Rewind: Yumeiro Pâtissière

Today, I feature another anime from the ancient days, from when I used this old PC all the time and wasn't as obsessive about taking screenshots. Those were the days of anime binging and genre phases, when I searched out every acceptable vampire anime, and then every enjoyable cute anime. In other words, I watched Yumeiro Pâtissière three years ago, around the same time as La Corda d'Oro, Gauken Alice, Lucky Star, and Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. In that time of my life, I appreciated anything that would help me escape from reality, especially if it made me smile or, better, laugh. Yumeiro Pâtissière had just the pleasant, innocent, fun atmosphere I longed for, and between the first 50-episode series and the second, single season series, it wrapped me in comfort for several hours.

My biggest complaint with Yumeiro Pâtissière was the same thing that gave it major cute points: the art. Everyone looked much younger than their actual age, even by anime standards. The adults looked like high schoolers, and 14-year-old Ichigo and her classmates looked like elementary students. It was easy to forget their real ages. Of course, if I wanted realism, Yumeiro Pâtissière was the wrong place to look. It had fairies.

Cute characters looking cute in the 32nd episode. And cupcakes
looking yummy... there's a lot of mouthwatering food in this one.

Before you dismiss this as a kids' anime (which it sort of is), let me tell you that I found the story quite entertaining.

"Sure, Annalyn," you say. "But you've already admitted you were an anime binger, and you weren't very discriminating."

Actually, by 2011, I could differentiate between what would completely, grossly waste my time and what anime was worth wasting my time on. Plus, enough people shared my positive opinion of this show to give it an average 4/5 stars on Anime-Planet. I binged, but I binged on decent quality anime.

Here's some of what kept my attention in Yumeiro Pâtissière, at least from what I remember:

First, Ichigo had a special skill (amazing sense of taste), which was identified by a professional chef. She was invited to a special school, at which she would slowly rise from the bottom of her class cooking group and become a great chef. There was competition and everything. Basically, there were several of the same qualities I enjoy in sports anime.

Second, there was a bit of romance. This anime is no where near entering the romance genre, but there's enough to make me smile. Actually, Yumeiro Pâtissière has some reverse harem elements, as she becomes close to three guys... and, as you may recall, I used to have a weakness for reverse harem (I'm pretty sure I've grown out of it... though it may just be that I haven't found a decent reverse harem in a long, long time).

Third, it made me happy. Look, I don't remember all the details, but I smiled and chuckled and had an all around pleasant time. That's all I wanted.

Yumeiro Pâtissière inspired a little story that I posted on this blog, a hypothetical Valentine's Day story of sorts. That story takes me down memory lane even more than looking at old screenshots. A lot has changed in the past three years... Anyway, I wrote it when Yumeiro Pâtissière was fresher in my memory, so the short introduction probably gives better information about the show than this post does.

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P.S. I just got the news: My Macbook is finally fixed! I'll get it back on Monday, when I return to school from Spring Break. This old PC of mine has been a real trooper, and I always enjoy getting reaquainted with it, but it will be a big relief to get back on the laptop I'm most comfortable with. Plus, I've been using the small inventory of screenshots on this PC to decide what to feature in my Rewind posts. I prefer not to watch anime (or any videos) on this dear, slow, old thing. It will be nice to have the freedom to move about at the speed and ease my younger laptop allows.