Ristorante Paradiso is a reverse-harem sow spurting a whole lineup of spectacle wearing gentlemen. It is centered on a young girl Nicoletta, who through a series of events ends up working as a chef’s apprentice in restaurant famous for its gentlemen staff. To be frank, the show is boring to death and as long as you are not a spectacle fetish woman in late thirties you might as well forget it exists. The anime is not particularly badly executed, but it’s original concept is as exciting as grandfather’s past stories.

Time stops for the dead. But if you go on living, things change.

Originally written as manga by Ono Natsume and directed by Kase Mitsuko (Saikano) Ristorante Paradiso contrary to the first impression, is not a show about cooking but a show about a bunch of aged gentlemen acting all elegant to impress women… and yeah it’s a platonic love story of sorts. The anime is centered on a bland lead Nicoletta who comes to Rome to search for her mother only to find her married to a rich restaurant owner. Though at first she plans to tell the restaurant owner all the things about her mother for revenge, her determination is soon melted by the group of elegant gentlemen her mother fiance’s restaurant hires. She soon finds herself in love with one of them and ends up working as a chef’s apprentice in that particular restaurant.

It seems I have inadvertently gotten myself an otome game, again. No matter how you’d look or where you’d look from Ristorante Paradiso is a reverse-harem, trading male version of young sexy girls for a pack of gallant aged gentlemen with spectacles… not that far off when you consider personality traits (even a tsundere is present). Plot is slow and it talks about the mostly boring and bland past of those particular gentlemen more than it does on present (which is as bland) and characters, while relatively well fleshed out, follow the usual archetypes and serve more of an aesthetic role than give anything to the actual drama. Frankly, as long as you are not a woman with spectacle fetish you will likely find this show bland, boring and hard to watch. It’s not like it has many faults or anything, but it simply is not interesting as nothing really important ever happens.

Animation: 3

Animation done by David Production is exactly something you would expect from a modern show. Backgrounds are certainly the highlight of Ristorante Paradiso. While I wouldn’t exactly call them breathtaking, they are indeed very immersing and pleasing to the eye. Most of the beauty this show poses is attributable to the magnificent color palette which is at the same time bright and blurry giving the show a full-fledged painting-like elegance. It works, hell, it works; and it might also unfortunately be the detail of the show I liked the most. Otherwise, detail put into backgrounds is adequate considering this show was made in 2009 and though it doesn’t particularly cut corners many picturesque scenes might be blurred more than needed. Also though motion fluidity is no big deal when you don’t pay attention there are some awkward moments where movement (especially when running) gets so choppy that you can actually see the individual frames. The characters don’t move much, however, and simple movements are adequately animated. Nonetheless, when it comes to fluidity Ristorante Paradiso certainly doesn’t shine… nor is it supposed to. Inbetweens are also on the verge of extinction here, you’ll be lucky if you’ll notice a single moving detail in the show.

Character designs would be my main complaint regarding the animation of this show however. There is nothing in essence technically wrong with them, as they still pose more detail than your average show, but some of their original drawings are, well, simply awkward. Eyelids are drawn too big and flabby, making many characters appear as if they are on their natural deathbed. I guess it works on the gentlemen who are supposed to be quite aged (at least when compared to common anime characters), but it certainly looks awkward on the heroine who is supposed to be in her twenties. Then mouths are over-sized too and, again, look particularly bad on women. While that stuff is excusable (or maybe intended) for gentlemen each of who has a distinctive original design it surely is not when it comes to women, and, particularly the main character. Also since everyone’s is very mature and composed facial reactions are few and hardly noticeable; they do work though. It’s really a shame that characters with so many shortcomings are put into the backgrounds of the level this show pulls off, but while females are hardly attractive, they still do blend in the backgrounds well (though it’s more attributable to the good use of color palette).

Sound: 3

You can’t go wrong with classical music, especially when it packs more violins that an orchestra. BGM composed by Flying Dog (Aria) consists solely of old-school classical music, and while there were moments I thought some modern compositions could lighten the mood up, the music works very well to create an elegant atmosphere of high level Italian restaurant. Consisting mostly of calm instrumental pieces it’s not particularly memorable, but you certainly wont be disappointed by the overall sound stage of the show (that is if you’ll be able to stay awake through the blandness this anime’s plot is). Both OP and ED are adequate songs which work for the moment but have little to no memorability.

Voice-acting doesn’t particularly stand out as all gentlemen have this calm soothing voice which gets old pretty quick. Females are given as little light as possible and it’s no different in seiyuu department; you will hardly remember a single performance here.

Story: 2

I originally expected Ristorante Paradiso to be a food-themed show and while I wasn’t particularly heartbroken when it turned out to be a reverse-harem I must say I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the outcome either. The pace is pretty slow and it takes ages for Nicoletta to make a move on her spectacle wearing love interest. Probably because more than half of the episodes in the show consist of back-stories of the gentlemen who work in the restaurant. And frankly, those aren’t the most interesting of back-stories… or rather to put it simply they are just boring. There was a guy who worked as waiter there, he got some experience, changed shop a few times, aged and ended in the shop we are in. Great, so what? The entertainment level of those flashbacks is roughly equivalent to your grandfather’s past stories. I might have been more interested in the show was I a woman in her late thirties with a spectacle fetish (the only part Ristorante Paradiso strikes hard at), but being a male university student I found this show very hard to get into… not to mention that it bored me to death. Nothing happens, nothing will happen and if anything will actually happen it wont be interesting anyway. Needless to say there aren’t any twists, drama or anything else to spice the things up. Just you, spectacle fetish and boredom. The funny thing is is that the show isn’t, well, badly directed or anything, and the story flows with style; thus while original concept is boring to death I can’t really blame anything on execution.

The ending goes off with a puff rather than a bang with plenty of room for a sequel I would certainly never watch. Did they even want to achieve anything with this show?

Characters: 2

Nicoletta is your usual reverse-harem, or rather shoujo-in general, stereotype. She is not particularly interested in anything, nor she has any dreams, nor a hobby, nor nothing. All she does is follow gentlemen around and listen to their life stories while being friendly and blushing when the things become more romantic. She is relatively clumsy, but her heart is pure and she is, well, a normal girl you’ll find anywhere. In other words, she is just a female version of the harem leads you are very familiar with. Totally empty stuff with minimal behaviour programmed so you’d find it easy to put yourself into her shoes. It doesn’t feel as shameless in female version because anime of this type is not particularly easy to come by, but it’s still basically the same thing (with less ecchi at best).

The lineup of gentlemen feels like an otome game per se. We have an innocent kind type, a mature kind type, a silent type, two tsundere types and a philanderer type. Just choose your favourite and go straight to spectacle fetish heaven, heh. Unfortunately since anime medium is linear the choice is made for you and you are stuck with innocent kind type. Nonetheless, though characters are certainly based on archetypes, their behavior is very well fleshed-out and since half of the plot concentrates of flashbacks you learn a number of things about everyone. Though I didn’t find anyone particularly likable the way the show fleshes its characters out is okay and though Nicoletta is as empty as a newly bought vacuum cleaner gentlemen have a number of quirky traits to keep you interested… I guess.

Conclusion: Ristorante Paradiso is a reverse harem show to heart and has no more cooking than Love Hina does. Though you might be interested in the concept (as reverse-harem is more common in the manga realm) you will likely get tired and bored with this show pretty soon as spectacle wearing elegant gentlemen is the single thing it has it going for… and it’s still purely aesthetic. Of course, your experience with the show might change if you are a woman. Had the restaurant hired elegant young women I might have been more entertained, nonetheless, entertainment aside, Ristorante Paradiso is a bland show which possess not a speck of originality. Don’t touch it unless you have a gentlemen fetish. And Ouran Kokou Host Club is a better example of this women-aimed genre anyway.