Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Episodes: 12
Ahh yes everyone’s favourite new meme that has been ever so popular this season! Even YouTubers like Pewdiepie have gotten on board with this meme and he has included it in his past two You laugh you lose challenges (bringing me a great deal of amusement).
This basic story of this anime is that a 16 year old high school student named Sakuranomiya Maika wants a to find a part time job so she can full-fill her dream of traveling. But her sadistic (yet unintentional) smile puts many people off so no one will hire her. One day an Italian man named Dino scouts her and she ends up working as a maid at a cafe named Stile where each of maids act out typical character tropes in order to attract and please customers.
Look at that smile…*shudders*
What can I say? I’m a sucker for the whole “cute girls doing cute things” type of anime. It’s adorable and brings me joy. Blend-S is packed full of cute girls (and guys) doing cute things whilst successfully pulling off every typical anime trope us anime fans are used to. We have Maika the sadist, Kaho the tsundere, Mafuyu the little sister, Miu the older sister and Hideri the *cough* crossdresser *cough* I mean idol. We also have the manager Dino and the chef Akizuki…oh and a dog named Owner.
Look at this weird, happy family we have going on.
The reason I found this anime so charming was due to the fact that it took all the tired old anime traits and gave them to a bunch of cuties who often had the opposite personality in real life. For example Maika is the sweetest, purest girl I think I have ever laid my eyes upon but in character she has to come out with the most foul and sadist thing she can think of…her smile really helps with completing the act.
Ahh that’s some great customer service right there. I’m actually being serious this time round.
We also have the 21 year old college student who looks like a 5th grader hence giving her the little sister role:
Mafuyu was one of my personal favourites as her actual personality was totally relatable. In actuality she rarely smiles.
And then came Hideri…
SUPRISE! It’s a boy! I honestly didn’t see that coming.
The humour and situations were a key element in this show. Many awkward and often hilarious misunderstandings came from poor Maika and her super sadist smile (try saying that ten times fast) and I loved situations where she would scare people away by accident. For example she would often scare shop workers or make them apologies to her simply because of her face (like in the episode with the strawberries but seriously though WHERE DID ALL THE STRAWBERRIES GO?! WHY WAS THERE ONLY ONE SINGLE PACK?!). The otaku humour also really made me laugh in this show. During the episode where Maika finds the doujinshi I actually lost it at her reaction and the way she went about trying to find the owner of it.
As much as I loved this show and its range of characters I did have one problem. Dino the 26 year old falling in love with Maika the 16 year old. So we are talking a 10 year age gap here. Why? Just why? It could be cute if he were closer to her age but it’s just plain creepy. I mean at least the anime actually recognises that fact since he does get cornered by the cops and arrested a few times. Take that element out or make him younger and I would have no complaints. One thing I loved about this part of the show however is how in the last episode Maika does say that “she loves” Dino but then continues that she loves everyone else. At that point my heart just burst out of how pure Maika is bless her little soul.
At least everyone else in the show sees how wrong it is! I love Akizuki. He was fabulous.
All in all this anime was an absolute delight to watch. It was one of those shows where I found myself reaching the end and I felt like only 5 minutes had past and was sad I then had to wait another week for the continuation. I really do hope they make a season 2 of this show.
Overall Rating:8/10
What did you guys think of this anime? Did you enjoy it or not? Hope you guys are having a great day!
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I enjoyed this one, but I also found it weird that Dino was 26 and this thirsty for a teenager. But at the same time, he needed to be that old to actual own and run a restaurant.
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IKR! It was so weird and yeah I understand that! As annoying as it was I get why he is that old but it’s like why do you have to creep on Maika.
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