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is a Japanese four-panel
comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
written and illustrated by Miyuki Nakayama in Houbunsha's '' Manga Time Kirara Carat'' magazine from 2013 to 2022 and collected into eight volumes. A 12-episode
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
television series adaptation produced by
A-1 Pictures is a Japanese animation studio and production company founded by ex- Sunrise producer Mikihiro Iwata. It is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan's anime production firm Aniplex. History The company was established by SMEJ's animat ...
aired from October to December 2017.


Plot

High school girl Maika Sakuranomiya has trouble finding a part-time job because of how scary she looks when smiling. However, she is scouted one day by an Italian man who is also the manager of Stile ( ), a café where its waitresses are given unique traits such as ''
tsundere is a Culture of Japan, Japanese term for a character development process that depicts a character with an initially harsh personality who gradually reveals a warmer, friendlier side over time. The word is derived from the terms (adverb, 'mo ...
'' and younger sister. Maika is given a sadistic trait because of her looks and has to adopt a dominant and cruel persona when servicing customers, particularly masochistic ones.


Characters

; : :Maika is a 16-year-old girl who has a positive and cheerful personality, and unintentionally gains a sadistic look in her eyes whenever she smiles. This look catches the attention of Dino, who scouts her to be the "sadistic girl" waitress at Café Stile. Despite being told that the customers like being treated badly, her worrying about how she is treating customers gets the better of her, causing her to snap into an apologetic personality as soon as they have left. She comes from a very traditional family and works part-time, so she could study abroad using her own money. Her love of other countries also makes her develop an admiration towards
Colonel Sanders Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 December 16, 1980) was an American businessman and founder of fast food chicken restaurant chain KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known as KFC). He later acted as the company's brand ambassador and sym ...
(whom she refers to as the "old man from the chicken place") and
Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...
. She adores Dino because of his blond hair, but is oblivious to his crush on her. ; : :Kaho is a 17-year-old waitress at Stile who acts as the ''tsundere''. Although she plays a tsunderish role, Kaho's real personality is that of a carefree and energetic person, but she retains somewhat of a ''tsundere'' dynamic with Kōyō. She has trouble keeping up her persona when customers are discussing video games, feeling the need to join in. She is currently the most popular waitress at Stile. It is hinted that she has feelings for Kōyō due to the comedic situations she gets into with him. ; : :Mafuyu is another waitress at Stile who is actually a 20-year-old college student, but she plays the younger sister character because of her petite figure. Her real personality is mature and rarely shows emotions, but she easily gets excited whenever her favorite series, '' Aikatsu!'' (''Magical Frill'' in the anime), is involved. She has a younger brother who is taller than her, and she has always wanted a younger sister, although she will not include Kaho because of her body figure. Although she plays a younger sister character, she has a degree of contempt towards lolicons, and once turned down a customer who asked her out because she believed he was only interested in her because of her young appearance. ; : :Miu is a waitress who fulfills the older sister trait. She usually wears glasses, although she wears contacts when at work at the café. She is 22 years old, and usually behaves elegantly; however, she is also a ''
dōjinshi , also Romanization of Japanese, romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of ''doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of exi ...
'' artist in a group called "Hanazono Folder" that draws adult comics, and on occasion muses about scenarios for her ''dōjinshi'' with rather creepy details. After accidentally leaving one of her works at the café when she visited as a customer, Dino scouted her, and she agreed to get inspiration for her ''dōjinshi''. One of her hobbies is observing people, particularly the relationship between Dino and Maika; she even uses them as models in her ''dōjinshi'', despite Dino's strong objection. ; : :Hideri is a 16-year-old "waitress" who fulfills the idol trait. Hideri is actually a boy who dresses as a girl and aspires to become an idol. He works at Stile to gain fans; giving proof to his parents that he is talented, or else he has to inherit his family's farm. While he acts like a "cute" girl all the time, he can unintentionally become manly. Although friendly and energetic, he is also incredibly vain and believes himself to be incredibly cute, often bragging about how much his alleged fanbase admires him. He is also very picky over clothes, preferring to wear cute and Gothic outfits instead of funny and sexy clothes, much to Miu's annoyance. He occasionally attempts to help Dino get closer to Maika; however, Dino usually ends up messing up the opportunity in one way or another. ; : :Dino is a 26-year-old Italian manager of Stile and works in the kitchen. He loves anime girls and figurines, and often stays up late to watch late night anime. His nose bleeds whenever he gets excited. Due to his attraction for Japanese girls, particularly black-haired ones, he develops an open crush on Maika, although Maika herself is oblivious to this fact. He lives on the second floor above Stile and took in a dog named per Maika's request. Due to his eccentric personality, he is often accused by the other employees of being perverted, and on one occasion even gets arrested due to describing his attraction to Maika in public. ; : :Kōyō is the 21-year-old chef at Stile who loves '' yuri'' and always wants to see female customers being friendly to each other to fire his imagination. Working at the same station as Dino, he has to work harder because the latter often slacks off. Like Kaho, he is also a gamer and later becomes more conscious of her. He often gets flustered whenever he inadvertently sees Kaho's breasts, and later develops somewhat of a tsundere dynamic with her. ; : :Aika is Maika's older sister who dresses in a ''
yamato nadeshiko ''Yamato nadeshiko'' ( or ) is a Japanese language, Japanese term meaning the "Anthropomorphism, personification of an idealized Japanese woman." The term is the archetype of conservative and traditional femininity. Name origin and connotatio ...
'' manner. She often worries about Maika because of her scary eyes. Like her sister, Aika is a natural sadistic character. She mistakes Dino as Maika's boyfriend. ; : :Kōichi is Aika and Maika's older brother who is recognizable from his black hair with bangs parted in the middle. Like his sisters, he is a natural sadistic character. He is worried about Maika who has few friends because of her scary eyes. Like Aika, he mistakes Dino as Maika's boyfriend.


Media


Manga

''Blend S'' is a four-panel
comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
written and illustrated by Miyuki Nakayama. It made its first appearance in Houbunsha's '' Manga Time Kirara Carat'' magazine with the October 2013 issue, and began serialization in the magazine with the March 2014 issue. The last chapter was published in the June issue on April 28, 2022. Eight ''
tankōbon A is a standard publishing format for books in Japan, alongside other formats such as ''shinsho'' (17x11 cm paperback books) and ''bunkobon''. Used as a loanword in English, the term specifically refers to a printed collection of a manga that w ...
'' volumes of the manga have been released from January 27, 2015, to May 26, 2022. The manga was licensed in North America by Sol Press before it went out of business and left the translation unfinished with only one volume published. At
Anime Expo Anime Expo, abbreviated AX, is an American anime convention held in Los Angeles, California and organized by the non-profit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA). The convention is traditionally held annually on the first we ...
2024,
Yen Press Yen Press is an American manga, graphic novel and light novel publisher co-owned by Kadokawa Corporation and Hachette Book Group. It published '' Yen Plus'', a monthly comic anthology, between 2008 and 2013. In addition to translated material, ...
announced that they licensed the series for English publication.


Anime

An
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
television series adaptation, directed by Ryōji Masuyama and produced by
A-1 Pictures is a Japanese animation studio and production company founded by ex- Sunrise producer Mikihiro Iwata. It is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan's anime production firm Aniplex. History The company was established by SMEJ's animat ...
, premiered on October 8, 2017.
Gō Zappa is a Japanese author and anime screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, featur ...
supervised the series' scripts and Yōsuke Okuda designed the characters. Go Zappa wrote the screenplay, and
Tomoki Kikuya is a Japanese composer, arranger and guitarist. Kikuya is best known for composing original soundtracks for anime series, including most notably ''Nisekoi'', '' Eromanga Sensei'', '' Bocchi the Rock!'', '' Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs'', ...
composed the music. Aniplex of America licensed the anime for release in North America. The opening theme and ending theme are performed by Maika Sakuranomiya (
Azumi Waki is a Japanese voice actress and singer from Tokyo who is affiliated with Haikyō. She debuted in 2015, playing the role of Sanae Katagiri in the video game '' The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls''. She is also known for her roles as Lapis Rosenber ...
), Kaho Hinata (
Akari Kitō is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with Raccoon Dog. She starred in her first main role for the series '' Time Bokan 24'', and has since received more major and leading roles. Her nickname is Akarin. She made her debut as a solo ...
), and Mafuyu Hoshikawa ( Anzu Haruno) under the unit name Blend A (pronounced Blend Ace). In November 2017, the opening theme of the series became a viral
meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...
on Twitter and YouTube, which consists of adding an additional word to the opening part of the song: "Smile, Sweet, Sister, Sadistic, Surprise, Service...", followed by that word, which may refer to pop culture or another popular meme, regardless of whether it starts with the letter S or not, instead of "We are Stile!!".


Video game

Characters from the series appear alongside other '' Manga Time Kirara'' characters in the mobile RPG, '' Kirara Fantasia'' in 2018.


Notes


See also

*'' Shota Oni'' – Another manga by the same author *'' Spirits & Cat Ears'' – Another manga by the same author


References


External links

* * {{A-1 Pictures television series 2013 manga 2017 anime television series debuts A-1 Pictures Aniplex Comedy anime and manga Cross-dressing in anime and manga Houbunsha manga Medialink Seinen manga Slice of life anime and manga Tokyo MX original programming Yen Press titles Yonkoma