Yumeiro Patissiere episode 15 review; Hanabusa’s sadness tainted rose colored memories.

        This episode picks up with Ichigo walking through the doorway and hoping she’s in the all correct room, and she soon finds the princes waiting for her. As Ichigo begins to celebrate with the princes a group of older boys push their way through pushing Ichigo to the ground then they tell the princes that they’re going down.

        Soon, the Chairman takes the stage and congratulates the sixteen passing teams (ten- 3^rd years, five- 2^nd years, and one- 1^st year). The Chairman then explains the first task, each group will have each member bake a different pound cake with the theme of family, and each group will be judged as a whole on good their cakes are, and how well they fit with the theme of family. The chairman then draws the pairings, and Team Ichigo (the boys’ name choice) gets paired against the team of rude third year boys. When Ichigo sets forward and goes to shake the hand of the other captain he makes rude comments and tries to crush our sweetheart’s hand, pissing off the princes, game on.

        The boys have done some research on the other team by locating samples of their cakes, and all four of them taste pretty good. They decide that Ichigo will make a (shock) strawberry cake, Andou will make a green tea cake, Kashino will make a chocolate cake (no kidding), and Hanabusa will make a rose flavored cake.

The bad guys’ cake.

Team Ichigo’s cake.

        Once they get down to practicing, Ichigo, Andou, and Kashino’s cakes turn out just fine but Hanabusa can’t get his idea of a rose cake to work. The others try to ask Hanabusa why he’s so obsessed with roses, but he doesn’t say anything. The group has another encounter with the rude team of third years where they insult to other boys, and Ichigo shows a little flash of that infamous redheaded temper (it does exist, my sister is a redhead) by almost cracking the leader upside the head with a pan.

 

        After this incident, Hanabusa needs some alone time so he heads off to think. Later, Café comes back to the group and says that Hanabusa even sent him away. Well, Ichigo tells the boys she’s going to talk with him because they’re friends. Andou and Kashino talk, and say they never bothered to ask Hanabusa even though they’ve know him longer than Ichigo and they’re supposed to be friends, so they start to follow Ichigo.

        Ichigo and Hanabusa have a nice talk about how his father was a rose grower, and his mother was a flowerer arranger who also loved to bake sweets. Hanabusa grew up surrounded by love, roses, and sweets and he vowed to someday become a great maker of sweets and someday create a rose cake. Then a few years ago his father when returning from a job in Paris he booked an earlier flight, and on his way to the airport he got into an accident and was killed. So, all Hanabusa has left of his father is the bottle of natural damask rose water, and he also tells Ichigo that’s when he became nicer to girls and women. So, you’re not just a plain old narcissist. Well, Andou and Kashino were also listening and they come out of hiding, and all three of them vow to help Hanabusa create his rose cake.

        When they head back to the practice kitchen all their attempts at a rose cake end in utter failure, and Hanabusa again walks out to be alone. Then Ichigo and the princes spot Hanabusa standing by the lake. Hanabusa thinks to himself that he’s never had a good memory of the rose water, and that maybe even his father might be alive if not for the water. Hanabusa reaches back and throws the bottle towards the lake, Ichigo screams Noooooooooooooo, and makes a flying leap to reach the bottle before it goes into the lake, and……? Cliffhanger time, that’s all for this episode.

After the episode finishes we get a little live action skit featuring two little girls showing us how to make some simple homemade Valentine’s Day treats.

       Well, after watching several episodes featuring the back stories of Ichigo, Andou, and Kashino it was only a matter of time before we had to get Hanabusa’s back story. By far, Hanabusa’s back story is the most emotional and the saddest, while his youth was wrapped in love, sweets, and roses those memories of roses seems to bring him pain (maybe he needs to remember love more than the sadness), and Ichigo just the girl to help him remember the love.

        Hanabusa needs to understand that a child’s dream in many ways becomes the dream of their parents; a parent wants their child to be happy and smile. So, I’m sure that Hanabusa’s father would want him to achieve his dream and smile. I don’t know how Ichigo is going to help Hanabusa remember the love, maybe his mother will help, or maybe his friends will help, but remember he will because that’s Ichigo’s real magical power.

 

Yumeiro Patissiere episode 14 review; Ichigo goes to basic training, hardwork vs grace.

         The holidays are finally over and all the students have returned to the school. The school’s cake grand prix is about 15 days away, so the princes tell Ichigo that she’ll have to undergo intensive training before the contest starts.

        Meanwhile, we see the school’s staff discussing how this year the number of middle school teams that have applied has skyrocketed. They discuss how the number is unmanageable given the allotted time, so one of the teachers suggests that they give a pliminary test to separate the teams that actually have a chance of winning from those who don’t.  As this is going on, the three princes begin Ichigo’s intensive training program, Kashino starts Ichigo off with physical fitness training; pushups, sit ups, and running. Then Andou continues Ichigo’s training on the science of cooking & baking, and Hanabusa teaches Ichigo French.

       Day after day Ichigo continues her basic training with all three of the boys pounding as much of their baking knowledge and skill into Ichigo as possible, and she’s showing signs of improvement.

 

        One night Ichigo decides to go to the kitchen by herself for some addition self-practice and she begins to melt down because she can’t seem to remember what she was just taught. All the sweet spirits show up to lend Ichigo their knowledge and help, but Ichigo is overwhelmed and tells them she’s not a genius like  President Tennouji and the others and they’re just wasting their time on her.

        Vanilla calls Ichigo over to her and tells her to have a look. When Ichigo looks where Vanilla is pointing she sees President Tennouji is also working late into the night. President Tennouji notices Ichigo and calls her over, and she asks Ichigo about her physical fitness training and tells her that developing good stamina is part of the job. Then she notices Ichigo’s worn out and bruised hands and tells her that she’s beginning to develop the hands of a first class patisserie. Tennouji goes on to tell Ichigo that it’s possible that they might meet in the finals, and she looks forward to the match. Later, Tennouji tells Honey that this year’s cake grand prix is going to be very interesting.

         Well, President Tennouji’s words and Ichigo seeing that even that best have to work hard rejuvenates Ichigo and she dedicates herself to training  even harder than before.  When the big day finally arrives, all the students are told about the pre-selection test, and no one is worried until they hear the terms of the test. All students will take an individual skill test, and if one student fails their entire team fails and will be eliminated from the competition. Ichigo’s is really nervous but the princes tell her that they’ve taught her enough skills that that she should easily pass any basic skills test, as long as she doesn’t do anything stupid.

 

        When Ichigo’s number is called she heads off into the unknown, and enters a room (the tasting room) that has a piece of cake sitting on a little plate. Ichigo wolfs the cake down and heads to the next room where she realizes how bad she screwed up. The next room has three sticks of butter on the table and a card asking which butter (A, B, or C) was used in the cake. Then Ichigo sees three doors each with having a letter on them that corresponds to a stick of butter, and she then understands that she made a stupid mistake when she just wolfed down the cake; she hadn’t bothered to use her tremendous natural sense of taste, and now she’s screwed. But, all of Ichigo’s training with the princes finally pays off; she’s able to remember all the baking basics they pounded into her and answers the question correctly. After Ichigo navigates the two next rooms involving milk and sugar she makes it to the final room of the test involving flour.

        Just as Ichigo is working out the final challenge, the school’s PA system tells her she only has one minute left to finish the test. As time is running out, Ichigo mixes water with the flour to test the firmness of the dough. Inside the “all correct” room, the princes nervously wonder if Ichigo will make it out in time. As the final countdown has commenced, Ichigo makes her choice and heads to that door hoping she is correct, and Ichigo has……Well, cliff hanger time, that’s all for this episode.

       Well, with this episode, I think Ichigo finally realizes how hard she’ll have to work to become a truly skilled Patisserie. In the beginning of the series we discovered that Ichigo was born with a tremendous sense of taste, and this ability has served Ichigo well throughout the series, until now. Ichigo being her normal rush forward without really thinking self rendered her natural talent useless. If Ichigo had saved her sample of cake she probably could have just sampled a little bit of the cake at each test station and quickly made it through the test but now she had to rely on knowledge earned through hard work rather than talent earned through grace.

       In Philip Pullman’s, His Dark Materials book trilogy one of the main characters, Lyra Belacqua has obtained the ability to read a device through grace and by the end of the series Lyra loses that ability.  Later, Lyra is told that she can regain that ability through hard work and sweat, but once she regains the ability her readings will be even better than before because she’ll have a full understanding of the task, and she’ll now have certainty and the skill will never leave her.

       So, when Ichigo’s god given talent fails her she was able to rely the knowledge that she earned through hard work and practice; Ichigo was able (I assume) to pass the test  using her brain rather than her intuition.

For further reading about the differences between innocence & experience, and skills obtained through natural grace and skill earned through hard work see, On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist, 1810.

 

Yumeiro Patissiere episode 13 review; Ichigo’s sweet dream, and the key to her future.

        This episode begins on New Year’s Eve with Ichigo saying goodbye to the princes, they’re heading home while Ichigo is staying at the school. Ichigo stayed behind to practice her cooking skills with Vanilla, but Ichigo gets disappointed when Vanilla tells her she has to leave for the Sweets Kingdom. So, Vanilla asks Ichigo if she wants to come along for a visit. Hell, yes. Vanilla uses her sweets magic to transform Ichigo into a sweets fairy sans wings, and bring her through the oven entrance to the Sweets Kingdom.

 

        After traveling though a dark tunnel, Ichigo and Vanilla end up on a train filled with sweets spirits taking them to the Sweets Kingdom.  During the train ride Ichigo sees a chocolate waterfall and a river of candy, and we find out that there are several portals to the Sweets Kingdom located around the school, and after passing the portal you end up on the train. Ichigo and Vanilla are soon joined by the other three spirits, and we find out that Vanilla wasn’t supposed to bring Ichigo there without permission from the queen, bad Vanilla.

 

        Well, Ichigo finds out that tonight is the biggest festival of the year for the Sweets Kingdom (Py N Year Festival), and it’s the responsibility of the spirits to gather ingredients and make a giant sweet for the festival. Ichigo want to help but they only allow her to carry the ingredients they gather, a human can’t help with the cooking.

 

        While gathering ingredients from the nearby forest Ichigo sees all sorts of wonderful things like Marzipan fruit trees, Bananas that have chocolate inside them, a coffee tree, cabbages that have vanilla inside them, and many other wondrous things. As the group is heading back to the castle poor Ichigo is netted by three rouge sweets spirits (Kasshy, Andy, and Narcy; just try to guess who Narcy is). The other spirits call them the “dropout trio” but they refer to themselves as the evil gang and they want the stuff Ichigo is carrying. What’s really funny is that each of the rouge spirits looks and acts strikingly like each of the princes.

       Chocolat has had enough and tries to take Ichigo back using force, but the Kasshy uses a chocolate bomb to hold them off. At that moment, Honey happens upon the scene and tells Vanilla to come with her after the evil gang and she sends the other three back to the castle.

 

        Well, soon Ichigo is freed from the netting because it breaks as they’re dragging her along the ground, and Honey and Vanilla catch with them. Honey chews out the boys telling them if they want to start attending school again, and get their real magical spoons back she’ll recommend them to the queen. The only response Honey gets from the boys is that they call her Honey-pig as they run off into the woods. Vanilla pulls a fast one on Honey by fooling her into believing that Ichigo is a new sweets spirit called Fraise, and Honey sends Vanilla and Fraise back to the castle.

 

        Once they get back to the castle Vanilla makes some candy wings for Ichigo so she’ll fit in. Soon, Vanilla is dragged off to help with the preparation so Ichigo heads off to explore the city while they work on the big project for the festival.  

        While exploring the village, Ichigo spots Kasshy and decides to follow him, and while trailing him though the forest Ichigo falls down a “rabbit hole”.  Ichigo/Alice then appears to be back in the forest even though she’s sure she fell down though a hole. Then Ichigo meets a masked sweets spirit who seems to be very old and she give Ichigo a dirty spirit spoon and tells her that this will unlocked her future. The masked spirit then directs Ichigo to a glowing road and tells her that will lead her to the spirit she’s seeking.

 

        Ichigo soon stumbles upon the evil gang and gets discovered as they’re making their plans to interrupt the big festival. After tasting some of their snacks, Ichigo asks them why they’re not in school, and she tells Kasshy that she sure the queen would forgive them if he gave her some of his wonderful cookies. Later, Ichigo learns that they got kicked out of school and lost their magical spoons for cheating during a sweets contest.

 

        As the sweets spirits are putting the final touches on the giant chocolate castle Ichigo makes it back to the main castle. Just as Vanilla is greeting Ichigo, the evil gang appears driving a giant monster like creation made out of sweets to ruin the festival. Well, Ichigo steps into the path of the machine, and the gang tries to stop the machine, but it crashes into Ichigo and the chocolate castle causing a giant mess to be made.

 

        As the queen looks down on the whole mess, she picks up a piece of the evil gang’s creation and gives it a taste. The queen eventually smiles and grants the evil gang their magical spoons back. Honey says that the queen has accepted their cookies, and tells the other spirits to begin the festival. 

        As fireworks go off over the queen’s castle we switch scenes to see Ichigo lying in her bed bathed by moonlight, and we see the old spoon resting on her nightstand. Well, that’s all for this episode.

 

        Well, this was a very sweet episode, pardon the bad pun. Was it a dream or a reality, or maybe a bit of both? Hell, who really cares, I’ll I know is that Ichigo received something very important.  I believe that Ichigo really did travel to the Sweets Kingdom with Vanilla and experienced all those nice adventures along the way. It was very funny how each one of members of the evil gang’s personalities matched one of the princes’ personalities to a tee, and Hanabusa’s avatar (Narcy) in the Sweets kingdom was especially funny.  I think that the whole purpose of this episode was for Ichigo to meet up the old sweets spirit because I get the strong feeling that the “old crone” was Ichigo’s grandmother’s sweet spirit. Following this line of thought, I’m beginning to feel that once a sweets spirit makes a bond with a human it’s forever, so I think the reason the old sweets spirit was wearing a mask was to symbolize the loss of her human partner. I think that Ichigo’s grandmother’s sweets spirit gave Ichigo the dirty spoon and we’ll find out that the spoon unlocks the magical recipe book that was given to Ichigo. 

        At the end of the episode it was strongly suggested that Ichigo’s group will win the first round of the grand prix and will be competing against the President of the student council and her sweets spirit, Honey, for the right to go to Paris. While this competition will be very exciting I can’t imagine Ichigo and the boys being able to defeat Honey and her vastly more experienced human partner, besides Ichigo can’t go to Paris chasing after Henri, she has to be with her tsundere pretty boy Kashino.

       Oh, by the way, the sweets spirit version of Ichigo was so extremely cute that it almost gave me diabetes. Also, I would have loved to have been the dorm supervisor over the holidays, we could have made some beautiful strawberry cake, and I know it would have tasted wonderful.