;Keisuke Tachibana In the Antique Bakerydōjinshi by the author, it was revealed that Keisuke has had multiple girlfriends during the course of Antique Bakery. ;Yusuke Ono In the Antique Bakery dōjinshi by the author, Ono begins an intimate relationship with Chikage, however he is still ultimately in love with Tachibana. ;Eiji Kanda In the Antique Bakery dōjinshi by the author, Kanda and his French teacher Constance appear to be dating. ;Chikage Kobayakawa In the Antique Bakery dōjinshi by the author, Chikage and Ono begin an intimate relationship.
Minor characters
Kaedeko, affectionately called "Deko" or "Dei-Dei", Chikage's daughter, is a sweet, beautiful, if not so bright young girl, although she is often mistaken for a teenager because of her "mature" looks.
Ms. Ito and Mrs. Urushihara, two regular customers at the Antique.
Haruka Nakatsu and Tamiko Kagami are two voluptuous female news announcers who are used on the news simply to display their bodies. They long to be seen as real reporters rather than a peep show; they reported a story about the Antique Bakery.
Tadahiro Akutagawa is a cold, boring, and, frankly, somewhat scary ex-cop who works for the police, was obsessed with trying to find Tachibana's abductor, and who is now a pastry connoisseur, sampling cakes from bakeries all over Japan. He is married with a son.
Sakurako Sakaki, is an award-winning author who persuaded Chikage to help her conceive Kaedeko.
Jean-Baptiste is a famous pâtissier and Ono's former mentor and ex-lover, who attempts to persuade Ono to return to France to work in his new restaurant.
Fumi Yoshinaga has published spinoff dōjinshi of Antique Bakery, showing both "slash" stories involving characters shown to be straight in the manga series, but also showing stories which were only alluded to in the manga. Yoshinaga feels that these stories are too explicit for the shōjo manga demographic, and Akiko Mizoguchi points out that they are in the boys love genre and it would be "unheard of" for these stories to be published by another publisher, despite their popularity in the dōjinshi world. The existence of these stories has never been announced in Wings or in the books collecting Antique Bakery. There were seven available as of August 2003, increasing to fourteen dōjinshi as of 2011.
The television series differs perceptibly from the story of the manga. While the four main male characters remain the same in many of their relationship dynamics, the BL/homosexual aspect of the original manga is significantly reduced to almost nothing. There is the notable addition of Momoko Itsuki, a female sports journalist who appears in the first episode of the series.
Korean live-action movie
The Korean adaptation, Antique, was released on November 13, 2008, and drew more than 1 million moviegoers within its first two weeks of release, making it one of the most successful Korean movies ever made. Directed by Min Kyu-dong, the movie stars Joo Ji Hoon as the owner Jin Hyuk and Kim Jae Wook as the genius patissier Son Woo. The film was exhibited at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2009. The action in the film has been transposed to Korea and the characters given Korean names; otherwise, the script follows the main plot threads of the manga closely.
Animated by Nippon Animation, it features opening and ending themes by popular band Chemistry. A subtitled US release by Nozomi Entertainment has been announced for April 2011.
Reception
Comic Book Bin's Avi Weinrib enjoyed DMP's scratch-and-sniff covers. Al Kratina found Antique Bakery "fluffy, light, and disposable". Chris the 4th Pip thought the characters showed "surprising depth". Janet Houck, writing for Mania Entertainment, felt that the story of the first volume was choppy, using many flashbacks, and that the volume should have been given a higher rating due to its depiction of Ono's backstory. David Welsh enjoyed the character-driven story, especially the Christmas story, which was rooted in a business perspective. Jessica Brooks of Anime Jump enjoyed that although food-themed manga is usually about food preparation, instead Antique Bakery is about customer satisfaction. She also noted that Ono's homosexuality was essentially "played for laughs", although she did not feel this was a negative. Tom Rosin, for MangaLife, felt that the first volume was "about cakes more than anything else", and that he felt hungry after reading Tachibana's sales pitches. Katherine Dacey, writing for Pop Culture Shock, felt that the main theme of the series was a "slice of life friendship story". Johanna Carlson noted that the series is faux-yaoi. Robin Brenner, writing for TeenReads, noted that the series' plot is not "the point" about this manga - the funny character interactions and elegant character artwork are. The series won the 2002 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo manga. The English edition of Antique Bakery was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2007, in the category "Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Japan".
