Capturing the Tone of a Manga: Antique Bakery and What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Recently, I tried out the Korean live-action Antique Bakery, the Japanese live-action What Did You Eat Yesterday?, and the Japanese anime Antique Bakery. The only one I liked was the Korean live-action Antique Bakery.

On Votaries I discuss E. Nesbit adaptations; I state there, "[T]one and feel is often an important element of a good adaptation." 

All three of the above listed television productions are based on manga series by Fumi Yoshinaga. Unfortunately, the Japanese live-action and anime are...for lack of a better word...solemn. 

What Did You Eat Yesterday? is one of my favorite series, and I've collected it regularly almost from the beginning. I gave up on the live-action because I didn't want the television version to ruin my enjoyment of the manga series. 

My reaction here is unusual. I am typically fascinated by how a written text ends up on screen, good or bad. 

Manga does fall into a slightly different category. However, in this case, the tone of the live-action struck me as entirely "off." The Shiro character seemed mean, depressed, and humorless while manga Shiro is wry, fairly clueless, somewhat literal, happy (overall), and easily irritated, which last is not the same as being mean.

More than anything the manga series is funny. Like Jane Austen, Fumi Yoshinaga is able to capture serious moments without sacrificing the light touch. In comparison, the television series struck me as something that would hammer me over the head with its point. 

Likewise, with Antique Bakery, which is a great slice-of-life series joined to a crime/mystery problem, the anime struck me as...words fail. I felt as if the producers completely missed the point, it is so lacking in energy. 

In comparison, the Korean version reminded me of the Masterpiece adaptation of My Family & Other Animals, which lacks context (if you haven't read the book, the fast-moving scene changes may be hard to follow), sliding over characters and events.

And yet, I adore the Masterpiece version because it completely captures the young Gerald Durrell's memory of a time in his life of pure freedom and sheer exuberance. The character, played by Eugene Simon, starts the movie as a properly dressed boy in a starched shirt. He ends it as a kid from Lord of the Flies, only without all the negative stuff. 

What a ride!

The Korean Antique Bakery is equally fantastic in music, pacing, and tone. It not only allows the characters to be their off-the-wall, confrontational, edgy selves, it allows for the harsh realities (the high school confrontation between Ono and Tachibana; the murders; the initial kidnapping) without stinting on the glowing present-day--and the great pastries, of course! 

Life is life!! Here it is!!

Based on Fumi Yoshinaga's oeuvre, I will claim (acknowledging that the author herself might disagree with me) that the sheer joy of life, in all its messiness, is the tone that any adaptation of her work needs to capture.