First Impression: The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses

Hayato, who studies at Tokyo University, comes to visit his grandmother’s café during the break. His grandmother has passed so he was notified that he now owns the Familia Café. As he walks through the empty restaurant, he remembers how run down it was, when suddenly he’s interrupted by five young ladies—mostly naked and confused about why he’s there—who have been living in the café for about a year. Hayato asks them all to leave since he is going to demolish the place and turn the space into a parking lot, which is a more profitable business since summer attracts many tourists to the area. The girls are bummed and broke, so they come up with a plan to entice him not to tear down the establishment. Hayato is a tough customer though and doesn’t fall for their flirtatious advances or the meals they offer him. The next day, two contractors come by with an estimate for the cost of demolition, but Hayato starts to have flashbacks of the last time he saw his grandmother, and how he left her in the middle of an argument. As he does, Hayato realizes that now that she has passed, there can be no taking back those angry words. After reflecting on his past actions and looking at the ledgers (accounts, payments, debts, etc), Hayato decides to keep the café and see if he can bring the business out of the red and make it profitable again. The girls decide to stay when he asks what they want to do, but Hayato explains that it’s their fault for the café being in debt, and with that, the episode ends.

I prefer to avoid anime with any ecchi content as it can be a temptation for me, and this one does have it, especially in the first two minutes with one of the girls completely naked and later on with another one trying to sexually harass him while intoxicated, so keep that in mind before you watch this one. Apart from that though, this episode reminded me of The Quintessential Quintuplets, in that this episode seems to be trying to copy some of the format of that anime—but I don’t see it going well. The girls didn’t get a proper introduction, they are just living in a café since they are broke, so I didn’t connect with them well enough to care about their situation. Hayato impressed me a little, though, because he seems to know what he is doing as a new business owner and didn’t fall for the typical “honey traps” that the girls attempted. He expected them to pop in the bath while he washed, which is exactly what I was anticipating too, though they didn’t, thankfully. Hayato’s reflection on his grandmother and the meaning of the name “Familia”, which means family in Spanish, was a nice touch, and being Hispanic myself, it reminded me of the time I spent with my own grandmother (on my mother’s side) who passed away at 99. That touched my heart and I hope that Hayato can find some peace and closure on how his relationship with his grandmother ended. I won’t be following this one to its seasonal conclusion, but I did enjoy the ending and I hope they drop some of the ecchi content, but based on the preview it doesn’t seem so.

The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses is ready to serve you breakfast at Crunchyroll.

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