There are two retro anime remakes this spring for some reason. Furthermore, Bartender is older than Spice and Wolf because the first series broadcast eighteen years ago. I'm not sure why either of these beloved classics received a remake; I never got the impression that the general audience was clamoring for them. In this instance, there were eleven episodes in the original anime (you should know it was NoitaminA if you hear 11 episodes and 2006), and since the manga ended in 2011, a significant amount of material was definitely left unadapted. I'm not sure if this version will endure long enough to make up for that, but it would be much more shocking if Bartender had a full adaptation at 21 volumes than if it was recreated in the first place.
Another similarity between Bartender, Spice, and Wolf is that, despite receiving a lot of positive reviews at the time of premiere, I was pretty much bored to tears watching both episodes. Here we have another situation where I feel like I should appreciate a series more than I actually do—this time it's well-regarded seinen manga. There is more thematic overlap with my interests here, although to be honest, I have been known to partake in a little imbibing on occasion, and I do like interesting bar settings. I dip in again to check if all these years have altered my perception of a series.
Similar to S & W, I can't judge if this new anime is "better" or "worse" because I don't recall enough about the first one. Once more, in my opinion, everything about this was fine. To my knowledge, Liber has only made one series (Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi), but it was a good one. Kuraya Ryouichi, the film's seasoned director, did a great job with the timing and staging of the premiere. I was entertained with the premiere, but I would be lying if I said it was very riveting. And as I mentioned, even if I prefer scotch and bourbon over cocktails, this one is at least pertinent to my interests.
Obviously some things have been updated here – I’m assuming cell phones didn’t play such a large part in the 2006 series’ intro, and in fact Sasakura’s incompetence with them might be a wry commentary on the time gap since it aired. Or he could be a demon or something (again, I remember almost nothing) – I mean, red eyes certainly isn’t natural. The pitch here is that a fancy new hotel is looking for a bartender for their “intimate” counter bar, and the director insists that he (or she) be able to produce “the glass of God”, even though he can’t say what he means by that except “you’ll know it when you see it”. In charge of the search are the Yin-Yang personalities of two office ladies from the hotel.
They find the aforementioned Sasakura Ryuu through that search after a number of applicants are immediately dismissed. The internet claims that Sasakura, who they met at the park where he misplaced a library book, serves the best cocktails in town at his little Ginza bar, Eden Hall (yes, Tokyo is at the summit of the cocktail pyramid). He was well-known even before he left for Japan, having won a coveted European mixology title while working at the "Ratz" (ROFL) Hotel in Paris. Although not everyone can locate Eden Hall (which is typical for Ginza), the two women manage to do so with relative ease and put Sasakura to a test, which he passes with flying colors. There are signs of suspicious activities going on with Eden Hall.
The sequences with mixology are entertaining and, well, fascinating if you're into that kind of thing. There is a lot of product promotion, which made me laugh, and the discussions about creating bar ice and Poussé-café style were entertaining in a geeky sense. Although it says Highland on the label, Glenfarclas is actually a Speyside, not a Highland, as the whiskey aficionado in me demands. However, since Speyside was formerly a part of the Highland region, I won't dock it any points for that. I don't know if Bartender will keep my interest in the way it didn't back then, but given how much I've grown obsessed with anime and alcohol in the interim, I'd give it a shot.
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