I originally started watching this solely because I've been craving some good old CGDQT, and found out Sora Tokui was in the cast, so it seemed like a no brainer to give it a shot. I'm glad I did, now I can move on - shame that I didn't get to see her character in action.
This is supposed to be a comedy. I'm sorry but I do not find excessive shouting to be hilarious, otherwise I would be watching Black Clover. I find characters like Dino to be the most annoying pieces of work one can come across when watching anime. Other than that, despite having very few moments where one may smirk, the comedy as a whole falls horribly flat. Turns out relying on cringy otaku humor gets old after a while. Yes I get it, he stays up watching anime until it's late, and she likes going to the arcade, yes she has a mean glare and utters words that happen to luckily fit the 'sadistic' shtick. It's cool. Don't get me wrong though, it can work with proper timing, better characters and a better straight man / tsukkomi, but that doesn't happen in here.
This is supposed to be a slice of life. I cannot think of a single interaction in this show that was realistic. Not one. From the way they hire people, to the way the characters behave and react to pretty much anything. Yes I know there are actual weeb cafes in real life, but I'm not talking about that. Nosebleeds, violence, manager getting yelled at by everyone, clients receiving garbage food and treatment yet enjoying it, sleeping in ones lap, manager passing out all over the place and people sitting / stomping on him, having dates and giving presents after knowing each other like a month at most. It all adds up until it kills any suspension of disbelief, something that is quite an achievement considering this is just a non-serious slice of life show, it still manages to do it. Congratulations Blend-S, you've done the impossible.
Characters are tropes, that's fine. They're alright for the most part. Maika is the 'normie' and her sadistic trope gets overplayed to extremes in just 5 episodes. Kaho likes online games. Mafuyu is a deadpan loli with the classic 'looks 10 but is actually much older' character "trait", she likes mahou shoujo. Miu(?) writes doujins. The green haired guy is probably the most bearable of all the characters. There isn't much to say about Dino. I didn't like Ouran High, and he reminds me a lot of the main blonde dude in there, who I also didn't like one bit. Seems petty, but I honestly find that kind of "humor" very annoying.
Most of the times it will be:
1. Female character (mostly Maika) does something.
2. Dino gets swoon in moeness from it, proceeds to do something weird.
3. Insert any of the other characters playing a rather poor tsukkomi role.
It really gets tiring.
Art is great as usual, A-1 pictures pays extra attention in making the characters have their conversations in the dressing room. I'm no SJW so I don't care if they show skin, but damn, I do hate getting treated like those are the things that are supposed to get me to watch these shows in the first place. It's jarring and insulting. Add the usual jiggly physics, sexy costumes and interesting camera angles, and you have an A-1 pictures anime! Even if it doesn't fit the theme at all, they'll feed it to you, forcefully.
Sound, OP and ED are... ok. I like how the ED seems to be updating as more characters are introduced. Voice acting, it shows that Maika's VA is pretty much a newbie. Much like Dino, she's always almost-shouting, and her delivery seems very inconsistent. I'm no VA expert, but that much I could tell at least. Other characters are alright.
I bought into the hype, guys. I thought this was gonna be an interesting ride but boy was I mistaken. To be quite frank, the humor present in many of the shows that I actually enjoyed mostly wasn't laugh-out-loud worthy, but at least it was bearable even at the times where the jokes fell short. Why? because the characters actually carried those shows. I don't recommend watching this, even if you're a Sora Tokui fan.
