Menchi

I had no previous knowledge about Ristorante Paradiso, and didn't really know what to expect from it besides something connected to food and a restaurant. Though I'm usually pretty open to all kinds of series and styles, and this one was no exeption, I'm positively surprised how good it proved to be. Well, without further a do...

STORY:

Ristorante Paradiso has an interesting consept about a group of older men with reading glasses charming women at Casetta dell'Orso. I think it's an intriquing, new theme in an anime comparing to all the series with a man-and-ten-women-harem or panty shots in every frame or plenty of macho macho men. It's truly an Italian love story, but also tells the stories of all the men in the restaurant, as well as the heroine Nicoletta's. The ending was a bit foreseen, though, it seemed inevitable, but it was also touching.

ANIMATION:

The drawing style was nice in my opinion, not the one I usually like the most but still pleases the eye. The combination of clear outer lines and soft shading creates a cool contrast, and a huge plus are the vivid and natural colours; no one has purple or green hair. Some sort of comic-like style can be seen in the animation from time to time, and the usage of 3D-animation in the backgrounds adds to the experimental feel. Nevertheless, the episodes were easy and fun to follow.

SOUND:

The music was fitting to the atmosphere, and it was the kind of music that I could picture hearing in an Italian restaurant; jazz-like, sophisticated and harmonic. The Italian greetings and sayings sound fluent and authentic, and the seiyuus do a good job otherways, sounding real gentlemen and putting effort to tying the voices to the characters. The opening theme was catchy to me, but I wasn't that heavily influenced by the music in general.

CHARACTERS:

All the characters were pretty much introduced one by one, and different personalities distinguished very early on in the series. There's a handsome favourite for everyone in Casetta dell'Orso, I think; a quiet blonde, a sporty baldy, a cool senior... My personal favourite is the manager to my own surprise, but who could resist such a teddy bear-like man, who actually opens a restaurant based on his wifes' fixation on older men wearing reading glasses? Wow, now that's some dedication!

OVERALL:

The overall score is 9/10, because this was another great series, and also very suitable for a Christmas-marathon, as I was left with a warm, fluffy feeling after watching it. In my opinion it was a little short, I could've watched ten more episodes easily, and sometimes it felt like there was all this potential but some of it was left unused because of the scarcity of the episodes. A good side in the shortness of the series is that there were no recaps, thank lord. Nevertheless, Ristorante Paradiso proved to be just the perfect series to watch drinking hot chocolate under a warm blanket on a wintery evening. Magnifico!