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What we have here is a delicate anime series based on the award-winning manga by Fumi Yoshinaga.
The animation style is very unusual for a shounen-ai type of anime, because it merges together 2D characters and (mainly) 3D backgrounds, which often occurs in mecha and sci-fi. In my opinion it takes some time to get used to it, especially if you don't favor 3D in general...

Compared to other shounen-ai anime, antique bakery has a storyline that is not as overused as it could have been and it holds an unique flare that makes you almost nostalgic. A solid and continuing plot shows us enough without ... getting overly confusing and reveals necessary background information bit by bit, in order to make the viewer curious as well as avoiding repetition ... even though it moves along at it's own pace.

And well... the characters... it's hard to tell weather they are exaggerated drama-queens, or just a bunch of winsome eccentrics. On first sight they seem to be relatively uncomplicated personalities, Or at least they're acting pretty predictable. As for the second sight... I have yet to find out if there is more going on in their heads... but together they make an interesting group of people, that will quite likely make you raise a smile.
The character-design itself is, if nothing else, rather unique. Beautiful would be too demanding... like they say: Different strokes for different folks.

All in all Antique Bakery is a likable shounen-ai anime... despite the lack of actual boy's love and other odd behavior. And if the series fails to satisfy your expectations, the opening and closing are special enough to make it up to you.

The first and, in my opinion, most important aspect of a good Anime is an engaging story played out by equally interesting characters.
In this case I'm sad to say that the plot is nothing too special, it's actually quite sappy and a bit generic, even for this particular genre (and the whole 'must protect son from everyone' is just plain weird). In most yaois the characters are pretty much made after the same scheme: one character is extremely jealous, the other one is your typical, naive, clumsy uke and another one a cool macho. Although Kirepapa contains these models, they're matched up in a slightly ... different way than it lets on at first glance. The back stories are surprisingly coherent and thus allow the contrasting personalities of our two main characters to develop enough to make them an interesting couple.
Compared to many other yaoi OVAs and series, Kirepapa has an appealing character design. Although the animation could use a little more dynamic and fluidity at times.
The soothing, almost dream-like backgrounds add up nicely to the overall easy-on-the-eye look.
All in all it's a lovely little OVA that every fangirl with a liking for boys love should be satisfied with.

It is not what I've expected it to be... Most of you would think the same after seeing it for the first time.
Almost every episode starts off with a narrator called FABULA telling you what happened so far and at the end she makes a brief prophecy for the next one.
The characters are appealing and I grew to like every single one of them, but their design doesn't match (to be honest, they're even ugly sometimes...) with the backgrounds and effects (both really good), however... you get used to it after a while and with each passing episode you come to know them better.
Anyways, the ... story is imaginative and completely different from any series before. The plot is relatively dynamic and contains only very few repetitive or boring sequences. Another thing that fascinated me were the locations, because they seemed to be very well thought out.
A lot of fans of the Final Fantasy games do not appreciate this anime, because it has nothing to do with any of the already existing parts. In my opinion Unlimited is special in its own way and shouldn't be compared to anything seen in the games. That would be the same as if you'd hate F.F.X. just because it isn't associated with F.F.VII. but as in everything that shares the name 'Final Fantasy' there are Chocobos, Cactuars and Moogles featured!
So, don't listen to bad critics and judge for yourself.