English Dub Review: Restaurant to Another World “Beef Stew/Breakfast Special”

Well, my D&D Campaign just got some inspiration.

Spoilers Below

Somewhere in Tokyo, in your average, everyday shopping district, is a door with a cat on it. That is the door to Western Restaurant Nekoya. The name is a bit deceptive. It doesn’t just focus on American cuisine. In more archaic uses of the term, Western Cuisine was anything that isn’t from Japan. The chef that owns the place is a cook of extraordinary cooking. So much so, he is referred to only as the Master (So that’s what he does when he isn’t tormenting the Doctor). Of course, that isn’t the only thing that sets it apart from the local eateries. On Saturday, when it is supposedly closed, it opens its doors to a very different clientele. Samurai, wizards, lionmen… even dragons! In fact one of Nekoya’s best customers is the Red Queen. No, not that one. Wrong anime. No, this Red Queen is one of the six great dragons of another universe! Every Saturday, as Nekoya closes, she comes in for a bowl of beef stew, then leaves with an entire pot!

The next morning, the Master returns to check on some corn pottage he had left to sit overnight. He finds the pottage gone and a blonde girl laying on his kitchen floor. She apologizes profusely for having eaten the food, but he calmly offers her a simple breakfast while they talk about her circumstances. Her name is Aletta. She is what we D&D fans call a tiefling: a half-demon. Her world just calls them demons, though. She lacks any of the special powers of her kind, and merely has horns to mark that she isn’t of the more high-born races. She used to work as a server at an inn, but when her horns were discovered, she got fired, and has been homeless and destitute ever since. The Master has a good idea. Once a week, on the Saturdays the Nekoya is open to other worlds, she can come and work for him as a server. Since she has experience, he’ll pay her more than the going rate for a college student to work. She’s overjoyed by his offer, and immediately snatches it up. That night, as she sleeps on her pile of hay in a set of old ruins, the Red Queen flies overhead, casting a spell. The Nekoya is one of her most prized “possessions”, and now, Aletta receives her blessing as part of that restaurant’s staff.

Restaurant to Another World is an interesting anime to me. It’s calm, and treats fantastical elements with a down-to-earth eye. The Master doesn’t even balk at the idea of a wizard or a dragon in his shop. It’s all old news to him. Not because his world has these things, but because he’s worked at this restaurant for a while. The fantastical became normal. The series plays out almost like a slice-of-life. Not much actually happens in an episode, it seems. It’s very calm and soothing, like your favorite lunchtime restaurant when it isn’t busy. This is partially because of its unassuming interiors, but is also because of the voice acting. Christopher Sabat plays the Master with a low, warm tone that has authority, but opts instead to be gentle and positive. Jill Harris could have chosen to play Aletta with a higher, bell-like tone, like many who play the cuter girl roles, but softened her voice instead. This gives the tiefling girl a sense of downtrodden humility that makes her rather endearing. Between the two, the voice acting on this show looks like it’s going to feel like coming home.

The English script was written by Jamie Marchi, who we’ve been hearing on Alice & Zoroku as Hatori. She’s a real veteran in the realms of anime dubbing, both as an actress and as a script writer. I dug her work here. The words of each character fit what the mouths were saying for the most part (exceptions being the inhuman characters, which is acceptable). The art and animation for the episode was excellent… in the close-ups. Facial details were nice, though the lineart had little character to its lines. Rather mainstream. The real problem was when you were farther away. It wasn’t just that we lost the details (understandable), but that we started to gain errors, such as eyes being improperly spaced or irises in the wrong place. One or twice is one thing, but it was consistent. And for a show where there isn’t any action, this isn’t a good thing. I honestly expected a bit better from Silver Link, the studio that put together Masamune-Kun’s Revenge. That was a slice-of-life, but it didn’t look to have anywhere near this many errors. Maybe it was just on a strict deadline. Still, I do look forward to more of the series. I just have to make sure I eat before I watch it. This show makes me hungry. I give it seven bowls of corn pottage out of ten.