English Dub Review: Bartender: Glass of God “Old Friends / One for the Road”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Miwa and Yukari continue their efforts to recruit Ryu, while Ryu tries to best serve a picky old man and a prickly lawyer.

OUR TAKE

So, I guess this is just how the show is going to be, with Ryu showing his special bartending mastery of finding the absolute perfect drink for any given customer that suits their needs to the letter while Miwa and Yukari keep trying to get him to join their specific group. Doesn’t sound like the most compelling formula and definitely not what I’d be in the mood for if I stumbled into a hole in the wall bar late at night, but maybe, hopefully, it’s not the entire story. Apparently this show is meant to be episodic, with each episode giving focus to a different customer who needs some other drink we’ve never seen used before, along with a bit of alcohol and drinking history and trivia. Again, I’m not that big of a drinker myself, but even if I was, I doubt I would have heard most of these drinks. That makes this technically an educational program, and hopefully also something I can show to officers if I am ever pulled over for driving under the influence. And you should too! Bartender: Glass of God is Bubbleblabber-approved to get you out of any DUI charge or your money back!

Anyway, aside from seemingly easing off the ASMR soft voice stuff from the first episode (or maybe I’m just getting used to it), I think this is definitely still a pretty unique premise, especially for an anime. We see plenty of bars and drinkers in anime and manga itself because drinking is used in so many stories already, but it’s not often the center focus. As we learned last week, Ryu takes his job as Bartender very seriously and feels he is providing a great service to people who need to be best taken care of. That says plenty about his character already, but I’m hoping that we get some better insight into his motivations sometime soon. Like who did he learn all of this from, why is he so passionate about preparing drinks and being a bartender, what are his aspirations in the role, and why is he REALLY so hesitant to take Miwa and Yukari up on their offer?To be continued!