Yumeiro Patissiere
Encyclopedia
is a shōjo manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 and anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series by Natsumi Matsumoto. It began serialization on September 3, 2008, in the October 2008 issue of Ribon
Ribon
is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are Nakayoshi and Ciao. Its target audience is young girls roughly 9–13 years old. In 2009, the magazine's circulation was 274,167, down from the previous year's circulation numbers of 330,000...

. The individual chapters have been collected into nine tankōbon
Tankobon
, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

volumes by Shueisha
Shueisha
is a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...

 as of May 2011. The series ended on June 3, 2011, and is expected to be 10 volumes total. The manga won the 56th Shogakukan Manga Awards
Shogakukan Manga Award
The is one of Japan's major manga awards, sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga since 1955 and features candidates from a number of publishers.The current award categories are:...

 in the Children's category.

The series was adapted into two TV anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 by Studio Pierrot
Studio Pierrot
is a Japanese animation/animation studio, founded in 1979 by former employees of Tatsunoko Production. Its headquarters is located in Mitaka, Tokyo.The company has a simple logo of the face of a clown...

 and Studio Hibari
Studio Hibari
' is a Japanese animation company founded in July 1979.-Co-Produced:*Ojamanga Yamada-kun *Captain Tsubasa...

. The series is licensed by Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is an American website and international online community focused on streaming East Asian media including anime, manga, drama, music, electronic entertainment, and auto racing content...

 for online streaming with English subtitles.

Plot

14-year-old Ichigo Amano is clumsy and doesn't have any talent except for eating sweets (specifically cakes). When she stumbles upon a Sweets Festival, she meets Henri-sensei who acknowledges her ability of taste and invites her to transfer to St. Marie Academy to become a pâtissière. Ichigo has trouble adjusting initially, but with the help of the 3 Sweets Princes and the Sweets Spirits, she gains the confidence and skill to work towards becoming a pâtissière.

Two years after studying in Paris, the 16-year-old Ichigo now returns to Japan as a professional pâtissière. But as soon as she returns, Ichigo finds Team Ichigo breaking up. The Sweets Princes, Hanabusa and Andou, take long absences from school to work for their dreams, leaving only Ichigo and Kashino. Kashino skipped a grade due to having top grades back at Paris. Soon a 'new' Team Ichigo is formed by Henri-"sensei" for the project. The team includes, Lemon, Johnny, Kashino and Ichigo. They are now working as professionals for the project and their dreams.

Main Characters

Like the typical heroines, Ichigo is clumsy, naive, and innocent, but is also optimistic and lively. Her mother ignored her for many years for having no talent (comparing to her younger sister, Natsume, who plays the piano very well). Due to her incredible palate that allows her to immediately tell what ingredients are used in different sweets and who made the ingredients, she is spotted by Henri Lucas during a Sweets Festival. On his suggestion, she transfers to St. Marie Academy in order to train to become a pâtissiere like her grandmother. Ichigo is also known for her huge appetite for cakes; she claims there is a second stomach specifically for sweets, and has won several cake eating contests in the past. As the story progresses, Ichigo improves her talent as a pâtissiere and gains new friends and rivals along the way. Ichigo wins the hearts of almost everyone with her hard work and love for pastries. Her dream is to create sweets that makes people smile. She initially had an innocent crush on Henri Lucas for his princely looks and kindness. However, as the series progresses, she falls in love with Kashino, who returns her feelings.

At the end of the last episode of the first season of the anime, Ichigo and Kashino promise to tell each other about their feelings when they're accomplished patissiers. During the second season, she is 16 years old and is in a new Group A, consisting of herself, Lemon, Rumi, and Johnny McBeal. She is also a part of the Henri-senseis project, Marie's Garden, which includes Kashino, Lemon, and Johnny. In the very last episode of Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional, Kashino tells her that he always wants to be able to make sweets with her, and accidentally kisses her. It is hinted that she and Kashino will be starting a new shop in London.


One of the "Sweets Princes" of the St. Marie's Academy who specializes in chocolate. Andou is his childhood friend and Hanabusa is his roommate. Kashino is sometimes teased or misjudged due to his height, for he is the shortest of the Sweets Princes. He comes from a prestigious family of doctors who do not approve of his career choice. Due to a condition that his family gave him to attend St. Marie, he is always at the top of his class. Kashino is generally unsociable, straightforward, easily angered, and prickly. He greatly admires his uncle (who is a chocolatier) and spent a lot of time in his shop when he was little (which inspired him to become a pâtissier). Even though he is hard on Ichigo's klutzy personality, he warms up to her to the point of being teammates and friends, and later falls in love with her.

In the second season, Kashino skipped a year in school because of his excellent grades during Team Ichigo's study abroad in Paris. He is 16, but still conscious about his height, as Johnny regularly teases him for it. Whenever he sees Johnny holding Ichigo, he becomes visibly jealous. At the end of the series, he asks Ichigo if she will stay with him forever.


One of the "Sweets Princes" of the school who specializes in candy sculptures and flower-based cakes. Hanabusa's dream is to work with his mother, who excels at Japanese flower arrangement
Ikebana
is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, also known as .-Etymology:"Ikebana" is from the Japanese and . Possible translations include "giving life to flowers" and "arranging flowers".- Approach :...

 and is the flower arranging teacher at St. Marie Academy. His father was a horticulturist who specialized in roses and died in a car accident several years before the story takes place. The bottle of rose water Hanabusa keeps is a memento of his father. Since his father died, Hanabusa felt that he should be kind to his mother and women in general. As a result, Hanabusa always centered on roses, and is extremely nice to all females (to the point of being a borderline perpetual flirt). He also seems narcissistic and heavily concerned about his appearance; for example, Café implies that Hanabusa needs more than an hour to get ready for school in the mornings. In Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional, Hanabusa starts to work on his dream with his mother and takes an indefinite leave of absence from school. He admits that he is also in love with Ichigo, although he tells Kashino that he can have her (presumably to make Ichigo happy), but that if she ever dumps him he will claim her for himself.


One of the "Sweets Princes" of the school who specializes in Japanese sweets. Andou's dream is to open his own shop that sells a blend of Eastern and Western sweets next door to his family's Japanese sweets shop, Yumezuki. Andou is the eldest of five siblings, and he often goes to help at his family's shop during holidays and weekends. He is a childhood friend of Kashino, calling him "Ma-chan" in the manga and "Ma-kun" in the anime. Andou is always calm, reliable, and tries to reason with everyone, acting somewhat like an older brother to Team Ichigo. Andou cares about Caramel like a little sister, and he is always overjoyed whenever Caramel does something nice for him. He looks out for Ichigo and tends to worry about her a lot. In the second season Andou is working on his dream and takes a leave of absence from school, opening a branch of his family's Yumezuki on the international street of Henri-senseis project. In Episode 11 of season two, he admits that he's in love with Ichigo but he gives her up for Kashino. Hanabusa claims that the reason behind it was because he was already dating Kana.

Sweets Spirits

Ichigo's Sweets Spirit who specializes in vanilla
Vanilla
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...

. Often labeled a Spartan, Vanilla's attitude is quite fiery. She generally fights with Chocolat, though they don't seem to actually hate each other, and in fact they work together in the manga for a Sweets Kingdom test. She is often called pudgy. Ichigo and Vanilla consider each other to be best friends, and are extremely loyal to each other. Vanilla often plays a big part in cheering Ichigo up whenever she feels discouraged. Her sweets magic can decorate plates, make people shrink to the size of a Sweets Spirit, or fill the entire room with a pastry's scent. She can also translate Sweets Spirit language into Japanese.


Kashino's Sweets Spirit who is skilled in chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

. Chocolat has a competitive spirit but is easily frightened. She is a classic example of a tsundere
Tsundere
is a Japanese character development process that describes a person who is initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing their warm side over time. The word is derived from the terms , meaning to turn away in disgust, and meaning to become 'lovey dovey'...

 character, though it seems that she is somewhat losing this trait as the series progresses. Although she appears to dislike Ichigo, she actually cares for her and helps her whenever needed. She may not look like it, but she cares for Kashino and considers the pair as a "married couple". In season two, it shows that she cares deeply about the Sweets Spirit Kasshy and may have romantic feelings for him.


Andou's Sweets Spirit who is useful with caramel
Caramel
Caramel is a beige to dark-brown confection made by heating any of a variety of sugars. It is used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, and as a topping for ice cream, custard and coffee....

. Although Caramel is the eldest out of Team Ichigo's Sweets Spirits, she is clumsy like Ichigo and tends to cry a lot. She commonly ends her sentences with desu. Café states that she has a terrible sense of direction. She considers Andou to be her big brother. Her sweets magic allows her to make pastry pictures to show someone how the sweets look like.


Hanabusa's Sweets Spirit who is good with coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

. Café is polite, smart, and very calm. He looks up to Hanabusa and sees him as his senpai. Café can make extremely bitter coffee as a potent way of making Team Ichigo more awake.


Mari Tennouji's Sweet Spirit who specializes in honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

. She is mature, cool, and calm. Even though her expression is always serious, she is very friendly and kind to everyone. The Jerks call her Honey-Pig, much to her disgust. She is very well respected among the Sweets Spirits, with many of who call her Honey-sama. She is similar to Mari, though they may not look too much alike as Mari cuts her hair in the second season.


Miya's Sweets Spirit who likes to use chestnuts
Chestnut
Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...

. She tends to be a bit rude and arrogant. Although people note that Marron and Miya have similar personalities, they deny that fact (which seems as if Marron is against Miya at times).


Lemon's Sweets Spirit who specializes in mint
MiNT
MiNT is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST and its successors. Together with the free system components fVDI , XaAES , and TeraDesk , MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that is capable of multitasking.MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as...

. Like Lemon admires Ichigo, Mint admires Vanilla, ending her name with sempai. She is said to be the youngest of the new Team Ichigo's Spirits at the age of 150. Mint usually ends her sentence with "deshi".


Maize is Johnny's Sweets Spirit who specializes in deeply fried sweets. She is strong-willed enough to have anyone bow down to her. Maize is very polite, but can also be very strict, especially when thinking that someone is being rude. She has enough power to burn people to a crisp. Maize is not very good at Japanese, generally using incorrect Japanese and dropping random English words into her sentences. Maize only appears in the second series.


The Sweet Spirit of Ichigo's grandmother and the former director of the Sweet Spirits Museum. On New Year's, Ichigo goes to the Sweet Kingdom for the first time. After meeting the troublesome trio, The Jerks, she follows Kasshi when spotting him in town. Ichigo gets lost is the mysterious forest and meets Marjoram for the first time. Marjoram helps Ichigo find for way to The Jerk's hide away and give Ichigo an old spoon that serves a later purpose. While Ichigo is in the Grand Prix, she wants to know her grandmother's special strawberry tart recipe that always made her smile. When she breaks into the museum to find it she gets caught and meets Marjoram once again. There, when Ichigo tells Marjoram that she wants to see her grandmother's recipe again, Marjoram gives her a test the Ichigo's grandmother asked Marjoram to do.

Supporting Characters

The grandchild of Marie Lucas who created St. Marie Academy to raise patissiers. Due to unknown circumstances, he transferred to Paris to teach at the main campus right before Ichigo moved to the Japanese St. Marie campus. He is known as a "master of sweets," and a "master of dance." Henri is characterized as calm, collected, and a handsome gentleman. But shows his true colors when Mari looses in the Grand Prix, though he shows great interest in Ichigo and Tennouji as pâtissieres and seems to favor both of them among all his students. Henri wants to do the same thing by training Ichigo like his grandfather did to Ichigo's grandmother. During the Gran prix, he acts like a bad guy on purpose to show ichigo that she has the power to become a great patissiere and surpass her grandmother. In season 2 in episode 10, he is cruel to Mari, saying that he should use somebody else to run her shop.


One of Henri Lucas' favorite students. She is the daughter of a hotel owner and the Student Council President of the Japanese St. Marie campus. Mari is often referred as the "Princess" of St. Marie Academy. She is known as a genius when it comes to pastry. Though she has been given many awards for her excellent work, she has stated that all of her medals and trophies are meaningless compared to the attention she wants from Henri Lucas. Mari constantly works very hard to improve her skills, regardless of her being the St. Marie Academy's top student. In the anime version of the semi-finals of the Cake Grand Prix, she lost to Team Francois. In SP Professional, she has cut her hair and currently lives in New York to help Henri-senseis with a shop. Her Sweets Spirit is Honey, who is well respected like she is.


Known as "Heiress" by other students, Miya is the daughter of the president of the famed "Château Seika" company which specializes in creating and delivering chocolates and other sweets. She is very determined to get whatever she desires and as such, whenever she is in a pinch she relies heavily on her family's power and wealth to get what she wants (e.g. she bought the Andorra campus of St. Marie in order to compete in the World Cake Grand Prix). She has a habit of ordering the highest quality ingredients in order to get an edge on her competition. She has an obsessive crush on Kashino, to the point where she has memorabilia of him and has constant dreams about him. Her sweet spirit is Marron.


One of the members of Group C and Ichigo's roommate/best friend at St. Marie Academy. Rumi speaks in an Osaka dialect and has a long distance boyfriend named Takuya. She always sticks up for Ichigo when she is bullied and cheers Ichigo's team on in the Cake Grand Prix. In the second season, Rumi is in the A group together with Ichigo, Lemon, and Johnny.


A student from the main St. Marie campus in Paris who challenges Team Ichigo early on in the Cake Grand Prix. She later learns to be humble from Ichigo and returns to Paris. In the second season, she transfers to Japan and joins the new Team Ichigo to work on Henri-senseis project. She skipped a year for having top grades and is in Group A with Ichigo, Rumi, and Johnny. She admires Ichigo and looks up to her.

Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional

Johnny is one of the members in group A with Ichigo, though he prefers to work independently as opposed to working with a group. He is a transfer student from America and Miya Koshiro's cousin. His dream is to create a sweet that originates from America, since there are few that actually originate from the country. When he meets Ichigo he quickly falls in love with her and becomes jealous of Kashino, commenting that he wishes she "talked about him with sparkling eyes, in the same way she does when talking of Kashino." He is part of Henri Lucas' project, working with Lemon, Ichigo, and Kashino.

Manga

Written and drawn by Natsumi Matsumoto, the Yumeiro Patissiere manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 began serialization in the shōjo manga magazine Ribon
Ribon
is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are Nakayoshi and Ciao. Its target audience is young girls roughly 9–13 years old. In 2009, the magazine's circulation was 274,167, down from the previous year's circulation numbers of 330,000...

 on September 3, 2008 in the October issue of the magazine. Each chapter is called a "recette" (French for recipe); The series ended on June 3, 2011 and is 10 volumes total. The series is licensed by Sharp Point Press
Sharp Point Press
Sharp Point Press is a Taiwanese publisher of manga and music. It was founded in June 1982.-History:*1982 - Company established. Mainly publishes military and models related books.*1985 - Started publishing annual Zodiac fortune telling handbook....

 in Taiwan.

Anime

The anime adaptation was accidentally announced in June 2009 by a listing from one of the card game series based on the manga. The series began airing on October 4, 2009 on Yomiuri TV. The series currently simulcasts on Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is an American website and international online community focused on streaming East Asian media including anime, manga, drama, music, electronic entertainment, and auto racing content...

 with English subtitles. The sweets in the series were all created by the Paris-based patissier Aoki Sadaharu. A one episode side story, title was shown at the "Natsu Doki– Ribon–kko Party 5" event for Ribon magazine in the summer of 2010. The episode was included on a DVD with the November issue of Ribon. A second series, taking place two years later than the first, began airing on October 3, 2010. The second season is entitled Yumeiro Pâtissière SP Professional and introduces new characters.

Music

The first season of the anime series uses two pieces of theme music
Theme music
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...

, one opening and one closing. The opening is and the ending is . The CD single for the two was released by the Columbia Music Entertainment
Columbia Music Entertainment
is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as . It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK Columbia trademarks in 1931. The company changed its name to Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. in 1946. It used the Nippon Columbia name until...

 on January 20, 2010 in a regular and limited edition. The limited edition comes with extra charms and costs ¥1,365, but is otherwise the same as the regular edition, which costs ¥1,050. A soundtrack for the series was released on April 21, 2010, entitled .

Video Game

A Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

 game based on the series was released on May 27, 2010. The game is entitled and was released by Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...

.

Card Game

A trading card game based on the manga was released in Japan by Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...

 during the serialization of the series. There are two different series, Sweets Deco Cards and My Sweets Cards.

Cookbook

A cookbook
Cookbook
A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...

 for the series entitled (ISBN 978-4-08-102082-9) was released by Shueisha on December 1, 2009 for ¥
Japanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...

1200.

Reception

Carlos Santos of Anime News Network
Anime News Network
Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...

 calls the anime "a baking-themed series so rife with clichés that it's hard to tell where the plagiarism stops and the actual show begins." Other reviewers on the same site had slightly better opinions of the series though. Carl Kimlinger calls it "pure shōjo fluff" and says that it is a "sugary little distraction that won't harm any sensibilities." Theron Martin suggests either eating before or during viewing as the series is "undoubtedly one of the tastiest-looking series to come along in quite some time." Martin critiqued the art of the series however, saying "The dessert designs are unquestionably the visual highlight, as otherwise the artistry and technical merits are rather bland." Summer Mullins also notes that the sweets are the best part of the animation, saying, "those detailed shots [of the sweets] highlight the fact that some of the animation is only so-so". As of May 11, 2010 Crunchyroll's website listed Yumeiro Patissiere with an overall ranking of 4.8 out of 5 stars, with a total of 1761 votes.

The manga received the Shogakukan Manga Award
Shogakukan Manga Award
The is one of Japan's major manga awards, sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga since 1955 and features candidates from a number of publishers.The current award categories are:...

for best children's manga of 2010.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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