What They Say:
In a certain ward of a certain city in Hokkaido…The ward office where Yamagami Lucy has been hired employs many unique characters on its staff. Yamagami and her colleagues are full of energy and secrets as they’re hard at work (?!) in this workplace comedy!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the cast gets more and more accessible with each episode as their quirks and interactions grow, there are plenty of fun workplace events that can come into play. Take, for example, he opening aspect where we see Hasebe teaching Yamagami sign language but moving her hands for her. It’s not exactly inappropriate physical contact, but from the view of others, it’s something that definitely looks wrong as he gets very close to her and shows her amusing words without her really learning anything useful. That has the other girls trying to remind her to be careful, especially after she reveals that she did inform him of her bra size, since Hasebe is a complete player and there’s a certain camaraderie that forms with many women against people like that.
There’s also some good fun that comes from Saya as she make sit clear to Hasebe that she considers him a rival, but he doesn’t quite know what the rivalry is about, which is certainly amusing since he can’t imagine what it is or why she’d say that and just kind of laughs it off and moves on. But there’s also some minor troubles when it comes to dealing with Yamagami since she’s sort of innocent in a lot of ways and isn’t sure how to handle someone like Hasebe, especially when he does ask her out and all she hears from the other girls is what kind of player he is, even talking about how he probably dates girls and gets them to dress up in costumes for him. While she turned him down, the show situation makes her uncertain and it causes enough problems for Ichimiya too since it’s not exactly workplace acceptable.
This episode also introduces us to the section chief for the first time, which is presented to us as a pink stuffed animal with the attitude and mentality of a grump fifty year old working man. It’s… unusual and I’m not sure it really fits with the tone of the show, but it has its laughs as we get some of those early moments. But the show also focuses on a going out for food together meeting between Yamagami and Hasebe, which is seemingly normal since coworkers going for food is perfectly normal, right? The girls do their best to warn her off in so many ways, including putting her through a test to make sure she’s not an idiot. Of course, events go in such a way that idiot gets added to the end of her name, and it’s hard to say it’s not entirely deserved.
In Summary:
With a more overall focus here rather than a series of shorter stories, Servant x Service is pretty decent as it works through what kind of person Hasebe really is compared to the perception of him that others have. Yamagami is just way too innocent, but Chihaya and Miyoshi have such strong views of him that his being somewhere in the middle is pretty much a given. There are some fun situations that do arise from it all and plenty to like with how it unfolds, though it’s all just a little more drawn out than I would have cared for. The only part that leaves me feeling uncertain with the show is the introduction of the section chief and how he’s presented as it takes me out of the show far more than the series would seem to allow. I’m not convinced it works yet and I could do with him having few appearances overall.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
