Review of Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant!

“Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant!” is what happens when You have solid ideas for 3 episodes and later run with the most basic shit ever. Another “The OP MC is cast out of the party because the leader is brain dead” show. Seriously, just once I would like to see this type of action had a good reason. Ehhh… I really need to stop day dreaming. That said, I really wanted to like this show. It sounded pretty cool on paper. It even started out solid, then turned generic and boring and ended up as a tribute to bullshit writing. In both story and plot departments. Beforewe start I would like to explain something. I will be talking about “plot” and “story”. Many people use those terms interchangeably. I’m not one of those people, so to make sure everyone is on the same page…
I use the definitions for “plot” and “story” as Lisa Cron describes them:
“What happens in the story is the PLOT, the surface events.”
“STORY is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result”.

So yeah. There are stories here… kind of. The supporting cast all went through a pretty solid change. Granted it’s mostly done out of sight but I still like it when characters don’t just end up in a status quo at the end of a season. The only one whose change is done really poorly is Dennis’s (the MC). He’s an effing MC, his change should be on full display but instead we get “tell don’t show” type of writing with him.

Speaking of Dennis he’s just a terrible, boring, cliché idea of a protagonist. So yes, basically 99% of every anime protagonist from the last 15 years. He is a cook. Has skills as a cook. Was trained from young age as a cook… and ends up a cook, an alchemist and a fucking fighter. At this point let him be also an effing mage and we’ll have all the elements of bullshit bingo. I am getting really sick of the master-of-all type of protagonists. It flattens whatever story and plot You want to tell. Maybe I would get his skills with alchemy. He could have gotten some as a cook. After all they both use similar processes but adding a competent fighter, one that can stand head-to-head with one of, if not the, most powerful fighter in the region? Eff off with that garbage. Oh, and to add insult to injury the way he defeats that fighter is… power of friendship. I’m not even joking. The last 2 episodes during which that fight happens are just bullshit. Out of all the possibilities to have a climactic finale for a show about a cook they choose a fucking fight. How incompetent is the writer again? It wasn’t even an entertaining fight, just the basic poorly choreographed shit You see everywhere. The fight itself didn’t even have proper stakes. It was just a fight between the MC and the guy that fired him (Vigo). They never see them have any sort of meaningful relationship so it’s not like it has some grand or emotional stakes. It’s just a fight between two former members of the same organization. Nothing more.

I actually liked how Dennis was positioned in the beginning. He was shown as a support. We didn’t see him fight in the front lines, he did some tanking but mostly he went from person to person offering a recovery item. That was a good setup for his role and skills. There was no reason to believe that he’s a combo of all basic MMO roles. What was wrong with keeping him that way? Who the fuck said “I created a solid idea for a complex character that could have meaningful challenges in some aspects and interactions. I’m gonna fuck this so nobody would think I know how to write”?
For the first few episodes Dennis doesn’t really get into fights and even if he does it with people and creatures far below his level. I have no problem with that. He is a lvl 99, we are told that with levels you physical stats grow, so he should be able to brute force his way through weaklings (compared to him). I see very little problems with that. Yes, You could make an argument that a cook still should have problems but he is positioned as someone who reached the level that very few are even able to achieve so I give it a pass. It’s lazy but at least has some internal logic with how the world works and is a solid explanation in those terms. Most of the time we see him being a cook and a mentor. Those are really good roles for a character like that. He even gets himself 3 (kind of) proteges and an adoptive daughter. Still, a good combo. Characters for whom he can be a proper catalyst of change and story. To push them towards new heights and motivate them… yeah… I’m naive, I know.

Unfortunately not one of the people who he acts almost as mentor to deal with their problems on their own. Dennis does everything. Need a new party? Denis finds one. That same party turns out to be a bunch of rapists? Dennis kicks their asses. Have a shitty contract with a shitty organization? Dennis saves the day. Ok, the last one isn’t 100% his doing but still, it wasn’t done by the person involved in the contract. It’s just so repetitive and lazy. On top of that the “outcasts” are positioned as victims, even if their situation is totally their fault.
A woman knight has problems because people don’t want women front liners… for some reason, but she’s not exactly, apart from one time, looking for new groups. I get it, she was almost raped but You are telling me that in this world there are no groups made entirely of women for that exact reason? Or any other reason for that matter. Being overlooked because of her sex isn’t her fault, but the fact that she doesn’t look for all female groups or even tries to create one is. All she does is make her tab bigger.
The mage has problems fitting in because of his ego. That is 100% his fault, the show even acknowledges that but what are the solutions? One close to death encounter and that’s it. Seriously? After one shitty experience it just erases years of being an egomaniac? That’s not how that works. On top of that, for the whole show he only knows 1 spell. Granted he seems to be able to at least to a limited degree, modify its properties but it’s still one spell. And the fucker thought that he’s some kind of powerful mage? The fuck?
I could give some leeway to the overworked corp-splave sage but not properly reading the contract is totally on her. Even after the signing, there are law enforcers and organisations she should be able to present her case and get out of that contract.
All three of them could be viewed as commentary on actual problems people are facing in life but that doesn’t work, because if it did it would just be a lesson to be a cry baby until someone comes and rescues You. Just how pathetic is that? I get why the show didn’t want to deal with rape and it consequences but in that case it should have picked something that could be shown and problematic enough to make the victim deal with it. That way we wouldn’t get a passive, pathetic character that is cuddled by Dennis despite doing jack shit.
Something that got me curious is that none of them thought of forming an adventuring party together. I get that one melee and two casters isn’t exactly a balanced team but it would be enough to get them through easy and maybe even some easier advanced dungeon jobs. After all, the girl knight does jobs on her own (yes, she does jobs, she’s just bad with money and management). That would show that all of them are determined, can adapt and want to be self-sufficient in the long term. The ending for them wouldn’t have to change, it would just be more organic and logical because they would all be more experienced and hardened for their new jobs. It’s seemingly a small thing that they never thought of it but it does show how passive they are as characters. To be fair that alone positions them not as proper characters but as accessories to the diner and maybe Dennis’s pets. They do close to nothing of importance while he is not around. It’s actually rather insulting to the viewer. The characters themselves aren’t original but they could play off each other rather well.

Ok, I avoided it enough. Time to talk about the main antagonist — Vigo (not Mortensen). In one of the episodes we actually see some of his backstory and… yeah, he would be a much more interesting MC than Dennis is, if it weren’t for the fact that they made him comically evil. The type of character You get in saturday morning cartoons to get beat up and for You not to feel bad about it. It’s a shame because his back story (at least circumstances in it) could be changed into something really good and organic. For starters he doesn’t like, hates seems to be a more appropriate word, high society. He wants to be above them but… we don’t see why. Because he was working for a high society family? We don’t see him get mistreated. We actually see him being shown kindness and compassion. But his reaction to that is having a cringe, edge lord type of monologue and being an asshole and animal abuser / murderer. Someone please call John Wick. I actually think that his hatred towards high society can be a good motivator for him to want to be on top of everyone but for fucks sake let me see a proper reason why. Show me that he was mistreated, beaten, raped, used for entertainment in a cage fight or at least get his brother killed by one of the members of nobility. Anything that would give him a reason to be an asshole, garbage human. As it stands he’s just “evil” for evil’s sake. He doesn’t seem to create close connections, is always on guard and has a temper. Those are not bad traits to have for a compelling character. But give me some sort of reason for them or at least show me that he can act differently under specific circumstances. That way he wouldn’t be so flat. He basically went from zero to hero (well… an asshole and a villain). He trained, sacrificed people all for his goal and became one of the most skilled and strong people in the show. He also did that as someone with a combatant class. So why the fuck did he loose to a cook? Fuck Your “power of friendship” bullshit, the moment their fight began, Dennis should have been on the ground in seconds. This is not a contest of brute strength, this is a proper fight and Vigo has every possible advantage. The fact that he lost is just a testament of the writer's ineptness. This is a 1v1 between a hardened fighter and a cook. This shouldn’t even be a contest. I would get it if Dennis wasn’t fighting him alone. There are at least 2 characters who could have helped in that fight. But he’s fighting alone. You want me to believe that a cook can out skill a proper warrior in a fight? I can suspend my disbelief rather well but this is just bullshit.

There are few anime with a fantasy setting and some kind of restaurant as it’s main point. All of them work best as a sort of anthology concentrated on customers with an added pinch of the workers. This show is the same. It works best in the first half when that’s the main plot. But unfortunately, later it adds unnecessary political drama and concentrates too much on Dennis and him as a character. It changes from a show about an overpowered protagonist running a restaurant and becomes just another, boring, cliché filled fantasy about an overpowered protagonist that doesn’t have any sort of meaningful story or challenges. I’m not against him helping out his customers. I actually think that would be the perfect middle ground for him but the show forgets about the customers half way and they become just background noise. Apart from the 3 I mentioned before. I am not touching the subject that the dude bought himself, practically, a daughter. Fuck that subject. Funny enough that is the only moment when the show acknowledges slavery at all. For all other episodes we don’t see evidence of it anywhere. Why the fuck do it that way? Why not echo his past? Let Atelier (yes, that is the name of the girl he bought) be just a stray he finds. He was in the same situation so it would still fit, even more than him buying her. Why does every lazy fantasy show have to have slavery?

Do I think this is a bad show?
Surprisingly no. I think it’s safe. The writer either fears or is unable to take risks. There is nothing in this show that would make you remember it for too long but as long as You are watching it can be entertaining in a “don’t think about it too much” sort of way.
Unfortunately I do think too much about those things and that’s the reason I can’t recommend it.