English Dub Review: Bartender: Glass of God “A Bartender’s Resolve”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kelvin Chen arrives at Ryu’s bar looking for a job to prove to his father that he should follow his dreams of bartending.

OUR TAKE

Uuuuuuggggghhhh, this show is so booooooriiiiing. Every episode does the bare minimum of character pantomiming to lead into a lecture on the history of drink recipes. For a show about mixing types of liquids, it’s ironically rather dry and mostly flavorless. And after the episode a couple weeks ago when Kelvin Chen first showed up, it has only become more clear that its niche hyperfixation is for a VERY small audience. True to his name, Kelvin makes everything slow down on a molecular level and takes a LOT of energy to get things moving again. And I simply don’t care about his bad relationship with his father and his dreams of being a bartender. We have other characters with that dream who know how to at least make things SOMEWHAT interesting, or at least understand the industry and craft in more interesting ways. And unfortunately it looks like we’re going to have another episode focusing just on him, so look forward to basically the same rants here for that too. Heck, I could probably copy paste this to it and I bet no one would notice! But nah, I don’t think I could do that…again. Only original thoughts from here on out!

The main overall plot relevant thing that happens is Kelvin asking Ryu to teach him the Glass of God, the thing that so many other characters are coveting and working to learn. And as Ryu tells Kelvin, it’s not something one can be taught, but more a means of accommodating a customer to have the perfect drink made specifically for them. Thus we connect back to the main conflict within Ryu that we’ve seen: his desire to give each customer exactly what they need in alcoholic beverage form versus his ambition to create a perfect drink of each recipe to the letter. On one path lies a strict adherence to establishment and tradition, and the other a path to go off the beaten trail for the enjoyment and satisfaction of each individual according to their tastes. There may be some overlap along the way, but ultimately the two ideals are very different, and it seems Ryu cannot follow one without sacrificing the other. Geez, look how much more interesting everything sounds when I’m not talking about friggin Kelvin?! Well, thankfully after next week, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have to again! But before after next week, we gotta have next week, so see ya then.