Manga: Soredemo Machi Wa Mawatteiru aka: Soredemo Machiwa Mawatteiru
From left to right, Hotori, Kon, Sanada, Toshiko and Uki the Head Maid. Haribara and Moriaki-sensei missing.
Even the most grand and luxurious of cafes are nothing but empty shacks if they don't provide what the customer seeks.
Seaside Maid Cafe in the Maruko Shopping District at first glance seems normal. Maybe too normal; except for its waitresses wearing maid uniforms, it's a regular coffee shop (it doesn't even serve tea). But its staff is rather odd: Hotori Arashiyama aspires to be a detective, Toshiko Tatsuno is a perfectionist, and Uki, the owner, is an old woman with an unusual voice.Business is slow, too: three regular customers from the neighbourhood, Hotori and Toshiko's classmates Hiroyuki Sanada and Harue Haribara, and their sempai Futaba Kon are apparently the only clients of the joint. But worry not: Hilarity Ensues.How many Slice of Life shows feature Special Guest appearances by Egyptian gods?Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, (Yet the Town Keeps Going), is a Manga written and illustrated by Masakazu Ishiguro. Seven bound volumes have been released in Japan as of April 2010. The anime adaption by Studio Shaft was aired on the Fall Season of 2010.
Adaptation Expansion — The way the manga chapters are re-arranged in the TV series makes it to be told in Anachronic Order. On the other hand, some chapters have slightly changed endings or added sequences.
All Love Is Unrequited — Nothing serious and romance isn't exactly the most important thing in the series but at the moment it seems to be as follows: Toshiko has a crush on Hiroyuki, who has a longstanding crush on his childhood friend Hotori, who seems to have a thing for their homeroom math teacher Mr. Moriaki, who frowns on the idea of a student/teacher relationship as immoral (and who would probably shoot himself if he had to deal with Hotori for the rest of his life). Takeru and Eri may be the only exception.
Moriaki's concept on love is (Man + Woman) / Morality = 0.
Well, that's his formula for teacher/student relationships. He's a π type.
Bathtub Bonding — Hotori and Takeru bathe together in Episode 7.
Batman Gambit — Hotori makes a small but surprisingly good one despite her academic ability. Over the course of two days, she posts arrows all over the town which would lead curious customers to the Cafe. Three men, curious to know what the arrows were for, walked into the cafe. Hotori explains the purpose of the arrows, but they scoff at the idea. What they didn't realize is that by following the arrows, they've been submitting to Hotori's trick the whole time.
Battle Aura — Probably a signature of Meidojutsu users.
Big Sister Instinct — Despite the occasional family scuffle, Hotori can be really nice to her siblings.
Bland Name Product — PumaCapybara sport gear, SeikoSekoi clocks, LipovitanNapovitan energy drink, GoogleGogol. Averted with the Montblanc fountain pen.
Book Dumb — Despite having high grades in most subjects, Hotori seems to be impossibly dumb when it comes to anything involving math or logic. It's a miracle she made it to high school.
Cloudcuckoolander — The further a problem is from logic and the mundane, the easier is for Hotori to solve it. She's not alone in the show, though; just listen to the Head Maid's deductions on the painting mystery...
Hotori shares a lot with Tomo, with a dash of Osaka. And looks like Yotsuba&!'s Fuuka. Add to this a teacher that looks like a long-haired Kimura with his mouth shut and the occasional use of very familiar face expressions and it seems like someone is a fan of Kiyohiko Azuma.
There is one case, when Hotori jolted in frustration after her Moriaki-sensei Daydream Surprise.
There's another blatant case in the same episode by Toshiko. And yet another by Kon in Episode 6. Low-angle shots are pretty common in this show and they are usually taken below the ground.
Funny Background Event — It's a Shaft Studio work, after all. Take the random "helicopter recon" event on the first episode, for example.
Gag Series — No highly visible plot in this show. Everything's about making viewers laugh.
Genius Ditz — Hotori is mostly an idiot, not just in math and logic but also common sense, but is quite adept at non-linear thinking and can solve unusual mysteries where the more straight-thinking people around her cannot. And her Batman Gambit didn't just come from nowhere.
It doesn't help that he's the math teacher and Hotori thinks math is useless.
Idiots Cannot Catch Colds — Referenced by Hotori when Kon has a cold. When she later finds out that most people except her have caught it, she despairs and pretends to be sick.
In-Series Nickname — In their old middle school ping-pong club Toshiko, Haribara and Kon were known as the Faerie, the Reaper and the Sith Lord. Serious Business!
In chapter 9 of the manga, Hotori's answers on Moriaki-sensei's math test are so incredibly awful or nonsensical that he gets physically and mentally ill just from reading them.
Lens Flare Censor — Hotori's tripping towards the cafe's entrance door has turned her upside down. Whatever upskirt that's anticipated is blocked by afternoon sunlight lens flares.
Logic Bomb — Hotori wages a war on Logic. Poor Moriaki-sensei.
Surprisingly for such a fanservice-heavy genre, upskirt shots are obscured by darkness or random happenstance. The anime walks the very fine line of titillation, leaving anatomy lessons for other shows. Let's just say it's all about the laughs.
Sempai Kohai — Subverted. Kon's rank doesn't seem to play a part on her relationship with Hotori except for making her sweat after her faux pas. The other girls, specially Haribara, do treat her as a sempai.
Two Shorts — Each episode of the anime is divided into two short acts, each one adapting a chapter of the manga. The chosen chapters don't follow the manga's publishing order, they are grouped by theme or character.
Toshiko has a knack for making anything into a Melodrama, from a teacher quoting school rules being set up as a psychic assault to merely stepping into the Seaside Cafe for the first time. But so does Hotori, and Moriaki-sensei...
The ping pong rematch between Haribara and Tatsuno...
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