The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses

I originally meant to watch season 1 for the massive romcom watch effort, but when looking ahead at what was coming for the year I saw a second season, and decided I’d just watch it all at once, assuming it was good enough. Season 1 proved to be entertaining, but fair warning this is very much an ecchi show. Nudity (with censor bars) and underwear are in nearly every episode, so if that’s not your thing turn back now. Basic premise is Hayato inherits his grandmother’s cafe after she passes, and decides to try and run it for a year. He lives with his 5 waitresses since his grandmother took them in.

Now being a harem and an ecchi you might expect the girls to have little personality. However, there is some development with nearly every character, dealing with their past or some other issue. Through these moments and times where Hayato helps them or shows a different side of himself, most of the girls fall for him. Some of these moments are just Hayato quoting his grandma, so that’s a little weird that they’re attracted to him for it. There is also a surprising amount of continuity in the season, with the events of the previous episode often being called out rather than it just being another day of running the cafe each time. Overall, it’s a pretty good, certainly better than expected.

One quick note is that at least on Crunchyroll, season 2 is not separated out, despite the fact it very much is set up to be separate in promo material and just elements of the show. The season initially seems to be setting up a rival cafe and then quickly drops that, and honestly I dropped not long after with episode 5, which set up the comedic relief character to be a real person. Now that isn’t why I dropped it, honestly I was mostly just bothered by the rival cafe and its characters. There’s also some coincidental plot things going on that I won’t spoil but I really couldn’t suspend my disbelief for it. I thought the more open romantic competition would be interesting, but it really wasn’t as Hayato is not playing along for various reasons.

Now reviewing both seasons together I have to give it a skip. Maybe the developments in season 2 are for you, but I think they largely complicate the setup for no reason. So if you’re looking for a show you can stick with until its end, I would say this is not the one. However, if you’re just looking for a fun few episodes, again season 1 was pretty good.