The Cafe Terrace and its Goddesses

This is an older title now, fully 13 volumes in as of June this year, but I wanted to give it some space for a review despite having missed the initial arrival, especially since season 2 of the anime aired this month in Japan. Season 1 is available on Crunchyroll, with 16 episodes available to stream with English subtitles or dubbed in Spanish. What an odd choice.

The story revolves around a young man named Hayato Kasukabe who returns to the Cafe Familia, where he has fond memories of his Grandma. Having passed, he inherits the business only to find the premises is also home to five young women who are working there to pay for their education. With the survival of the cafe on the line, can Hayato and the girls pull together and keep the business alive?

While the anime plays up the cheesecake, the manga is a tad more grounded (it's hard to draw jiggle physics after all) but there's still a few panels that aren't really safe for work. It's all part of the slice-of-life comedy though, so take it for what it is and it's hard to get offended. The artist has a knack for sharp design and figurework, so it's a pleasure to look at no matter how many clothes (or not) the cast are wearing.

I think I gravitated toward this particular series because I liked the fact that Hayato isn't a slave to his lust - he's borderline blind to his inherited harem's many charms, being entirely practical in his affairs. Initially he'd planned to just demolish the cafe and build a parking lot, which sends the girls into a tailspin as they can't afford to move out. Cue lots of scheming as they try to use said charms to get their way, with Hayato proving remarkably unmoved despite their best efforts. It's actually quite enjoyable to see a main character who can stand his ground, so for that reason I was pulled in. By the end of the first few chapters a surprising amount of depth is revealed and it's sentiment for his Grandmother that moves Hayato to salvage the cafe and not cheap tricks. Seo clearly has a ball drawing his cast in glamorous poses though.

The girls are an interesting mix - active but dim Karate club member Ami Tsuruga, the scheming Riho Tsukishima, randy drunk and scent fetishist Shiragiku Ono, sombre and thoughtful band member Akane Hououji and 19 year-old vocation student Ouka Makuzawa, who seems to lead the girls as a group.  Collectively their ability to bicker and still work as a team provides a lot of the humour and verve throughout the volumes, where we learn more about their backstories, motivations and desires in life. One of the early chapters shows Riho's ability to call Hayato on his behaviour, when visiting all the suppliers he's unable to understand the nuance required to endear himself or present the cafe as a viable potential customer, all of which she manages to do effortlessly. She's even able to visit them all again to correct the first impression, but admirably Hayato also insists on re-visiting each supplier to take responsibility inspired by Riho's example. This humility and maturity speaks well of the series and provides a much needed sense of grounding to events that might otherwise be considered overly slapstick.

At its core, this is a harem series like any other, drawn together by the cafe and the shared love of Hayato's deceased Grandmother. While I get a little embarrassed when a book goes too hard on the panty shots, the underlying story and characters ensure there's more to it than gratuitous eye-candy. Having lived with girls many years ago, there are notes of my own experiences in here too, which is a nice reminder of my younger days!

All in, this is a solid book with interesting characters, unique challenges (many business-based, which is also up my alley) and hints of romance to keep the temperature up. While I'm only 4 books in, I'm more than happy to keep going and enjoy the adventures at Cafe Terrace Familia. It might read like a dating sim, but its hard not to root for everyone involved.