Maika is a person with naturally bad luck, although much of that comes from her mean-looking eyes. These eyes have since prevented her from gaining part-time employment in order to fund her dreams of studying abroad. However, one day she meets a man named Dino who runs a very special café. Inside, the waitresses all adopt very specific personas for the customers, and Dino wants Maika to be his sadistic-type girl. However, despite having the eyes for it, Maika isn’t a sadist.
Like all of these slice of life moe comedy shows, Blend S should be just another show to add to the pile, but instead Blend S manages to set itself apart through its genuinely funny comedy and characters whose quirks, while not original, berate you with diabetes-level sweetness. If you need similar anime recommendations, they check out these series.
Anime Like Blend S
For Fans of Workplace Comedies
Working
Souta Takanashi has a fondness for cute things, so when the cute and small Popura Taneshima asks him to work at Wagnaria, a family restaurant, he can’t turn her down. Little did he know about all the unique personalities that also call Wagnaria their place of employment.
Working is such an iconic workplace slice of life comedy that it works for any anime about characters working. Working tends to have actual drama at times, but like Blend S, most of the time it is just laughs and cute girls being cute. However, while there are girls who fit into trope stereotypes in Working, the restaurant isn’t designed around those stereotypes.
Hinako Note
In an effort at get better at speaking to people, country girl Hinako moves to Tokyo. She then intends to join the drama club at school, but complications arise when her boarding house turns out to be a secondhand bookstore.
Both shows surround a girl that manages to kind of literally fall into a new job and then proceeds to tell a story about all the things that happen between her and her new friends. However, Blend S succeeds a little better with both cute girls and the comedy of it.
Hanasaku Iroha
Ohana Matsumae is an energetic teenager that lives with her mother in Tokyo. However, when her mother decides to run off with a man, she is sent to the country to live with a grandmother she has never met. As it turns out, her grandmother runs a traditional Japanese inn, but due to her frivolous mother, treats Ohana quite coldly. Eager to earn her keep and grandmother’s affection, Ohana begins the hard work that makes sure an inn runs smoothly.
What both these series have in common more than anything else is that it takes a girl and puts her in a job she is not very familiar with. Over the course of the series, you watch them struggle to learn it and do their job better. The difference here is Hanasauku Iroha has more drama and features a more mature style of animation for its more realistic characters. Blend S is standard moe and is almost exclusively comedy.
For Fans of Moe Trope Collections
Is the Order a Rabbit?
It’s the positive attitude and energy that Kokoa Hoto exudes that allows her to become friends with anyone in just a few seconds. This is her story as she moves away from home to attend school and ends up working in a café for room and board. Of course, by very nature, she befriends everyone she comes in contact with.
Café. Lots of moe girls. Need we say anymore? Unlike Blend S, they don’t wedge girls into a specific role, but rather they just occur naturally through their own every day personalities. Of course, while Blend S doesn’t really try to be different through any gimmicks other than the café waitress niche, Is the Order a Rabbit has a variety of small quirks that it uses to be different.
Kiniro Mosiac
Shinobu left Japan to do a homestay in England. There she grew close to her friend Alice, and despite the language barrier, they both expressed their sorrow when it was time to go home. Five years later, Shinobu receives a letter she doesn’t understand. It turns out to be from Alice detailing her upcoming homestay in Japan, and that she will be attending her high school.
Despite the yuri overtones in Kiniro, both shows feature a main character that is lightly obsessed with cultures abroad and thus, their foreign friends with blonde hair. In a way, Kiniro could be seen as a sequel to Blend S because Maika wants to go abroad and Shinobu has already been. While Kiniro isn’t about café workers, it does show off a wide away of moe girls and their stereotypical personalities.
Inu x Boku SS
Ririchiyo Shirakiin is the sheltered daughter of a rich family, but she has been dependent on them her entire life. However, while she seeks to change that, she has a sharp tongue that needs minding. When she moves into a high security apartment complex to start her new life of independence, she discovers that the residents are not only strange, but everyone in the apartment – including herself – are half-human and half-yokai. Furthermore, as a condition of being able to move out, she now has to live with her new bodyguard, Soushi – a handsome and oddly submissive secret service agent.
Many, many of the characters presented in Blend S mirror the characters in Inu x Boku. In fact, I heard a rumor somewhere that the Blend S mangaka was inspired by the manga of Inu x Boku. Regardless of if that is true or not, you can easily see parallels in the characters of each cast, though Blend S lacks the supernatural element.
For Fans of Personality Switches
Detroit Metal City
The popular indie band Detroit Metal City is known for captivating audiences with its dark death metal. The lead singer in particular, Johannes Krauser II, is infamous for being like a demon straight out of hell. However, unbeknownst to their many worshipers, Krauser’s normal self is the soft-spoken average college student Souichi. Switching between them leads this young man on a number of misadventures.
Though vastly different in plot and number of cute girls (virtually none in DMC, alas), these two series are about the main characters who need to adopt a different personality for their jobs. While Detroit Metal City does have comedy through absurdity and its parody of personalities in the music industry, Blend S features more on a situational sort of comedy though it does parody different anime girl stereotypes.
Rosario + Vampire
Unable to get into any other high schools, Tsukune Aono’s parents are thrilled when Youkai Academy accepts him. However, the problem is that Youkai Academy is a high school for monsters, not humans. With being eaten by monsters being a very real possibility, Tsukune must work hard to keep his humanity a secret. However, when the most attractive girl in school and resident vampire becomes attracted to his blood, he finds an ally and perhaps a romantic interest.
While Rosario + Vampire has a whole supernatural plot line and even a little action, the similarities it shares with Blend S come from the women in each series. As a harem show, it of course comes with all those harem stereotypes, many of which are present in the café in Blend S. It also, despite being harem, does have some actually funny comedy like Blend S as well.
If you have any more anime recommendations like Blend S, then let the world know in the comments section below.
