Episode 20 — “It’s Not a Joke”
Goddess Café Terrace Bathos Meter
I can’t believe it! Goddess Café Terrace solved a storytelling problem about its flashbacks. The story needs to supply the audience with context and history about the harem of grandmothers at the first Familia Café Terrace. But someone from that era should remember the flashbacks. In the story arc about Ami’s grandmother, a memory from those days came to Hayato in a dream. Ridiculous for a story without magical elements. Goddess Café Terrace is ridiculous enough about cross-generational circumstances repeating. But this episode introduced a much better solution: let the grandmothers relive their memories for the flashbacks.
The anime successfully used that character device with Grandma Youko, Akane’s grandmother. Youko’s recollection of the day Sachiko joined the coffee shop confirmed how much the other grandmothers resemble Hayato’s current roommates. Ouka’s grandmother designed their uniforms, Shiragiku’s grandmother is also allergic to alcohol, and Riho’s grandmother focuses on feminine beauty as a marketing technique and customer service element. But one part drew my attention the most: how Sachiko resembles Hayato.
Through these two seasons of Goddess Café Terrace, every story element stresses that Hayato is his Grandpa Masahiro’s twin. And we’ve seen in the flashbacks how rude, sulky, and often angry Masahiro was. But Grandma Youko heard Sachiko’s gentle strength coming through Masahiro’s defiant voice as Hayato responded to her provocation. Youko had genuine affection for both Masahiro and Sachiko, so that scene sparked a pang of nostalgia. Perhaps it also afforded Youka a small comfort that the Best Girl of her generation won.
Narrative Solutions Always Lead to Bathos
Unfortunately, learning about the past situation and characters of the original Familia Café Terrace comes at a cost. Rooting for one of the five current love interests has a purpose — to see which one most resembles Grandma Sachiko so their love story can repeat. But then Kouji Seo introduced cross-generational reincarnation in Goddess Café Terrace, so the love story premise is muddy now. Why should we care who the combination of Masahiro and Sachiko would have chosen back then? I see the character parallels as lazy tools to connect the drama of the past to the current ones for a manufactured emotional effect. Oh, right. The melodramatic definition of bathos.
Goddess Café Terrace had one instance of the anticlimactic kind of bathos. The anime uses a chime and white screen effect to focus the audience on a line of dialogue as its resolution for a dramatic scene. But when Akane explained how women find it humiliating to inform a guy it’s her birthday, on her birthday, the scene ended with a hamburger stain on Akane’s mouth. That’s not funny. That’s bathos.
Protecting the Nest Points
Ami and Ouka — gattai! Their hot pursuit of Akane and Hayato’s kidnappers ultimately failed. But we salute their efforts.
Goddess Café Terrace Grandma’s Little Girl Points
Akane, of course. Hayato received a preview of how overbearing Akane could be if he married her.
Baka Charm Points
Ami did a bit of kidnapping of her own by dragging Ouka along with her as a Hero of Justice. Grandma Youko scored a few baka points by ordering her security personnel to abduct her granddaughter’s intended fiancé.
Drunk Girl Points in Goddess Café Terrace Flashback
Grandma Akemi got into the liquor and snuggled Sachiko as she made cat noises. Feline play must have been her kink. I’m still waiting to find out what the girls’ fetishes are. So far, we know that Shiragiku likes to smell sweaty men and that Ouka likes to humiliate her targets.
Cool Charm Points
Akane won all the points. She maneuvered Hayato to take her on a birthday date without telling him! Her moves also moved her up the harem point ranks because Hayato discussed marriage repercussions with her. That’s a persuasion technique called “Thinking past the sale.” Overbearing and formidable, like her grandmother.
Goddess Café Terrace Makes Me Go Heh.
Is this a clip show? So much has happened (thanks for the half-season montage) that Hayato forgot to celebrate Shiragiku’s birthday! He better do something. Uh oh. Akane’s grandmother looks at that same photo of the original Familia Café Terrace. Ha! Goddess Café Terrace changed the chef statue in Kappabashi to a cat. Kappabashi-dori (Kitchen Town) is a real-life location in Tokyo. Hayato still excels at making girls blush by casually dropping clues about how much he pays attention to them. Thankfully for Shiragiku, Akane can keep Hayato from buying stupid gifts for her.
I see no other men besides Hayato in this fast-food joint. Oof. Hayato bragged about how well his stocks had performed. But they couldn’t cover the bill for repairing the three holes he made at the haunted inn in the last Goddess Café Terrace episode. Idiot Hayato. A girl can’t tell the guy she likes that it’s her birthday. She’ll save that for married life to beat you over the head. Ack. Akane would have looked cooler saying this without burger sauce on her face. Oho. Akane went on a date with Hayato for her birthday! She dropped so many hints, Hayato. Apologize by marrying her, okay? How rare for harem anime to be so open about a character’s intentions and motivations to the harem king’s face.
Goddess Café Terrace Birthday: Gift-Wrapped Fiancé
Double birthday celebration for Shiragiku and Akane! I see a lot of Spanish food on the table. Shiragiku hasn’t let Hayato off the hook yet. Oh boy. Open catfighting during a birthday feast. Who’s ahead of whom in the harem Olympics? Akane secured a marriage promise! Eat that, Riho! Well then. Everyone gets to marry Hayato!
Oh, right. It’s already the Christmas season for Goddess Café Terrace. Ouka made Santa-style uniforms for the café. Ouka can’t yet comprehend how serious Akane is about her marriage proposal. How do you get “radio remote controller” out of “kekkon (marriage)?” And here comes the MIB! Oh. These are Hououji Security Personnel under orders to summon Hayato and Akane. Summoning or kidnapping? Po-tay-to, po-tah-to!
Ahaha! Grandma Youko is still angry at Masahiro for making her fall in love with him. Akane mistakenly told her grandmother she had found someone to marry. Oops. Hahaha! The Ami patrol car is in hot pursuit! Eep. Here’s another overly dramatic scene in Goddess Café Terrace. Katana-to-face: how do you protect your wife? A vaguely disappointing answer to follow after a small time skip. Let’s milk the expectation for fake emotional impact! That’s a vital question: Would Hayato marry into the Hououji house or Akane into the Kasukabe family? The flash-forward from the end of the previous Goddess Café Terrace says his wife joined the Kasukabe. But Akane will make him fall in love so hard that these family considerations won’t matter.
Past is Prologue and Epilogue in Goddess Café Terrace
Grandma Youko realizes that Hayato looks and acts like Masahiro, but he thinks like Sachiko. Flashback to Sachiko’s first day at the Familia coffee shop. The younger versions of the grandmothers act just like their granddaughters. The flashback shows the day Masahiro took that famous picture of the original goddesses of the Familia Café Terrace. When do we meet Riho and Shiragiku’s grandmothers? Uh oh. Ami’s batteries are running low.
Next time, Riho’s family drama gets the Goddess Café Terrace bathos treatment.
Goddess Café Terrace (The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses, Megami no Café Terrace) streams on Crunchyroll in Japanese audio and multiple language subtitles.
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Hey Akane fans, did you enjoy this episode? I like her mother better now because I saw what her grandmother is like. What would a birthday date with Shiragiku have been like? Would she have accidentally eaten brandy chocolate? What are the odds? Let us know in the comments below.
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