Halloween comes to the Cafe!
What They Say:
Polar Bear, Penguin, and Panda try their hand at trick and treating. Llama sits down with co-workers to discuss himself.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When it comes to the world of anime, there usually aren’t that many shows that touch upon the Halloween holiday. For Polar Bear Cafe, we do get a nod towards it as the first half of this episode is focused on it, which makes for a lot of fun. Some are excited for it like Panda, who is thrilled at the idea of getting free candy, while Penguin just wants the whole conversation to end. Penguin may not be the most excited about the whole event, but Polar Bear has done the cafe up well and all of them end up going out together to trick or treat.
Which is scary when you consider their costumes. Panda just puts a pumpkin on his head and Penguin dresses up as a baby King Penguin, which Panda mistakes as a scrubbing brush. Polar Bear on the other hand is just priceless as every scene has him in a new outfit. He’s completely into the festivities and intends to live it up as they visit other shops, including Grizzly’s Bar, where they want to get treats. The various visits and others they come across work really well in showing how everyone deals with the holiday and offers up lots and lots of very cute bits. The costume side of it alone as everyone wears what they like is the best, but most especially with Polar Bear. Even down to his classic style school girl outfit, complete with wig. Just watching this for Polar Bear alone is worthwhile.
The second half goes in a very different direction as it spends time with Llama, one of the more mellow characters of the series. He’s becoming frustrated, in his own way, over how hardly anyone comes to see him at the zoo. He’s even calling out some of the patrons over it as they just walk right by him. His solution is to sit down with all his coworkers to figure out what to do to drive up his popularity a bit. It’s like herding cats getting them all on the same page though, to good effect. The efforts to get him more notice are cute in general and have a good effect, giving us a little more face time with Llama, one of the more difficult characters to connect with over the course of the series. While he’s not a bad character, we do see that even his friends know little about him and there isn’t all that much to really drive him to popularity. Which is okay, overall, but makes for a mildly amusing portion of the episode overall.
In Summary:
With two very different stories in the episode, it’s the kind of week where it’s a mixed bag. I really enjoyed the first half, even if it really didn’t do anything story wise, because it gave us the main trio in costume(s) going around and interacting with everyone out there. The fun was in the costume with Polar Bear and seeing some of the encounters. The second half is weaker and I felt bad for Llama since he was having such a problem, similar to Full Time Panda, but isn’t able to really change anything about it and just has to accept that he’s going to be largely ignored. It’s not bad, but it makes you feel a little sad overall and doesn’t really make you any more interested in the character than you were before. The first half definitely wins out here in the end and just thinking about it leaves me smiling.
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.
