There is a bit of heaven and a bit of hell in this episode as Maika picks up a stray dog that turns into a life changer for Dino.
What They Say:
Episode 9: Owner Inauguration, Sister Attack
Maika brings a big stray dog she found to Café Stile. She can’t keep the dog at home, so looks for someone to adopt it, but doesn’t find any takers. Eventually, Dino is pressed into taking care of the dog, whose menacing eyes resemble Maika’s, at his place, at least until a willing owner can be found. Maika decides to bake sweets for Dino to show her appreciation.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The cast has grown quite a bit by this point, making one wonder whether Dino really needs such a large waiting staff. So if there is to be further cast expansion, it will have to come in another way. The author chose the animal option as we see Maika find a dog who has been abandoned by its owner. The dog is quite big and quite friendly and quite full of cliches. Maika cannot take in the abandoned animal since her sister and brother do not like dogs. Maika turns to the other staff members, but none of them can help (in typical fashion, Akizuki, Kaho, and Mafuyu each announce a standard reason for not being able to take in a pet). It comes down to extorting Dino to help out: extortion in the form of everyone noting how the dog resembles Maika (something about the eyes), which draws upon his feelings for her.
We discover that Dino lives in an apartment above the cafe and are then treated to a series of quick vignettes showing just how much taking care of the dog ruins Dino’s carefree otaku bachelor life. I’m afraid I found this whole section to be pretty boring, following standard conventions of “the problems a pet causes” humor. If there really were any reason to expand the cast (there probably isn’t), this is not the direction I would have encouraged the original author to take. The dog is given the name “Owner” (in English), providing another dull gag about the dog now outranking Dino in the hierarchy of the cafe.
The remaining half of the episode is better as they bring back a character who is good for a lot of humor in limited doses: Maika’s elder sister Aika. If you want a touch of madcap madness, it is best to bring in the Sakuranomiya family. As Maika begins baking sweets for Dino as appreciation for him taking care of the dog (and it’s these gifts that basically encourage him to continue putting up with Owner), Aika begins to wonder if her little sister and Dino are progressing at all, so she decides to visit the cafe in full Sakuranomiya style: by being as strangely ostentatious as possible without meaning to be so. Coming to a small cafe in a chauffeured black car, with two guards in dark suits and sunglasses, is bound to attract attention…and yet you can be sure that Aika had no such intention. It’s just the way her family is.
Once there, Aika bombards Maika with requests until she cannot take it anymore and Maika snaps at her…revealing that Aika had been trying to draw out a sadistic response the whole time. That…is very much Aika. She also goes into psycho mode when she thinks that Dino caused Maika to cry. Whenever she’s on screen, Aika steals the show and lifts this episode from being a boring slog of dog owning jokes. But it’s probably good that she only appears in half the episode, as Sakuranomiya nuttiness really works best in limited, well chosen doses.
The addition of Owner really does nothing for me. I’m not sure what it is that gets added to the mix now. Hopefully it’s not more lame “taking care of a pet is a nuisance” humor as that already got old this episode. That the author could bring back Aika and mine some more good humor from the insanity that is the Sakuranomiya family shows that there is more treasure available in the vault, but it may be a challenge to continue reusing and re-employing the older elements without wearing them out.
In Summary:
Maika finds an abandoned dog and has little luck in finding a new owner. Dino is basically dragged into taking care of the animal since the dog looks a bit like Maika and Maika’s gratitude is worth more than the inconvenience caused by Owner, the name given to the dog by Maika. As Maika starts making sweets to thank Dino, her elder sister Aika gets curious to see how things are between Dino and Maika. So, she visits the cafe, with predictably zany results.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 12GB RAM, Mac OS 10.13 High Sierra
