I must confess, I enjoyed that quite a bit. If you’d pressed me, I’d have said that between the two reboots of old chestnuts this season, Bartender was the more likely to hold my interest. If for no other reason, it’s even older than Spice and Wolf and I remember less about it. There’s also the fact that my interest in booze has markedly leveled up in the intervening 18 years (albeit whisk(e)y, Belgian beer, and wine more than mixology). Booze and bars are interesting subjects, and in theory there’s no reason an anime about them shouldn’t be interesting,
me)That’s certainly proven to be the case so far. Spice and Wolf still bores me silly, but I rather like this Bartender revival. While the underlying subplot of the hotel pair trying to recruit Sasakura is seemingly not going away for a while (and is the least enjoyable part of the story for , the format this week seems like the more typical for the series. That is to say telling the stories of people who walk into Sasakura’s bar and thus his life (even if one of them here is intricately connected to the Hotel Cardinal thing).
The first story is that of an old man who walks into the bar – as he does on the 22nd of every month – Sasakura is helping out at. This gent is pretty clearly rich and old-school, and Sasakura’s sempai doesn’t get the chance to warn him that the codger has a habit of ordering and rejecting an endless chain of cocktails as a sort of tribute to the former owner, an old friend passed on. Sasakura runs through several choices, only to have them all figuratively (and almost literally, ROFL) spat in his face.
When the old fellow goes out to take a call, Sempai explains the guy’s backstory – and Sasakura-kun flies with this and finally finds the perfect cocktail, an Old Pal (at least it’s a whiskey cocktail – a Boulevardier with rye instead of bourbon and dry vermouth instead of sweet). The key – he serves it at a temp the man would have gotten it at from his “old pal” in the days when refrigeration and aircon weren’t so omnipresent. As it turns out this is Kurushima Taizou (played by Mugihito, still going strong at 79), owner of the Hotel Cardinal and grandfather of Miwa (one of the two who won’t take no for an answer).
The next story takes place on a rainy night at Eden Hall. A drenched woman in a black business suit walks in and asks for “one drink, to get out of the rain”. She too sports quite an attitude, and first calls bartenders assholes and then hypocrites (Sasakura says he prefers the former). She’s pretty clearly projecting, and he’s already deduced from her Dulles bag (named for former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, as is the airport in D.C.) that she’s a lawyer. She hates what her job sometimes forces her to be, but he shows her another way to think about it. Like a bartender, she’s someone people turn to when they’re in a dark place.
The cocktail Sasakura prepares for the lawyer has a double meaning, just as the Old Pal (and I suspect all of his drinks) do. It’s a Bull Shot, kind of a Bloody Mary with beef broth or bouillon subbed in for tomato juice (a Bloody Bull is basically a hybrid of the two). It’s also (though she doesn’t know it yet) the title of a novel (part of a series by Gabrielle Kraft, all with cocktail titles) about an L.A. lawyer with a foul mouth and a heart of gold. The Bull Shot warms the lawyer’s cold heart in more ways than one.
The symbolism of all this isn’t exactly subtle, but there’s a reason bars and bartenders are such a timeless and integral part of fiction. These stories are rather elegantly spun, with an old-fashioned earnestness which, if I may say so, feels very much like the throwback this series is. The product placement is off the charts but I can sort of laugh at that. I’m less than thrilled with Miwa and Yukari (her sidekick) constantly badgering Sasakura to leave his job and come work for them. That sort of recruitment is actually sleazy business practice, and I don’t especially like seeing it made light of. The guy wants to honor his commitment, so piss off and let him do it. Apart from that, though, Bartender: Kami no Glass is working for me to a greater extent than I expected.
Bel
April 12, 2024 at 3:10 amAs much as I loved the old anime, there’s something emotionally detached about the whole experience. The stage play presentation can come off as pretentious and removed, and Sasakura of the old anime is inscrutable and a bit of a cipher. I get the sense that the old anime isn’t really about Sasakura (or any of the other bartenders); it’s a story about the customers they serve.
The new anime, which sticks closer to the manga than the old anime did, flows more naturally. Sasakura is more approachable here than the almost-perfect genius bartender we got in the old anime. Miwa and her aggressive way of trying to recruit Sasakura really annoys me though. I hope they’ll tone it down in future episodes.
Bob
April 12, 2024 at 4:32 amAny chance of Sentai Daishikkaku coverage?
Guardian Enzo
April 12, 2024 at 7:09 amDid you like the premiere? I haven’t had time to check it out yet.
Bob
April 12, 2024 at 11:27 pmI loved it. The animation was fluid and passionate and the tone was spot on. It gives me high hopes for the rest of the series. The diegetic commercial break is very soulful.
MFF
April 12, 2024 at 10:01 pmI’m glad this episode was about soup, I wasn’t quite feeling well enough to have a drink – I still have a bottle of scotch on my desk for some reason…
Guardian Enzo
April 12, 2024 at 10:05 pmA bull shot is technically a cocktail, not soup.Though I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder…
Nicc
April 13, 2024 at 8:01 amAlright, I’m back for a second round. I’ll have to say that this show works great as a nightcap, whether it’s to end the evening or to end the our anime watching session. It looks like the theme of this episode is how to deal with difficult customers (And, job recruiters). Edenhall is certainly an unusual place in which Sasakura may be helping out at other bars from time to time and so it’s not always open. The two office ladies from the Hotel Cardinal find this out as they’re trying to recruit him one night. This time, he has been lent to another bar which seems even more quiet than then well-hidden Edenhall as we see Sasakura devoting a lot of time to serving just one customer.
We’ve already seen him in the first episode and he’s the owner of the Hotel Cardinal. He hits up this place every month on the 22nd. Right, the manager wasn’t able to tell Sasakura about his… peculiarities as he goes on to reject every cocktail that Sasakura served up. At one point, the old codger just gives Sasakura some cash to buy some sake at a nearby store. Sasakura does indeed get the background about him later on and the history he has with the bar and the bartender who used to serve him. Sasakura invites him to the bar at another night and this time he’s got the right drink for him. This “Old Pal” hits the spot for him and it’s at the temperature that he remembers. It looks like Sasakura has gotten his attention, though he’ll be leaving the recruiting to somebody else.
Next, it’s a rainy night in Tokyo and a drenched woman walks in. It hasn’t been a good day for her and she just wants one drink to sit in somewhere dry for a little while. Her drink order is unusual as she wants to get more drunk, but he doesn’t want any more alcohol. Yep, she’s got quite the attitude and seeing indoor smoking always surprises me nowadays. His answer is the “Bull Shot”, which I’ve never heard of before, but is exactly what she was looking for. There’s more symbolism to its name too which she learns about later. Well, it looks like he has gained a new regular to Edenhall. I also agree that the only thing I don’t like are the two office ladies seemingly hounding him every night to go work for their hotel. I really hope that this isn’t a reoccurring gag throughout the series as it already got old in this episode. Besides that, this show is working for me so far and I’ve been able to learn new things about cocktails.