Yakitate!! Japan (焼きたて!! ジャぱん) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takashi Hashiguchi. It was serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday from December 2001 to January 2007, with its chapters collected in 26 volumes.
A 69-episode anime television series adaptation by Sunrise was broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 2004 to March 2006. In North America, the manga was licensed in English by Viz Media in 2005 and Nozomi Entertainment licensed the anime series in 2014.
In 2004, ''Yakitate!! Japan'' won the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award for the category.
Plot
Kazuma Azuma is a boy on a quest to create "Ja-pan", a national bread for Japan, as many other countries have their own signature breads. He heads to Tokyo with the intention of working at the famous bread-making chain Pantasia. Along the way, he meets other bakers, both learning from and competing against them. The characters bake their bread using their burning passion and even anger. Besides a desire to create Ja-pan, Azuma also possesses legendary Hands of the Sun (太陽の手): hands that are warmer than typical, prompting dough to ferment faster. While this gives him an advantage early on, his innovation is his greater talent.