This series was a complete meh, but what makes me frustrated is that it had SO MUCH potential - with the interesting spirit world backdrop, the restaurant and food trope, the romance between a human girl and a seemingly powerful demon. Everything that makes me drool about an anime, and they managed to get every bit wrong.
This will be more of a rant that a review so here we go:
Let's start with the setting of the spirit world. The world could've easily had a rich lore and history & I can think of a billion legends/myths of which to base this off of. It could've had a rich tapestry of places and wacky spirits/creatures filling the place with colour and mystique (think Spirited Away). NOPE - The inn felt empty and cold. We didn't see a single guest stay at the inn (apart from one or two sides characters who appeared, finished their arc, then left). We didn't get introduced to any location in the spirit world other than the stupid fake-inn that noone seemed to stay at. The plain and sparse art only added to this 'empty' feeling, where the studio either: didn't have the budget to draw any furniture in the rooms, or were just cutting corners.
NEXT - The romance : It was so emotionless and vanilla. They spent so much time setting up the male lead to be this scary, dark, tsundere demon but he was SO VANILLA, servile and there was no explanation for why he liked the female lead.
THE CHARACTERS had no dimension to them at all. They were flat and boring because there was no area of interest, flaw or conflict in their personalities. Side characters had little screentime and low quality arcs relying on story-telling via cheap flashbacks. The dialogue was detached, formal and polite.
I can't believe I wasted my time on this but atleast I watched it so now you don't have to.
