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In our ongoing series on unexpectedly good manga we come to a fancy fine wine focused, slice of cake series without the frosting and sprinkles entitled Bartender, written by Joh Araki and illustrated by Nagatomo Kenji.
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In our ongoing series on unexpectedly good manga we come to a fancy fine wine focused, slice of cake series without the frosting and sprinkles entitled Bartender, written by Joh Araki and illustrated by Nagatomo Kenji.
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In our ongoing series on unexpectedly good manga we come to a fancy fine wine focused, slice of cake series without the frosting and sprinkles entitled Bartender, written by Joh Araki and illustrated by Nagatomo Kenji.
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Stats: Episodes: 11 Aired: Oct 15, 2006 - Dec 31, 2006 Current MAL Score: 7.68 Current MAL Rank: 837 Short synopsis: Sasakura Ryuu is an incredibly talented bartender known for making the "Glass of the Gods." He works at a small, nondescript bar called Eden Hall. It is there that people seek this genius bartender out and find their own "Glass of the Gods" to soothe their unique problems. Being a show about a bartender, this show obviously has a lot of alcohol references that flew past me. As such, a lot of the drinking novelty will be lost on those under 21. It's likely that if you are over 21, you will enjoy this much more than a teenage anime blogger with nothing better to do than watch an anime about drinking although the only alcohol she's ever tasted is wine and champagne. And although I may not have been able to enjoy it as much as someone over the alcohol-guzzling age of 21, I didn't feel too overwhelmed, and I did learn quite a lot about alcohol (though the legitimacy of some of the facts is questionable).  Actually, the most entertaining thing about Bartender was the huge variety of stories customers told Ryuu. Almost every episode had a different customer with problems unique to their situation. It was Ryuu's job to provide his customer with a drink that would soothe their problems and make a solution clear. The stories were always intriguing and easily kept my interest. It was nice to see someone walk out of the bar with clarity in their life and an answer to their predicament. It was also nice to see realistic problems- the characters were fairly easy to relate to. I really only had a few problems with the show, but they didn't really sap from my overall enjoyment or the satisfaction felt once I finished the series. It was nice to see past characters after their story had been told. but I didn't like how they were used as narrators. It was really confusing - especially at the beginning- to see characters from episodes ago relay plot points. Also, the episodes about the "mistake of Sasakura Ryuu" were kind of confusing; mostly because his mistake, so stressed upon by the passing narrators, wasn't really explained in full, and the two episodes spent on his "mistake" kind of warped Ryuu's character. Those episodes made him look childish and immature. Well, actually, his words and actions were nothing but gracious and polite, but the older bartenders chastised him for a mistake he didn't know he made- and the audience didn't either. I couldn't tell how long ago those episodes were because Ryuu looked exactly the same, so it was a little difficult seeing how much time it took for Ryuu to be the bartender he is now. In all, those two episodes were probably the worst of the show, though they weren't totally bad. I just found myself annoyed by the somewhat arrogant customers and older bartenders. Those are the only complaints I have, though. Bartender proved to be a wonderful series full of fascinating vignettes about passing customers and the drinks used to placate their problems. The dark Eden Hall bar, hidden in the alleyways of Tokyo, held a very sophisticated and refined aura while still managing to be homely and welcoming. A very enjoyable experience- I recommend it to anyone who likes episodical anime and/or holds an interest in bartending or cocktails. Plot: 8/10 Music: 8/10 Ending: 6/10 Art: 6/10 Characters: 9/10 Personal Enjoyment: 9/10 Total: 46/60 Mean: 7.666... (rounded to 8 on MAL) Other stuff The live action ending theme was pretty cool. The fish swimming through the air, a real bartender making the drink mentioned in the episode, and - who I presume to be the actual  artist- singing the ending theme in the background made the it very memorable.   Why are 11 episode anime so good?? The reason the ending only got 6 (which is a "fine" on the MAL rating scale) was because the ending didn't really tie anything together. The old-man narrator just gives a speech on what it is to be successful bartender and the series ends. Nothing really fantastic. It's just fine.  In other news, I got a B on this song. It was difficult, but very fun. :3 Just watching that video makes me want to play it again.
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This is the second post of 2 from DMAB participating in the Reverse Thieves’ Secret Santa Project for this year. “In happy times, one cocktail is enough, because anything you drink will taste good. But, if there a hundred shapes of unhappiness, I want to be a bartender who will make a hundred cocktails to soothe [...]
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Anime, just like any other medium, does suffer from the fact that as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to be original. In the past decade, nearly all of the genres we know today were already invented, and during the past few years, it has become near-impossible to create any new genres it [...]
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Last week I recorded my piano version of Hajimari no Hito for mitayashi's blog. Mitayashi just wrote a post about our joint project (here), where she added her music sheets. Thanks for the great job, Mitayashi!You can download the sheets here.
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I don't know if some of you have ever watched the anime Bartender (I didn't), but the Bartender ED theme song is to die for. It's called Hajimari no Hito and is performed by Natural High. I recently discovered this amazing song thanks to Mitayashi from the mitayashi no mae-blog, a cool blog that supplies music sheets for anime, J-dorama, and J-movie fans. This song is actually part of a project we're doing together with another blog, Anime Vocalist which does singing contests and singing lessons. Please check out these 2 blogs!As part of this joint project, I was asked to do a piano cover of this song. And if everything goes according to plan, it will be recorded by the end of this week. So stay tuned for my piano cover, and in the meantime you can download the full ED song here.9/10 Hajimari no Hito is a one of those wonderful piano ballads, that manage to convey emotions without sounding cheesy. The piano accompaniment is definitely the highlight of the song. And of course, the wonderful singer helps a lot too.You definitely have to check out this amazing song here:<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/aqRoS4HhgDk&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x5d1719&amp;color2=0xcd311b"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/aqRoS4HhgDk&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x5d1719&amp;color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
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I was listening to some music of mine and heard the opening song to Bartender, which I decided to download on a whim and never got around to writing about. I realize the show is a bit old. I was on MAL one day and indulging in some ARIA obsessiveness and saw a “if you [...]
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On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: twelve I CAN’T BELIEVE IT TASTES LIKE BLACK VELVET!’s, eleven HYPER CLOCK UP’s, ten EVERYTHING FOR BIG FIRE’s, nine SKULL MAN’s, eight SYNAPSE ATTACK’s, seven GARO’s, six OH GAWDS YUNO IS MOE!, five ZERO!, four VOLTEKKA!, three PRIMAL SCREAMS OF HOT BLOODED FURY!, [...]
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This post is about anime for MEN. Unfortunately, I'm fairly sure that AWO has spoken at length about every show in the past 15 years that involves the fine things in life, like rape, heads exploding due to gunshots, and pissing in eyes, so my options are fairly limited.
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It’s easy to forget just how great this series is. I am amazed by it every time I watch an episode. Its themes, style, directing, editing, acting, everything is on a completely different level than normal anime. One of the few anime I can definitely say deserves merit as a mature work of art. I [...]
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Story: In Tokyo there exists the bar Eden Hall, where resides the genius Bartender, Ryou Sasakura. He is reknowned as the ” Glass of the Gods, ” the man who knows the perfect drink for any problem. Ryou puts this ability to good use throughout the series, encountering a number of people and their problems. From [...]
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As usual, a few more drinks are introduced while accompanied by a con man story. The guy is caught conning a woman with his lie but the bartender Sasakura Ryuu sees through his plot after observing him. The guy is planning to propose to the rich woman but is stopped by Ryuu. [...]
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Oh my god, Ryuu is a jerk! He put drugs on his female customer’s drinks and then he does this and that… nah, just kidding. He serves a drink called Black Witch but he later put an ice looking thing into the drinks. The lady saw what he did and asks whether [...]
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To be honest, this series is a bit boring but interesting at the same time. Let’s put it this way, the series itself only concentrates on drinks and liquors without any plot development is a bit boring since I don’t have the thrill to watch the next episode. However, it’s quite interesting [...]
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A new drink introduced again. Added with ice then rum, lime juice, grapefruit and tiny bit of cherry liqueur and later blended it to create the drinks called Hemingway Daiquiri. Though I know nothing about the drinks but the serving is quite unique with 2 straws. The reason behind the idea is [...]
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It’s another educational lessons from Ryu Sasakura in this episode. I’ve learned a lot from this show. In this fourth episode, Sasakura taught me something new again. There seem to be drinks that call Cinderella and Bloody Caesar. I heard of Bloody Mary but not Bloody Caesar. It’s very complicated when he [...]
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It’s been more than 2 months since I last posted something on this series Bartender. And finally, here is the next post. I stopped watch the show since they released it in HD version since my 5 years old PC is having problem playing the HD thing. I tried many solutions but [...]
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