Is the Order a Rabbit? Bloom

naterbug8278 Jan 1, 2021

10

Our girls are back at it again running their coffee green tea shop in another 12 episodes of "absolutely nothing happens but its cute as heck so i loved it anyway." After waiting like 4 years for this sequel, i can happily say i loved every second of it. It's pretty much the same stuff as the previous two seasons, if you liked them, you'll enjoy this. Filled with just pure cuteness and comedy in every episode, its a good break from all the stuff that went down the past year. Just put on an episode of this and watch all your worries melt away, as you embrace cute girls messing around together as they learn and experience new things as they grow up and enjoy life while working in a coffee shop. 

DGFischer Nov 21, 2022

9.5

The third season of Is the Order a Rabbit - Bloom again is an overload of cuteness without the excessive fanservice.  Quite little of the racy stuff.  The cuteness comes from an expanded cast of new girls in the village, and the notice that the lot of them have gotten quite 'grown-up.’ The new faces make for pleasant additions, as we get to know a bit about Cocoa's mother (from whom Cocoa inherited some of her ditziness), including a strange link to Chino.  Then there is Aoyama's editor Rin (a stark reminder of the character Onda from Kodocha, constantly chasing down Misako Kurata for a manuscript).  Although high school friends Rin and Aoyama constantly are doing hide n' seek with each other.  A short arc has the middle schoolers Chino, Megumi, and Maya visiting the high schools of Cocoa/Chiya vs. Rize/Syaro.  Thus we meet a bevy of girls from each school.  On Hallowe'en, Cocoa runs into the ghost of Chino's mother, Saki Kafuu, who teaches the very magic tricks Chino loved when much younger.  We learn later that Saki attended the same high school as Cocoa's mom.  Plots tighten and twist. As for the principle characters, they are facing moments of decisions in their lives.  Rize approaches college and wonders how this could change her.  Maya and Megumi face the prospects of attending different high schools.  Cocoa hesitates on any notion of returning home, much to the consternation of big sister Mocha.  The final episodes end with Chino coming to grips with these changes and the discovery of the wider horizons and new worlds she can explore if she surpasses her introversion. The season (last?) concludes with the most natural setting, a sleepover hosted by Chino who has found out the splendor of her friends and that getting out of her shell is the best thing possible. The animation works toward subtle improvements.  One may notice the change in design for Chino's friends Maya and Megu, changes Chino doesn't see in herself.  The middle schoolers see what it is to mature.  The episode where Rize tries a new hairstyle and is shocked by the loss of recognition in herself (Cocoa and Chino seemed confused as well) shows that the military-minded girl might find a woman in development.  It's the theme of becoming 'cute adults' coming to the fore as all the girls learn more of themselves. The music remains perky, with the Alice in Wonderland motif in the closing theme being a brilliant commentary to the three seasons which transitioned from 'death by kawaii poisoning' to girls ready to take on a whole new world.  All done in the humorous banter of friends learning to cope which each other's intricacies.

krofire Nov 14, 2021

7

Our favourite seven young barista/waitresses return some five years after season 2 finished. This time Encourage Films picked up the production with, what proved to be, the best of the three seasons. Whereas the first two suffered from a chronic lack of story “Bloom” tightens up the plot considerably. Now it picks up a sense of purpose beyond just looking pretty. The audience has by now figured out the character nuances between the seven generic-teenage-girls for their blandness to cease to be an issue. Finally, a few more grown-ups start to appear in the story, maybe not to a significant effect at first but their presence adds depth. The anime never really tackles what happened to Chino’s mother but she makes a ghostly appearance now and her influence upon the story’s purpose slowly becomes clear. Chiya’s grandmother gets more to say in this season whilst Midori Aoyama’s editor Rin Mate becomes a character in her own right. The thread that joins the characters together becomes more apparent. Rize’s father turns up as a former military colleague of Takahiro (Chino’s father). He starts hanging around the Rabbit House after a fight with his daughter and helps out as waiter. There is a hint towards the end that he and Takahiro will take up playing Jazz again. There is also a nod to a sub-plot about Chino singing with her father’s band which seems to have come to an end with the death of her mother. A melancholy had settled upon the Rabbit House – a spell only broken by the arrival of Cocoa at the beginning of season one. We later learn that Cocoa was deliberately sent there by her mother who was a close friend of Chino’s mum. This is a story that finally found its plot. Cocoa finally finishes the waitress uniforms than Chino’s mum had started before her death. Chino and her father come to realise how little they had been able to move on since their bereavement. Cocoa’s presence in their lives gave them new meaning. Chino slowly starts to consider what life might be like outside her small town as Rize looks to move on to university after graduating high school. There is more packed into the twelve episodes of this season 3 than in all of the season one and two put together. The story was so terrified of getting distracted from its own cuteness that it failed to ever touch upon the bittersweet nature of the tale. It is a fantasy – one bedecked so colourfully with Halloween and Christmas decoration that you might think it is from an entirely different genre. It gives such warmth to the show that the audience is now able to overlook how all so sickly-sweet it all was. It only leaves you wondering why none of this subtle genius couldn’t have reared its head in seasons one and two? This is a super-kawaii slice of iyashikei that finally manages to make the audience give a damn. About time too.