I’m only familiar with the manga, but I would expect the anime passes too.

—L.

—L.

- two female friends meet at the bakery and reminisce about their college days while oohing and ahhing over the food. Husbands and children are mentioned very briefly in passing, but clearly aren’t the focus of their conversation.

- one long subplot is focused on a duo of female TV news reporters; there’s mention of their romantic interests, but a lot of time is also given to showing them on the job, discussing the frustrations of their position and their career aspirations.

- women leaving a cooking class discuss the recipes and techniques they’ve been learning. (Men come up at the end of this scene, when the teacher confronts one of her students with her suspicion that she’s being beaten by her husband, but the other female characters seen in the first half of it are only talking about their studies.)

- a mother and her young daughter have an argument when the girl wants food and attention while her mother is struggling to work on a manuscript. Later on, after they’ve reconciled over this fit of temper, they walk home happily discussing treats they’ll cook together once the mother has met her deadline.

And of course, there are plenty more passing scenes of nameless female customers squeeing over the bakery’s decor and fabulous menu.

Non-rule note: This series is also noteworthy for a subplot in which a pregnant character discusses abortion as an option in a totally calm, matter-of-fact fashion.

These comments are all referring to the original manga: an anime is currently running in Japan, but I haven’t seen enough of the fansubs yet to judge if it’s a pass or fail. It might very well be a closer call, however, as a lot of the subplots not focused on the central guys are being condensed.

(Second “pass” link up there is currently going to something not about AB, btw…)

Non-rule notes:
- the series runs in a seinen magazine, so while the plotting and characterization all has a very shojo feel, there’s quite a bit of fanservice in the costuming, particularly for the protagonist.

- there’s very little romance for a series focusing on single characters in their teens and early twenties. The heroine has a bit of a crush on her boss, and is visibly intrigued by if not quite actively crushing on some of the more bishie-tastic male characters; one of her male coworkers has a crush on the pretty piano teacher who lives upstairs, and his bandmate has a crush on the heroine. Other than a bit of teasing from friends, though, none of these crushes have really seen much in the way of direct expression. Only a handful of romantic relationships have been shown — the long-established marriage of the heroine’s parents, brief flashbacks to a former live-in relationship of the pet shop’s male manager, and scenes from a new employee’s dysfunctional relationship with a sponging, emotionally manipulative bad boyfriend.

- sexual content, other than the frequent fanservice pinup pages and panty shots, is rather surprisingly subdued. Early on, the heroine gets into a car with a couple of sleazy male strangers; their conversation hints that their intentions are less than completely honorable, but she’s just so hopelessly innocent and naive that they end up dumping her at a rest stop. Two of the female characters, when they’re strapped for money, end up taking second jobs at a hostess bar — and while the bosses and some of the customers seem sleazy, there’s never any groping or conversations going much further than light flirtation.

- I found it particularly striking that the series has some middle-aged characters, mothers of adult children, who are NOT shown as frumpy, drab, sexless mom-types; they’re drawn with trim figures and fashionable clothing and hairstyles, with only hints of softness in the jawlines and tiny lines around the eyes to distinguish them from the younger women.