Miwa Kurushima is desperately searching all around the city with her enthusiastic coworker Higuchi for a bartender. So far, they have had no luck. Each and every candidate, no matter how promising he looks, is rejected by the chief of the division, Kawashima, who conducts impossibly strict tests under instructions from above. Cardinal Hotel is opening an “authentic counter-type bar,” and needs the best of the best. According to the President, no less than a consummate artist will do–someone capable of making the Glass of God. Now, what is the Glass of God? He won’t say. And so Miwa and Higushi keep searching and searching, while the rest of their colleagues advance on their assignments. Who will be the right person for the job? Surely not Ryu Sasakura, a man they find sleeping on a park bench, who doesn’t know how to pick up a call on his smartphone, and who accidentally leaves a library book behind. But when they find him again in Edenhall Bar, he looks like a different person. He’s composed, artful, and incredibly kind. To test him, Miwa asks him to serve her any drink he wants. And when he picks a highball, the choice dooms him in her eyes…

“There are two professions in which the customer should never be deceived. A slight change in the recipe may make medicine into poison. The first one is the physician or pharmacist. The other…” Well, that brought back great memories. The 2006 version of Bartender is one of my all-time favorites, a wonder of a show I cannot recommend more highly. Despite greatly liking the calm, luminous opening, I started the episode slightly worried about this new rendition. The animation felt a bit stilted. The humor is more conventional. And as the narration is more in the vein of standard anime fare, it seemed to me that this new series lacked the bold approach of the older Bartender. But the central moments of the episode managed to bring back all the magic, with one of the truly touching portrayals of service and mercy that make this story so close to my heart. It is enough to make me feel invested: I’m still a bit on the fence about this version, but this reminded me of why I’d love to work with Ryu. Check it out!

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BARTENDER Glass of God is available on Crunchyroll.