Shelf Life

Ace of Bakes

Shining Hearts is a work of mind-staggering mediocrity, occasionally flickering to "mildly interesting," but more often than not dipping to "painfully dull." It can be described as a fantasy harem show with bread, but it's not really all that fantastical, and the harem aspect doesn't quite go far enough. And, for a show about bread (the Japanese name carries the subtitle "Bread of Happiness"), it doesn't seem to really know anything about baking. The end effect is a show that won't shut up about bread, and is filled with pictures of bread, but doesn't have the culinary know-how to describe why main character Rick's bread is so good, nor the passion of a bread-dedicated show like Yakitate!! Japan to pull off the single-mindedness. It doesn't even use adequate descriptors for the bread, presumably because the creators like the idea of bread, but don't know the first thing about it. In essence, this show is the Instagram of food anime, in that it's all close-up pictures, hashtags of #yum and #bread, and no substance.

It's also incredibly scattered, fattening itself with filler episodes that have zero bearing on the characters or the outcome of the show. It's an awkward and ineffective way to introduce characters that are in the game, but not necessary to the anime. As a result, otherwise playable characters are relegated to one-shot side characters that come and go with negligible impact. On some level, it sort of kind of makes sense—as a writer, you want to shoehorn in as many side characters from a video game that you can possibly handle. But from an entertainment standpoint, it's meaningless. None of the side characters are fleshed out enough to warrant their inclusion in the series, and nearly all of the filler episodes are meandering fluff. And, unlike in a video game where side quests will at least yield special items, all it does watching a show like Shining Hearts is make your eyes glaze over.

Take for example the episode where our baker/swordsman Rick and his pretty, but bland and personality-less lady friends stray too close to the Elvin Forest and run into a mean elf dude. Alvin the Elf is a total butthole, but eventually our ragtime team boring people win him over and get him to try their bread. Then the two parties part way, never to mention each other ever again except for a ominous warning about red moons that takes another ten episodes to materialize. In the game, you can add him to your party. Here, he's just yet another dude who likes Rick's buns.

There's also an entire episode devoted to cutesy poo witch girl Melty who is determined to create the ultimate ice cream. However, she can never get the taste just right until she bites into one of Rick's breads. Why? Because he bakes happiness into the bread, duh. Don't count on her to stick around, though—she and her familiar Sorbe are in the series just long enough to be cute.

But wait, there's an actual story arc that runs throughout the series, flimsy as it may be. It turns out, Rick wasn't always a baker. At one point… he was a swordsman! He still retains some of his swordsman skills, which viewers know, because the same flashback scene of him handling a sword is replayed something like six or seven times. It turns out, the red moon that Butthole Elf Dude warned about was actually a sign of worlds intersecting. Midway through the series, we're introduced to a frail and mysterious girl named Kaguya who washed up on the island. We don't know much about her, except she sure does love eating Rick's bread! Eventually, it's revealed that she's got some special spirit amulet and some reptile pirates are after her powers. Rick then needs to decide whether or not he has what it takes to embrace his secret swordsman past, because he's slowly losing the ability to bake!

It sounds made up, but it's an actual conundrum that's raised in Shining Hearts—is Rick really a baker, or is he a swordsman??!??!. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem possible to the people of the La Coeur bakery that one can have two occupations or multiple interests. Either you're a swashbuckling warrior, or you're a baker, but never both. When really, all Rick really has to say is, “I appreciate your concern, ladies, but I am a swordsman who also likes to bake.” But then the series wouldn't be able to talk about bread every minute, as though somehow it were yeast-risen gold mined from the depths of Mt. Olympus.

Everything else about the show is mediocre as well, with generic music (and a terrible ending theme that had me angrily rushing to hit the “next chapter” button every time it putzed to life) and unmemorable visuals. Somehow, even though all the women in the show are given different outfits, they're barely distinguishable from one another, because they all melt together into this pleasant, inoffensive, wide-eyed mush. The most interesting female character by far is the antiques-dealing, secretly philanthropic catgirl, but her available screen time is largely eaten away by endless scenes of cookie-cutter girls talking about bread.

The voice acting in the series in either language is passable, although nothing to really celebrate. The sad truth is, none of the characters are really written to express any emotion other than mild content. I imagine the only voice direction given was, “Just sound pleasant,” resulting in a cast of pod people whose only chances to emote are through lines like, “This bread is really good!” and near the end, Rick's three changes to speak-yell, “Raaaaaaaaaaargh!”

Shining Hearts isn't bad in the way that a cheesy 80s horror movie is bad, or in the way that an exploitative show about female wrestlers is bad. It's bad because it's completely boring and inoffensive, and has nothing going for it except drawings of bread and generically cute girls in generically cute outfits. With no pun intended, it is the white sandwich bread of anime, in a kitchen that has run out of all spreads and sandwich fillings.[TOP]