The mediocrity starts with the characters. If you've watched a show of the "cute girls doing cute things" or "moeblob slice of life" genre before, you'll know these are exactly the sort of characters these shows are expected to have. There's a painfully shy one, a younger-looking girl in a maid uniform who's actually their senior, a pastiche of every tsundere ever, a big eater who makes catlike expressions, and on and on. Some of them seem to be direct knockoffs of characters in other shows. Despite the derivative nature, their designs are appealing. The characters themselves are endearing in their own way. Unfortunately, some of them stretch suspension of disbelief needlessly. Let's put aside the question of the club advisor for now, as I'm assuming her age is a lie until proven otherwise, but why is the landlady a first-year high school girl? Well, obviously, it's so they can all go to high school together.
The setting is probably the worst thing about this show. We don't see enough of the school for it to feel like a real place. It feels tacked on and unnecessary. GochiUsa just had the characters living and/or working together, and that was enough. We have that same setup here, with the main characters living together in a used bookstore which is also a dormitory which is also a coffee shop. Why a coffee shop? Because GochiUsa did it, and because it creates an excuse for a maid-like outfit. The home/work setting feels like an actual place, but it still feels a bit artificial. Where's the kitchen? There are rarely any customers. When there are scenes on the nearby streets, there are never any cars and barely any pedestrians. It's sort of odd, because the background work is pretty decent.
The show's artwork and animation is acceptable at the least. We don't have obvious mistakes like inconsistent border thicknesses, unerased lines, or jarring CGI, just to name a few I've seen in the last couple of seasons. Actually, for the genre, this seems to have above average production values. The OP/ED are fully animated, and even include a dance which presumably took a significant amount of animator effort. There's a fair amount of superdeformed art, but it seems like a deliberate decision because they thought it would be cuter, or more expressive, rather than a cost-cutting measure. There is one weird inconsistency, though. Since Hinako seems to be the primary fanservice vehicle, she has a wide variance in bust size in particular. This can happen mid-scene, and it's oddly jarring when it does.
The sound is the thing I'm least qualified to comment on. The music didn't make a big impression on me. I don't particularly like the opening theme, since there's too much spoken-word dialogue. It's especially annoying because it wasn't translated on the site where I watched it. I thought the voice actors were trying too hard for that high-pitched cutesy sound, but it does match the diabetes-inducing nature of the show, so it isn't really out of place.
All in all, this show is nothing special. It's highly derivative and unoriginal. However, it's still fairly well-executed, and that's what matters in the end. In particular, I recommend it to people who are already interested in the "cute girls slice-of-life" genre. It may be more of the same, but it's pleasant enough watching all the same. I've watched better shows of this genre, but I've definitely watched worse.
