So Antique Bakery is now over. And now to be blunt and honest, the ending sucked.
Except, you know, the ending.
So what went wrong? To be honest, I have felt that Antique Bakery has gone downhill since episode 5, with the stories becoming poorly executed and just coming across as lame. Chikage’s daughter anyone? Character development grinded to a halt, and then barely inched foreward.
And then came the ending. It was like someone waved the disney wand. Boom! Chikage randomly decides Tachibana can live on his own. Even though Tachibana wonders if he’ll really be okay, but hey, who cares about him. Boom! Eiji randomly does want to go to France! Boom! Ono is…well, nothing happens with him, really. And Tachibana, is the big BOOM! when he randomly remembers his memories. Notice how many times I use randomly. It makes no logical sense at this point in time.
And it’s all so happy and sentimental, I gagged.
Otherwise, none of the main plot lines really wrapped up. Which was pretty lame. We just kinda left poor Ono and Chikage dangling at episode 4. How cares though? But we don’t mind, right?
Yes, yes we do.
Anyway, what now? I’m going through real life issues right now, so me blogging a fall series is close to impossible. I might watch the new Gainex show, and do thoughts on that at some point.
Actually, this all came from the manga… so you can blame the manga-ka for that. And the kidnapper this time really wasn’t the original, no matter what Tachibana thought. Everything you saw in the anime came from the manga, even Chikage’s kid. And it not being typical was the point of the manga; Tachibana has to cope with his own nightmares, and at the end has started to do so since now he remembers everything. Chikage’s sense of duty is fulfilled, so he feels he can start moving on with his own life, and everyone else’s starting to go on with their lives as well. It’s not a story which is supposed to end with ‘and Tachibana is the stereotypical hero who deals justice and catches the criminal, and everyone lived happily ever after’. Life doesn’t work that way either, and that’s the point of the manga from what I remember; what they do is deal with what life gives them, and move on. Even the original kidnapper gets on with his life and gets away from his dead son and his psychosis.
@Haesslich-Thanks for the explanation, I didn’t realize this was indeed how it was suppose to go until after I made that post.
I really did dislike how it was executed , it really felt too convient to me.
As I said, blame the mangaka who did the work originally. The story was never about Tachibana catching the criminal, even if the setup looked like it. It was more about him getting on with his life after years of obsessing about his kidnapping… much as the kidnapper was obsessed with his dead son for the same amount of time. In the end, both men finally put their pasts behind them and start moving into the future. Tachibana reconciles with Ono, as he does like the guy as a friend and respected him enough back in high school to defend the guy’s honor (as shown in the episode before this, where the guys were talking about how they’d rather make out with Ono than a fat chick), even if the first time we saw that flashback looked like he was a regular old gay-basher who was traumatized by a near-rape.
And, of course, none of that had actually happened; the kidnapping was merely an attempt to replace the lost son, but in the end the kidnapper let Tachibana go because he came to his senses for a few minutes and told the boy to flee, while the gay-bashing was Tachibana responding to an ‘like you’ confession by a guy which ended up remding him all too much of the kidnapper way back when. And, of course, Ono gets a steady job he’s happy with as he’s working for someone who he knows and who he won’t be getting himself fired by for making a pass at him or the other employees. Fumi Yoshinaga has actually done doujin of Antique Bakery which follows up on this storyline, if you’re interested. It veers off into full-blown yaoi territory, though… which is probably why I haven’t made much of an effort to find it for myself.
It’s a nice change from the typical BL scenario (like Gravitation), which is probably why I actually got into the show and then the manga in the first place. I don’t usually go for that sort of manga, which is why this was nice – it’s more shoujo than it is a BL work.
@Haesslich-I just felt the ending was rushed is all. ^_^;;;;
*All I meant by the “It’s too convienent.”
Anyway, thanks for the info on the doujin.
I couldn’t agree more with Haesslich :) As a BL fan, I find Antique Bakery a very refreshing change from most BL stories cos it addresses many real-life issues that are often glossed over or not mentioned at all in BL. I rather disliked Gravitation actually ^^” Probably the minority out there.
Anyway, I understand why you felt that the ending was rushed cos it seemed like there wasn’t a proper closure to the story that we’re all used to when watching dramas. I didn’t even realise that it has ended after watching the last episode and I was hoping to see more :) I watched the raws and then watched the subs a week later thinking it was the last episode and finally realised that hey -that= episode was the last one! Lol~
Yeah, so enough rambling… I agree that the anime was uneven at times, but overall I think it was really enjoyable and fun. Awesome soundtrack too :D
pony: I’m not a BL fan, but I liked how Antique approached the issue. It really is more a shoujo manga with one gay guy than it is a BL story, especially as Ono doesn’t hook up with anyone over the course of the manga and has only a few encounters ‘on camera’, including his former teacher. They don’t focus on the BL aspects at all; it’s a gay baker, the guy he liked in high school, and several other people working at a patisserie who all have their own issues as many people do.
But as I said, blame the mangaka for the non-ending; that was her intention.
@Pony-Overall, I really liked the series, this is just a review of the ending. I’m glad you liked it too. ^_^
@Haesslich-I don’t mind the non-ending as much as the execution. Mangaka is not responsible for where the production team messed up.
They followed the story pretty close, so it’s her screw-up too. It’s like blaming Peter Jackson for the fact that Frodo wasn’t the one who threw the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom himself… when the source material had Gollum dropping in with it.
@Haesslich-This is getting rather silly. Regardless of who’s fault it was, the poor execution was not okay for me
I was disappointed with the ending too, and I agree it feels rushed and stuff just happens randomly and badly explained. I get a sense of the finale trying really hard to wrap things up although the series sort of forgot to make the pacing work to properly lead up to the conclusion.
I actually love the manga a lot and am very happy with how it ended, but the anime messes up the pacing of the original story and leaves some minor but essential bits out. Also, I don’t get too much sense of character development going on with the anime like I did with the manga, despite the anime following the original pretty closely on the story level. It’s just that the execution lacks direction and feeling, which results in problems with seeing the continuity of the character development.
I really recommend the manga; it’s basically the same story (only with more content as some of the stories that don’t revolve so tightly around the four guys didn’t make it to the anime) but the execution is much better. It’s also prettier since the animation sort of sucked most of the time in the anime.
Ara- Dang, you should be the one writing instead of me, thanks for putting how I felt into words perfectly.
Yeah, as a fan of Flowers of Life, I’ve been looking for Antique Bakery. ^_^ I have high expectations from Flowers of Life.