j1m0ne’s blog

The ultimate seiyuu bread battle, featuring turtles.

First of all, let me say that I am a Yakitate!! Japan fan - more the manga than the anime, but I loved it to bits anyway. Can’t believe it started airing more than 3 years ago. Was addicted to the boardgame-styled DS game for ages too ^^; The only disappointing thing about the series is my crushed feelings when I discover that most bread actually tastes pretty crap.

Someone on Nico Nico Douga uploaded the video of one of the Yakitate!! Japan DVD bread-making specials recently which brought back all sorts of nostalgic memories for me. I used to have the full HQ version of the video but it’s lost in my archives somewhere T_T It’s a must watch for Marina fans!

Part 1

Kobayashi Yumiko, who voices Azuma Kazuma starts off the clip by talking about her loss to Otsuka Chihiro in the previous DVD specials and says she had to go back and study the ‘art’ some more. She then introduced her opponent for the day, the voice of ‘idiot boy genius’ Kanmuri Shigeru - Inoue Marina.

They introduced the pastry chef Wakamatsu Takayuki, who was wearing Tencho-like sunglasses and a horrible afro. He then produced a jar from under the table and plonked it on the table, and the two girls just stared at it. A Jar (壺)? They asked him what it was they were supposed to be making, and Wakamatsu-sensei pulled a toy turtle/tortoise out of the pot. Lame pun time! It’s a kame (亀 - turtle/tortoise) inside a kame (瓶 – earthenware pot)!

They’re making Green Turtle Bread (ミドリ亀パン), which was made by Kazuma in episodes 16-17 of the anime during his battle with Koala. The bread has also been part of the line-up of the Yakitate!! Japan bread sold in shops.

So Wakamatsu gave them the ingredients and took them through the recipe step-by-step. Neither of the girls are particularly good in the kitchen unlike their animated counterparts, repeatedly messing up instructions and having to beg for help from the pastry chef.

Kobayashi rolled her dough up faster, and declared that this is when factorisation (因数分解) is needed. X=Y! Eh? More like W + X + Y^2 = Z methinks. Marina protested that it had no connection whatsoever, pointing out that X=Y meant a diagonal line (斜め線) running through the origin on a Cartesian graph. Yay, we got a mini-maths lesson whilst learning to make bread T_T

Part 2

More playing around with dough. Marina totally failed at one bit which involved rolling the dough around in the palm of one hand and she ended up throwing a mini-tantrum. Yumiko also failed at the part which involved pushing the red bean grains into the dough (You’re not supposed to leave the cling film inside, Kobayashi-san!).

Then it was Art Attack time, forming the actual turtles. They had enough dough to form a family of Papa Turtle, Mama Turtle and Baby Turtle. Yumiko said she had fallen in love with her family of little green pastries -_- They looked more like blobs of duck poo to me. Into the oven they went, and they turned out… ugh. I don’t think I wanna eat any of that - I prefer Betty Crocker’s nice looking one. Recipe here.

Part 3

Judgement time! They each had to choose one of their turtles to eat - Marina went for the mother cos ‘The baby still has a bright future ahead of him’. Yumiko and Wakamatsu-sensei both went for the father. Aww, it was cute when Marina kissed the turtle before she ate it ^^;

I then began wondering why the heck Marina was starting to strip off her shirt before I remembered…”Ah, a Kuroyan reaction!” She was just making like a tortoise. It must’ve been planned all along, as she buried her head in her hands in embarassment while Kobayashi laughed.

Yumiko was violent, tearing her turtle in half before consuming in but her ‘reaction’ was even lamer. She placed one of the toy tortoises on the front of the table and then crawled under it. “Ah, I’ve become a turtle!!” Very not funny.

They then went to talk on about the taste of the bread, and Kobayashi again brought up the subject of ‘factorisation’. XYZ! University graduate Inoue started to explain what the term meant but then Yumiko said something completely random that I did not understand. I felt like how Marina looks in the screenshot above.

It was Wakamatsu’s turn to try out his bread, and his reaction involved pulling out a Gamera figure and swinging it by its tail. Then it was time to decide the winner, and the criteria was stupid T_T Not by taste, but by appearance.

Result
Inoue Marina - 90
Kobayashi Yumiko - 95

Winner: Azuma Kazuma
The chef gave some lame and rather biased reasons for the extra 5 points - that Yumiko had formed a V sign for one of the turtles and that the tail was curled around for another -_- Not fair! Marina was cheated! She reflected on her defeat by saying that she needed to return to Harvard and start over (referring to Kanmuri, obviously).

There were lots of little nods to Yakitate running throughout the segment including Taiyo no Te, Kuroyan’s reactions, and lame puns and I thought it was pretty fun. Too bad I never got hold of the other DVD specials with Otsuka Chihiro (Tsukino’s seiyuu) when I had the chance to.

That’s the real Green Turtle Bread that was in shops. I can’t remember where I pinched the picture from, so all credits.

Ingredients for anyone who really wants to know:
Instant Dry Yeast…………………………3g
Water (to mix with yeast)…………. 33g

Bread flour…………………………………200g
Sugar…………………………………………..30g
Salt……………………………………………….3g
Eggs (beat)…………………………………20g
Water…………………………………………70g
Butter………………………………………… 27g
Green tea powder…………………… 4g
Red bean grain………………………… 140g
Poppy seeds……………………………….20g
Raisins………………………………………..10g

I have a bit of experience baking cakes and cookies and I LOATHE recipes that tell me to measure XXg worth of eggs. I wish they’d make my life easier by saying 1 or 2 eggs -_- I actually have the whole recipe typed out as well but I’d like to save it for a future post where I attempt to make some Ja-pans and Go-pans…hopefully.

I thought I’d mention it here - my arse got banned by ***tube for ‘repeated offences’ including uploads of an interview with the seiyuu from the Tactics anime, and some footage + cast talk from a sentai movie which had Kikuchi Mika in it… oh, the weird things that these companies object to. I didn’t even give two hoots about those videos, but I’m particularly annoyed that some of my prized stuff like Kuwashima Houko live performances and Inoue Marina interviews got the boot in the process. So I can’t be bothered to upload stuff there ever again. Harumph.

*Er sorry if the post screwed up a bit just now - I pressed the back button by mistake -_- *

Posted on April 11th, 2008 under seiyuu, 井上麻里奈, 声優物語, 小林由美子 • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback