• YAKITATE!! JAPAN

My current fave anime show... it's really funny... wahahaha...

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Yakitate!! Japan (meaning "Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan"?) is a manga serialised in Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday, by Takashi Hashiguchi. 21 graphic novels have been released as of January 2006. For the anime 69 episodes were produced by Sunrise, and was broadcast on TV Tokyo and other local stations from October 2004 to March 2006.
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The series won the 2004 Shogakukan Manga Prize for best Shonen Manga.

PLOT
The story focuses on Kazuma Azuma, a boy on his quest to create Ja-pan, a national bread for Japan itself. He initially heads to Tokyo to expand his bread-making horizons at the bread-making chain Pantasia; the story continues with Azuma's exploits with his other coworkers.
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The title of this series itself is a play on words; Yakitate translates to "freshly baked", but Japan has a double meaning. Besides referring to the country of Japan, "pan" is the Japanese word for "bread" (a borrowed word stemming from Portuguese "pao". Ja-pan is a pun for this series. This mimics the style of the names of other varieties of bread in Japanese, such as "furansupan" (French Bread), "doitsupan" (German rye-based bread), "itariapan" (Italian bread), etc..
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Besides the desire to create his Ja-pan, Kazuma also possesses the legendary Solar Hands. These hands are warmer than normal human hand temperature, and allow the dough to ferment faster. This gives him some advantage at the beginning of the series, but his innovation and many Ja-pans are what really shine through.
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Although the story has baking as its main theme, the parts that generate the most interest are the outrageous puns in the story. Especially notable are the "reaction" based puns made by the judges, who go to great lengths to prove a single point about the bread that they tasted. The series in general also pokes fun at the shonen genre's tendency to be melodramatic over mundane tasks.
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While the characters might create the most extreme breads, most of them are actually real, or are at least based on real bread. Hashiguchi employs a bakery consultant, Kouichi Uchimura. Uchimura creates bread similar to the bread in the manga, and some of the bread in the manga are actually his invention. Uchimura runs a bakery called Pan no Mimi in Kyoto.

MAIN CHARACTERS
Kazuma Azuma - a bread artisan who dreams of making the perfect Japan. He doesn't seem very bright, but when it comes to bread he's a genius. He is knowledgeable about rice because of his grandfather. Azuma also has solar hands, exceptionally warm hands that allow the yeast to ferment faster and better when he is making his bread. Eternally optimistic and cheerful, he never gets upset from challenges faced in baking competitions, but rather from emotional tragedies. He gets his insipirations for his ja-pan from random sources, like other Japanese foods and stories from his experienced but overtalkative grandfather, a rice farmer. Unexpectedly great at math when he solved a complicated math problem in his head in less than a minute that took Pierrot hours to conceive written out in the sand.
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Kyousuke Kawachi - Coworker and sidekick to Azuma, from the Kansai area. Initially, Kawachi's knowledge is superior to Azuma's, but as the story develops he becomes the fall guy and comedic relief with jokes focused on his incessant cry of "Whaaaaaaat?!" ("Nanyate?!") in every chapter. He considers Azuma to be his rival, but the two develop a dynamic that is more like an older and younger brother, Kawachi being more experienced than Azuma in the world beyond bread. With Tsukino's help, he has obtained "solar gauntlets", solar hands developed through physical training. He is somewhat lazy and perverted, but at desperate times he focuses his effort to create exceptional bread. On one such occasion, he fulfilled the dream of his late father, a diligent but untalented baker, who wanted to make a white bread that was healthy, delicious, and could be eaten everyday. Interesting note about Kawachi is his hair style. Quite possibly the anime character with THE MOST hair style changes throughout the entire series. (A total of 4)
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Kai Suwabara - Kuroyanagi's understudy, a serious bread artisan. A master of the katana who claims to have left the swordsman path of destruction to follow the path of life-giving bread. Despite that, he often becomes very warrior-like and fearsome during baking competitions, which occasionally makes other characters wonder if he is truly focused on the 'life-giving' aspect of his bread. Like Kawachi, he has solar gauntlets and considers Azuma as a rival.

Shigeru Kanmuri - An extremely talented Pantasia baker, encountered first during the Pantasia Newcomers' Tournament and discovered to posses the solar hands as well. A Harvard graduate like Kuroyanagi, he looks up to him as a mentor, calling him 'Senpai'(Senior). He is considered as a "Harvard Junior Genius", having graduated the prestigious school at a very young age of sixteen. Originally working for Tsukino's evil sister Yukino Azusagawa, Kanmuri defected to the Pantasia's Southern Tokyo store to work with Azuma. He remained to keep the store throughout the Monaco Cup, but rejoined the team for the Yakitate!! 25/Yakitate!! 9 challenge. Recently revealed to be one out of the last two possible heirs to the Hashiguchi Company (the biggest gangster organization in Japan).
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Tsukino Azusagawa - Granddaughter of the owner of the Pantasia chain, and understudy to Ken Matsushiro. Seems to have a crush on Azuma, though it is never explicitly stated. Has difficulty getting along with the rest of the Pantasia-involved Azusagawa family because she is an illegitimate child. She is still very dedicated to the Pantasia chain, seeking out talented new bakers (like Azuma and Kawachi) and has garnered the support of many other characters.
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Ken Matsushiro - Manager of Pantasia Southern Tokyo branch. A burly man with an afro and sunglasses. Renowned as the best French-bread artisan in Japan, he seems to have a predeliction with horses and betting on horse-racing. He is Kuroyanagi's former teacher, but early on recognised his outstanding talent as a food critic, and from that point on discouraged his baking, ultimately driving him away. He also likes to tease Kawachi, to whom he was apparently very similar in his youth, occasionally to give him ideas on bread, but mostly just for the hell of it. He also can make Kawachi hallucinate at times.

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