAndou fanfics making a significant tick upwards. Which to me is, more than anything, hysterical, since despite my fujoshi ways, I find myself fairly reluctant to slash anyone in this show. It just doesn’t lend itself particularly well to such an interpretation.

Hmm, I think that about covers it. I’m eagerly awaiting next week’s episode and the new season!