Pinch and zoom when you have penguin flippers is not a positive thing.
What They Say:
Penguin is excited about his new smartphone. But the café patrons are not impressed until Panda shows them his new phone. Along with a new smartphone, Penguin is taking driving classes to get his license. Polar Bear has agreed to give him a few pointers.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While there are many shows I look forward to each week this season, there are those couple that just hit me in a different way that I’m strangely eager for. Rock Lee is one of them because it’s just plain, goofy fun that we don’t often get in anime like that. The other is this, Polar Bear’s Cafe, because of its almost childlike sense of wonder about it and the way it can just go anywhere while still being silly and nudging things in a way that will delight the adults that watch it. It plays to all age groups well but can still easily appeal to kids who aren’t completely wedded to shows that are constantly hyper and overactive.
With the way the world works here, strange as it is, bringing technology into it isn’t a surprise. The kickoff to this episode has Penguin all excited to show off his smartphone, which leads to some really cute wordplay, especially as he gets a lot of the words wrong himself. When he shows off the pinch display for the small text, you have to laugh when you realize that he doesn’t exactly have the capacity to pinch. So when Polar Bear brings out his phone and shows how its done, it just pushes Penguin further to trying to show him up. The two aren’t exactly rivals but Penguin is just easily frustrated and upset by things and gets competitive when nobody else is. Even the Llama has some really fun moments with his that throws Penguin for a loop.
The second half of the episode is just as fun as the group discovers that Penguin is taking driving lessons as he wants to take Penko out on a date and needs to go big for it by driving. Because of this, he gets Polar Bear to show him a bit of his own driving techniques with Panda in tow in the back seat where he’s got his big round of snacks with all the bamboo. The story focuses less on the driving and more of the silly things that happen along the way, especially when the trio arrives at the hamburger fast food restaurant, which is kind of a surreal thing when you think about it, and all have a hard time figuring out what they can actually order since nothing they want is actually available.
In Summary:
While there are certainly parts of the series that don’t make any sense when it comes to walking and talking animals with licenses and smartphones, you have to look past that just to enjoy the silliness and absurdity of it all. And the show makes it very easy to do that so that when these thoughts do intrude, you just have to laugh at how surreal the concept would truly be. Watching as the gang deals with smartphone envy and the problem of using them when you lack the proper digits to do so is very good fun. And it’s only more fun when you see the trio going off on a car ride and encountering all kinds of silly situations there as well, especially at the drive through. It can go in some weird directions at times but it’s just the charm of it all in the end.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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