Coffee Ikaga deshou

Before I begin this review, it's worth noting that I am the first to review this title on MAL. It is my belief that every anime deserves at least one proper review, deserves to have its content engaged and reckoned with. No matter how obscure it is, and no matter how long ago it was made, an anime still represents the creative passion of its creators, the hopes and dreams of the team that made it, and as such, I will give this one a fair and honest accounting here. This is one of those bizarre and forgotten Anime Beans titles, and indeed is oneof the few that are still watchable, given that the Anime Beans platform is now defunct. Once home to many vertical-oriented shortform anime, many of the titles it once hosted have since become lost media. In this case, Coffee Ikaga Deshou is a rare survivor. It is a pretty yet amateurishly animated piece about a mysterious cafe located in an alleyway, and a girl that stumbled upon it. The irony is not lost on me that this is a story about the value of taking your time with a craft, imbuing it with care and skill and treating it as a reflection of your character, all the while it is presented in a series of vanishingly brief episodes each under a minute long on an app meant to be a kind of tiktok for anime, complete with rewards points and monetization systems and all. One can't help but wonder if this was some kind of protest on behalf of the artist behind this piece. Really strong beginning with episodes 1-10, drops the ball in the middle with episodes 12-20 leaving much to be desired, and finishes with episodes 21-30 being a weirdly intense saga with a nonetheless positive message about appreciating one's roots. Nonetheless, the story is still easily the strongest aspect, even with a weak middle third. The art is simple yet pretty, seemingly inspired by a kind of French Parisian style. It is elegant, simple, but conservatively animated, at times looking more like a motion comic than anything else. The sound is fine, meeting the basic standards of quality you'd expect from a piece like this one. The characters are variable in quality, though the girl from the first set of episodes was compelling in particular as a character that stood out from the others in the series. She felt more believable, as though she had a real substance that many of the others lacked. Overall, Coffee Ikaga Deshou is an odd little piece, and even though it isn't perfect, I'm glad it isn't lost media like many of its compatriots from Anime Beans.