The holiday’s approach and everyone’s plans are getting underway…
What They Say:
No episode summary provided.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With some good fun done in the previous episode that focused on Grizzy and his hibernation, the show continues to do what it does best by changing things up. As much as I enjoy Grizzly and most of the main characters, there’s enough to work with here so that you don’t get stuck on any particular one too long. Don’t like a character? They’ll be in the background before you know it for a bit. The core trio themselves even go through this, so when they do take up some primary space, it doesn’t feel like “yet another” episode focusing n Panda, Penguin or Polar Bear.
With the Christmas season arriving in the series, it gets some nods here such as the tree that’s decorated in the cafe. And there’s certainly enough talk about things to do during the holidays, which of course gets Polar Bear figuring out ways to make a profit during it. Other aspects deal with some animal angles, similar to Grizzly, as we see how Llama talks about getting a good shave and just how unusual it looks. Even Sasako has some cute moments, though it tends to leave Penguin quite frustrated as it feels like nobody is taking the holiday seriously. There’s some good and simple silliness here as the main approach is to let a lot of the supporting cast role through and go on about what they want to do for the holidays or their particular quirks.
The second half shifts well to an interesting point as it has Polar Bear and Penguin head over after work to Grizzly’s bar, where we see how he’s out of commission for the season and others are working the bar, which is quite cute. There’s some small bits here throughout that work, particularly with the way that Grizzly gets abused and how Penguin is frustrated, and I really liked seeing Polar Bear take on the bartending role, but there’s also just a lack of a strong arc to it overall. It’s filled with the cast at large to varying degrees getting their bits, though not all of them to be sure, but it lacks the kind of cohesiveness to really draw it all together. The good bits are definitely good, but they stand out only because so much of it is weak.
In Summary:
While Polar Bear Cafe isn’t a show that exactly hits it out of the park in a big way on any occasion, it’s filled with lots of great material that hits a perfect sweet spot. This episode has lots of those little moments but not the connective tissue to really bring it together in a strong way. The small moments work well but they’re too few and far between while the rest is mildly amusing at best and does get a few smiles. The characters here are pretty diverse as we get a very good range of them, and it’s worth doing as the holiday approaches to give them all a chance to shine, but it keeps it from doing a stronger episode overall.
Grade: C+
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.
