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Blend S
The S Stands for…
Series in a Sentence
Despite an intimidating smile, Sakuranomiya Maika receives a job at Stile, a café where each employee acts according to a unique character trait.
What I liked
When each joke, or concept behind each joke, was still relatively new I really enjoyed them. Maika leaning into her masochistic role was initially funny to watch, Dino doting over her was reminiscent of Sanji from One Piece on multiple occasions, the contrast between Mafuyu’s persona and personality was a hoot, Hideri’s trap antics were funny as they were introduced, and the Sakuranomiya siblings’ attempts to hook Dino and Maika up were good short bursts of influence from characters not involved in the café. The two characters I liked the most, though, were Kaho and Akizuki. Their low-key budding romance reminded me of the pacing of Wagnaria in its early days (which had various working members of the same family restaurant eventually end up together) and their gamer personas outside of their waitress and chef roles were fun to see emerge every once in a while. Also, I love that the opening became a meme for a while. I know that’s wholly unrelated to the quality of the show itself, but I love some nice anime memes.
What I Didn’t Like
Did you notice how everything I typed in the “what I liked section” was about something being funny at first or every once in a while? That about sums up my feeling on this show. Maika’s struggles with wanting to be a kind waitress felt overplayed after a few episodes, Dino’s doting over Maika tired me out (especially with a, in my opinion, superior pairing in the wings waiting to be explored in Kaho and Akizuki), Hideri bored me after a while, and Mafuyu’s antics were underutilized. As I watched this show, I often felt tired of the jokes and despite curveballs being thrown in, like Dino getting a dog or going shopping with Maika or Kaho and Akizuki getting trapped in the café, I always felt like the outcome was going to be the same: no progress in relationships at all. In a way the short run of the show can be blamed as there wasn’t any time to develop these relationships but as a whole the repetition just wore me out.
Overall Feelings
In my spoiler free review, I said that Blend S was a fine anime but should be watched in small chunks over a long period of time and this is still true. Blend S did have some genuinely funny moments, the animation was nice, and characters were initially enjoyable but it just overstayed its welcome in so many ways. It’s weird to say that about a 12-episode series, but because of the similar payoff on every joke and the shows inability to break this cycle through evolutions, like new characters and scenarios, it was kind of a drag to watch all at once. Again, watch it in small bursts over time and it’ll be a fine filler but marathon it and it’ll feel stale. A wise man once said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.