Never bring a panda on a blind date.
What They Say:
After eating Mr. Handa very plain lunch, Panda gets Mr. Handa invited on a group date in hopes his lunches improves. But when the 3rd male drops out, Panda goes to the café to find a replacement.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the cast of characters here, there are a few that you can definitely enjoy in this form but couldn’t imagine having them as friends because of their personalities. Some of it just comes down to tone of voice though, such as the opening gag here with Penguin and his inability to get his usual lunch due to a minor mixup. His voice just lends him to coming across as overly critical, but there’s also that aspect of his personality as well which is pretty strong. I like him like this, and I like Panda the way he is, but I can’t imagine hanging out with them without getting incredibly frustrated with both of them because of how they act. Thankfully, Polar Bear is so mellow that he can handle it easily.
Panda can get a bit pushy as well, as we see here, as he’s quite interested in Mr. Handa’s lunch while at the zoo for work. So much so that he ignores his instructions to not touch his lunch and ends up opening it. The reveal is a pretty simple lunch as you’d expect a guy to make for himself. What’s unfortunate for Handa is that both pandas then take to criticizing it and the lack of female companionship in his life. It’s not a brutal takedown, but you can’t help but to feel sad for him being critiqued by those two. And even worse for Handa is that he ends up getting setup for some blind date material in a group setting at that moment and the peer pressure from the pandas is pretty darn intense.
Unfortunately, the whole three on three setup for it falls short on the male side, which could ruin the whole thing, so Panda’s intent on acquiring a third male from the cafe. You have to laugh at Penguin’s reaction to this since it doesn’t go as expected, but the real beauty is Handa’s expression when he sees who is actually going. The group blind date itself dominates the second half and it just hits so many good points you can’t help but to grin throughout it. Especially since Kirino and Handa get easily upstaged by Polar Bear as he’s a ladies man in a very good way, smooth and confident and without being macho about it. Of course, he and Panda aren’t exactly up on existing in the human world when it comes to this, so they have their problems, but a lot of it just proves to be appealing to the girls who just want to cuddle them something fierce. The date goes about as you’d expect overall, but there’s just a ton of fun to be had in watching it play out.
In Summary:
Polar Bear Cafe doesn’t change things up too much here by doing a full episode storyline, broken in half of course, as it still retains a lot of the same kind of flow and sense of humor to it. Watching the group date unfold is pretty amusing since the human guys are panicking over things while the girls are just completely in love with Polar Bear and Panda. And mixing in grumpy Penguin bits along the way just makes for even more fun. Handa and Kirino definitely have some fun moments here both as they try and go through the date and deal with the animals quirks that cause problems for them. The girls are also really fun to watch here, making this a very fun episode overall. Watching Mr. Handa get his confidence is pretty hilarious when you get down to it.
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.
