Manga Match 98 Yumiero Patissiere

This was one of the first anime that I remember watching and it heavily influenced my desire as a child to become a patissiere just like Ichigo. When I grew up I realized that baking was more of a hobby than a career for me. And especially since I've seen so many amazing baked creations and such on Instagram, I'm really glad I didn't go to college for a business degree. LOL I wanted to be a business major so I could really run my own baking business. I think we dodged a bullet there.

The manga version of Yumiero Patissiere is a little different from the anime. In the anime, the romance was definitely left more open-ended from my memory so that they could make that sequel where they're all adults. But all of the characters are pretty much the same and the story follows very true to the anime. So really I didn't read it for anything new, I read it for some sort of creature comfort I would say.

The manga and anime both follow this girl with an incredible sense of taste which goes along well with her creative imagination. She's scouted by one of the best pastry chefs in the world and ends up going to this super elite baking academy called St. Marie Academy. There she meets Kashino, Hanabusa, and Andou aka the Sweets Princes. She's thrust into this world and has to work really hard at practicing her baking skills to catch up to everyone else. Thanks to her hard work and practice she's able to flourish at the Academy despite her klutzy nature.

There's definitely a level of fantastical magic going on here with the element of Sweets Spirits. The Academy is actually connected to the Sweets Kingdom which is this lovely magical world where little fairies make sweets and come to the human world to apprentice with the dream of becoming Royal Patissieres.

And the story basically just follows the main four and their sweets spirits as they all work hard for their dreams. There's nothing more I could ever desire. Maybe it's just because of the nostalgic aspect, but I felt very satisfied reading the whole thing through. If you're also interested in baking or like rather fantastical works, I would say this is a good read. It's definitely very shoujo-y, but it's also inspiring to see how far imagination and hard work can take you. Just a very comfy read that gets you though the tough times.