Review of Yumeiro Patissiere and Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional

Within the past year, there was this unknown let alone underrated series called Yumeiro Patissiere. It's a show about cooking, and no it has nothing to do with the Cooking Mama game for the Nintendo DS or the iPhone. The two series are based off the Yumeiro Patissiere manga, which is written by Natsumi Matsumoto and began its serialization Shueisha magazine in Japan on September 3, 2008; it is currently ongoing. Yumeiro Patissiere aired from October 4, 2009 to September 26, 2010 providing a total of 50 episodes, while the sequel, Yumeiro Patissiere SP Professional, immediately followed with an additional 13 episodes from October 3, 2010 to December 26, 2010. There was also a short OVA released on October 2, 2010. Also, for all you shoujo haters, you may as well stop reading now.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!

Summary
So yeah I said earlier that this show is about cooking. Well that's only half of it. From what initially seems like a cutesy moe show, Yumeiro Patissiere follows 14-year-old Ichigo Amano, who is a klutz and talentless. The only thing unique about her is her ability to known exactly the ingredients used in every sweet she eats, especially cakes. At a Sweets Festival, Ichigo meets Henri, a patissiere who acknowledges her unique talent and recommends her to attend St. Marie Academy, a school for students who dream to become patissieres and unbeknown to Ichigo, the same school her grandmother attended. She is immediately put into the best group in her class with the three Sweet Princes: Makoto Kashino, Sennosuke Andou, and Satsuki Hanabusa. While Ichigo initially has trouble adjusting to her sudden new lifestyle, with the help of her sweet spirit, Vanilla as well as the Sweet Princes and their spirits: Chocolat, Caramel, and Cafe, respectively, Ichigo is eventually able to find a niche for herself on the team and establishes "Team Ichigo" with the four of them.

In the sequel, Ichigo has returned to Japan 2 years after studying abroad in Paris. When she returns, Andou and Satsuki have both decided to leave St. Marie Academy and pursue their own dreams. Makoto, on the other hand, decided to stay behind, but is now one year ahead of Ichigo, thus resulting in the disbanding of Team Ichigo. However, thanks to Henri, a new Team Ichigo has formed and have been asked to work on a new project: St. Marie's Garden.

Review (Season 1)
So now that I've given the long winded summary of essentially the first two or three episodes, what's so special about this show? Well first of all, it's a reverse harem I mean it's essentially a slice of life show if you cut out all the spirits stuff. They're just there to make things a bit more entertaining. But that's not the real reason for why this show jumped in terms of ratings over the year it aired. The real reason was the pacing and development of the plot. Unlike most shows nowadays, this show actually has a plot and it is executed well. While the show initially seems extremely slow and dragging for the first 13 episodes or so, the story begins to really pick up once they hit the Cake Grand Prix, which basically then takes up the rest of the series along with bits and pieces of character development along the way. The Cake Grand Prix competition is where the series really shines. It shows the creativity of both the mangaka and the characters themselves without doing anything too fancy. No magical powers, no deus-ex, etc...

The show presents all kinds of scenarios from Team Ichigo, including wins and losses, as well as what happens when one member is stripped from the team. If you think about it, it's pretty much a scaled down version of Tytania, which is a scaled down version of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. While the "strategy meetings" and execution of those strategies are nowhere near the epic levels of the aforementioned series, they are still great in their own right.

In addition, the plot twists in this show are absolutely out of nowhere. Things you would never expect to happen in a show like this actually do happen, which makes it more interesting since the plot is then not always linear and at least has a sense of originality. The plot twist that takes place within the final few episodes was the true shocker of the show and made the finale a truly exciting one. In addition, the show leaves no corner unturned. Everything in this show had a meaning....well, maybe that's exaggerating a bit....but many little details definitely did, especially the back story about Ichigo's grandmother's strawberry tart, which had clues and foreshadowing scattered throughout the entire series.

Overall, the show had quite the incredible growth and while the choice of voice cast wasn't exactly spectacular, particularly Ichigo's, which is by Aoi Yuuki (Mina Tepes in Dance in the Vampire Bund and Murasaki Kuhouin in Kure-nai), it definitely put many of the other shows that aired throughout the year to shame, especially many of the other shows that began airing at the same time as this show, including Darker than Black 2, Nyan Koi!, Kiddy Girl -and, and Winter Sonata. The question now is can the same be said for the sequel?

Review (Season 2)

Season 2 of Yumeiro aired immediately after the conclusion of season 1 and takes place 2 years later. Unlike the first series, however, the second season focuses more on Team Ichigo's career as well as the shoujo genre. While the shoujo genre is present in the first series, the coming of age genre was more predominant as the shoujo theme never got anywhere until the final episode. Those last five minutes essentially became the basis of the sequel. Everything, from the OP video to the themes of the show, became more traditional shoujo-like, especially the OP video, which is quite good by the way.

Anyways, those who managed to live through the first season and enjoy its finale definitely had high expectations for the second series, especially since the first season is fresh in mind. While the advancement in  Makoto's and Ichigo's relationship is a nice touch, it wasn't really developed and kinda thrown in all together in the final 3 episodes. The sequel not only felt extremely short, but also extremely rushed with a bunch of filler thrown in between, especially the 4 episode arc regarding Chocolat and Kashi. All in all, the execution was poor and I'm sure those of us watching the sequel were hoping that it would at least be another 24-26 episode series. The introduction of Johnny McBeal was also quite out there, and while a hilarious character, it felt like more of a plot device so that Miya wasn't as dumb as she was in the prequel if she were to act alone. While the show didn't quite end on a sour note as it left hope for a third season, it was probably better to have left the first season as is for now and follow-up with a second season once there was more manga material as that lack seemed to have been the case for the sequel.

Regardless, the second season was still fun and definitely better than most other shows airing this season. While not as strong as some series like Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai or Tegami Bachi Reverse, it was definitely better than some shows like Soredemo Machi wa Mawatte Iru or Togainu no Chi. Hopefully a third season will be made in the future as this show is definitely one of the better titles out there right now. While not everyone's favorite because of all the little "cutesy" and moe drawings, the actual moe is actually kept to a minimal in the show and tends to have a more serious tone overall.

Recommendations
If you enjoyed Shugo Chara! and Shugo Chara!! Doki, Card Captor Sakura, this is probably the next closest thing. A close second is likely Full Moon wo Sagashite or Fruits Basket. I've also heard recommendations for those who have seen Itazura na Kiss, which I have yet to watch, as well as those who have seen Ouran High School Host Club, but that is likely stretching it.
Of course if you want top-notch shoujo, NANA, Glass Mask, and Rose of Versailles are all classics and simply the way to go

Likelihood of US License?
A DVD release of Yumeiro Patissiere in the US is almost 100% unlikely. While both seasons were simulcasted on Crunchyroll, even in Japan, the popularity of this show is low. It's really a shame since this show is quite the buried treasure. It is likely the biggest underdog of this year's titles. At best we get a subbed DVD release by Sentai Filmworks, but even then, the appeal to the general American audience is probably going to be negligible and the sales will reflect that. It is likely to be worse than that of Ookiku Furikabutte (Big Windup!), which alone resulted in reducing the chance of licensing its respective sequel to 0%. So enjoy it on Crunchyroll while you can.