All the Announcements from Anime NYC 2023

Anime NYC: Crunchyroll Premieres Bartender: Glass of God and 7th Time Loop

ANN's coverage of Anime NYC 2023 sponsored by Yen Press and Ize Press!

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The first of three "Crunchyroll Premieres" events at Anime NYC 2023 debuted the first episodes of two very different anime: Bartender: Glass of God and 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! The former was introduced by one of the show's producers, while the latter had no introduction — resulting in one of the strangest sudden transitions imaginable.

Bartender: Glass of God

This show made me thirsty. It's not even the drinks themselves that made me thirsty (I'm not a big drinker) — it's the ice. The animators on this show have paid so much attention to the carving, placement, and dimensionality of each little cube or sphere of ice. Clips will surely be included in the next one of those "Ghibli food looks so good" videos (always filled with non-Ghibli anime) to go viral.

I haven't read the original manga nor watched the previous anime adaptation. Still, I can safely assume a series that began in 2004 didn't introduce Ryu Sasakura by showing him unable to use a smartphone. The impression I get is he's the friendlier bartending version of a Sherlock Holmes type: lost when it comes to knowledge irrelevant to his job, but when on the job, he knows and notices everything, making perfect drinks thanks to his keen observations of his customers.

The story is framed from the perspective of Miwa Kurashima and Yukari Higuchi, two hotel workers trying to hire the perfect bartender. They're surprised when Sasakura unexpectedly pulls off all the challenges that flummoxed all the official applicants for the hotel job. Though not graphically fanservice-y in the manner of Food Wars!, Sasakura's drink preparations offer an experience both vividly transportive and, as the women said, "sexy." This episode is very much an introduction, but the love it holds for its subject matter is infectious enough that I'm curious to see where it goes from here when it premieres in April 2024.

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

It's an amusing jolt to go from the end of a relaxing iyashikei anime like Bartender right into a bloody medieval sword fight. Those expecting something lighter based on other "villainess" anime and the long title's description of a "carefree life" will be in for a shock at just how hard 7th Time Loop goes on the action and drama. This battle marks the end of Rishe Imgard Wertsner's 6th cycle through a time loop that keeps sending her back to the day her fiancé Prince Diedrich called off their engagement.

There's a lot of background for this first episode to get through, filling in the details of Rishe's first six-time loop cycles. Genre tropes offer enough shorthand to get through this material at a quick pace, but I almost wonder if this could have benefitted from a double-length premiere. In each of her previous lives, Rishe took up a different career before dying in a war. On the 7th go-round, she decides to break from the path entirely, using the knowledge she's acquired to prevent the war and finally live a long and happy life. The episode ends on a cliffhanger I feel no shame in spoiling because the title does so already: her "worst enemy," Arnold Hein — the man who's killed her in other timelines — proposes to her!

Satoshi Hōno and Ryūnosuke Kasai's musical score pushes the intensity of the drama. The animation is mostly impressive except for one personal aesthetic quibble: everyone's hair is too shiny. It's an accurate translation of the light novel covers, but what's pretty in still images is distracting in motion, especially when characters are supposed to be dirty. Minor distractions aside, 7th Time Loop knows how to grab one's attention and could be one of the fantasy highlights of the Winter 2024 season.