English Dub Season Review: Bartender – Glass of God

At a cursory glance of the medium, it may seem like anime is really only known for tackling a few broad subjects: fighting tournaments with spikey haired upstarts, traumatic war stories involving giant robots, high school based romantic comedies with harems the size of cul-de-sac, and combinations thereof. However, even if you scratch the surface and look back just a handful of years, some of the greatest recent critical hits in anime have focused on areas that are pretty niche. Yuri on Ice opened up many eyes to the wonders of finger skating. Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju highlighted the much overlooked skill of Japanese verbal comedy performance. And despite ending decades ago, Hikaru no Go continues to rope people into trying out a millenia old strategy board game. Similarly, Bartender, a twenty year old manga with many adaptations under its belt, covers a similarly old focus that is even more universal: enjoying a good drink at a bar and the people who make those drinks. Its latest adaptation, subtitled “Glass of God”, is meant to be a reboot of the manga and first anime, though without having watched or read those, all I have to go by is how it handles itself on its own terms. So, is this drink one you could get hammered to or should you pour it down the sink when no one’s looking?

Bartender follows many people who have a keen interest in the art of drink making, but mostly centers on Ryu Sasakura, a young man who has a specific goal: to learn the Glass of God, a technique for knowing how to give the perfect drink to any customer no matter what they may need. This near flawless customer service attracts the attention of Taizo and Miwa Kurushima, the former of whom wants to invite Ryu to join his own bar. Ryu refuses, but Miwa continues to visit him, and in the process meet a bunch of customers who bring their own stories and problems to the bar, each of whom Ryu brings a new drink (and bit of drink trivia) to the situation. In addition, we also meet plenty of aspiring bartenders with their own goals, but…really, the only one who is really worth focusing on is Ryu, and even he is not always the most interesting person. We don’t get into his backstory until near the end, at which point my patience has long since run out, but we do at least know why Ryu is the way he is and how his ethos regarding making drinks has formed.

I’m honestly not sure how to or even if I can recommend this show. There are plenty of food based anime, the first to come to mind being Food Wars,that has a lot more going for it to keep people’s attention (namely tits and tasty looking food). Bartender, for a story about drinks, is surprisingly dry, and really only for those who may have a clear interest in the subject. That’s not to say that there’s nothing of merit if you don’t have those interests, but it will probably be harder to get to the good parts at the end if you don’t have the patience (or a paid incentive like me) to get there. But if you’re reading this and are even the slightest bit intrigued by this description, then maybe just drink it straight with no chaser. Although frankly, it would probably be good to pair it with your most generic shonen just to get the taste out after. Or whatever, it’s up to you.