Takashi Hashiguchi (橋口 たかし) is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his manga series Yakitate!! Japan, for which he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 2004. Hashiguchi won a newcomer's award in 1987 (published in a magazine), and Combat Teacher debuted the following year in the same magazine.
A prevailing theme seen throughout his manga is the realization of childhood dreams, such as making bread in Yakitate!! Japan or becoming a yo-yo master in Super Yo-Yo (Chousoku Spinner). Hashiguchi mainly focuses on unusual occupations or sports.
He enjoys comedy as well, and took a brief interlude from drawing to try his luck as a comedian. Source: Wikipedia
Enjoyable, but ultimately a bridge volume. Wraps up the tournament, divvying of prizes, and, most importantly, starts setting up a new tournament for our baking fiends to decimate (or not, we'll see!).
I guess the most interesting part of this volume is the introduction of some financial issues, which they decide can only be solved through a wild bet on their outcome in the tournament. So now they're going to be baking not just for pride and swag, but to save everything.
This is a pretty decent cooking manga, it was really good and interesting at the beginning but got bored the second half probably because it’s solely just about bread 😂👌❤️
Yakitate!! Japan, Volume 7 kicks off the competition for the third-place title between Kawashi and Suwabara. It's a battle between a chirping loaf against a dancing unko-looking piece of bread. How could Kuroyanagi possibly choose? I thoroughly enjoy watching him eat both breads because one makes it look like he's eating a piece of poo, and the other is exceptionally phallic. Hilarious!
After the prizes are awarded to the winners of the competition, the teams are shuffled around as team members transfer to different stores. Shigeru Kanmuri reveals Yukino's secret agenda to the others just before they depart for their study abroad trip to France. The brilliant Kanmuri concocts his own master plan to thwart Yukino, and enlists the others to help him.
The winning team, made up Kazuma, Suwabara, and Kawachi, is chaperoned to France by Kuroyanagi. Once there, they meet up with Sophie Balzac Kirisaki who shows them the ropes and introduces them to their bakery's biggest competitor, Maison Kayser. Perhaps, this is where Meister picked up his strange habit of wearing a mask because the Kaysers also don strange masks.
I love that this manga pokes fun at itself. It's not afraid to be completely ridiculous and it doesn't take itself seriously in the least. I thought it was pretty funny that jokes were made of the plot sounding exactly the same as the one before. This is pure silliness and you're meant to just have fun with it. The comedy always lifts my spirits. I can't wait to read the next volume to see what Kanmuri has up his sleeve.
The thrills of the bread competition and the intrigue of the takeover schemes at the first of the book seemed to fade with the French training / international competition plot. Hopefully volume eight will restore the previous level of excitement.