Review
Being in a maid cafe sits among one of my weirdest and most shameful experiences. It is terribly discomforting seem the girls' efforts to serve you while impersonating a cute vassal ready to make your day sparkle. It is, however, an interestingly exotic concept, especially for those abroad.
Blend S tries its hand at a maid cafe animation, one with some set of unique ideas. Instead of the themes being how the waitresses are dressed, it is about how they interact with the customers. There is a maid playing an older-sister stereotype, another being the little-sister everyone wants to bang (because this is Japan, that sick bastards), and there is even the sadistic girl that acts as if she despises every customer instead of trying to attract them. This last persona is the role of our protagonist, Sakuranomiya Maika, a high school girl who wants to save some money but never manages to get a job because she naturally reacts with disgust to people around her. Yeah. The perfect girl for the sadistic maid.
- It's a funny thing
In general, Blend S goes around the daily life of the maid cafe as Maika learns how to the job. She wants to perform, but she ends up always being a mean sadistic bitch to her customers. Fortunately for her, that's her new job's description, so we could say she does a very good job at that. These small cliche things around dere-templates and Maika's role offer some funny acts, which is perhaps the biggest and one of the only two strengths of an otherwise simple show.
And it's cute
Yeah, I give you that. If Blend S required cute maid girls, it got it. Maika, Mafuyu, Kaho, Miu, and Hideri are as cute as they can be, which is something achieved by the right guys for the job: studio A1-Pictures. Yeah. those guys? They are certainly busy these last few years with so many shows, but Blend S is of a genre that is perfect for their cute little girls and colorful palette. Add that some decent voice-acting for annoying girls and an expressive power in form of classical comedy cartoon and there's the second and last strong point of the show.
That's it though
This is based on a 4-koma and that means it is a theater piece turn on with infinite loop. You will see many episodes about daily life, some cheesy events to evoke comical consequences, and of course exploring the girls' roles in the maid cafe, which are tropes of your average light novel deres. This is no clever comedy with some social questioning such as Servant x Service or New Game, it is simply a show to watch from time to time and be allured by the cuteness and light comedy.
At least it is a bit realistic
Well, it does have other people in it, such as the cafe owners and the cook guy, so it never really moves away from what it can really happen in some random maid cafe run by very young people. It is like an otaku wet dream of starting business, so there's some points which can really happen if the elements adds up in real life. It could, however, truly benefit from some kind of risk here as this real-life inspiration is nothing more than nerdgasm.
Comments
There's nothing wrong with Blend S except that's there's nothing right with it too. Yeah. It could be labeled as a safe light comedy and you could watch it without much of an issue, but sadly it means nothing on the long run. It has no social consequences, the comedy is anything but clever, and there are no high stakes with emotional drama to make it end. It is a 4-koma as in the books, and that's not exactly a good, especially with some recent 4-koma based shows having so much more to them.
Anyway, if it is your desire to see some cute girls and get some smile on your face, perhaps this can work. Of course, you must have the mood to see a show that only has jokes about the innards of the wet-otaku reality, but it's a decent one.
