Fudanshi Bartender – Series Review & Episode Guide

Hibiki works as a bartender with his boss Shirasu and his coworker Hokuto. Although he appears suave on the outside, Hibiki is a secretly obsessed fudanshi. He likes drawing BL manga, watching anime, and collecting memorabilia. However, he hides his favourite hobby and pretends to be a regular guy with common interests.

Hibiki loves daydreaming about real-life guys in outlandish BL scenarios. His inspiration comes from watching the male customers interact at his bar. Hibiki's overactive imagination often misconstrues their innocuous interactions as romantic connections. He gets overexcited about his fantasies, often lost in his own world.

Everybody is fair game in Hibiki's BL fantasies, including his senior boss or gender-swapped colleague. He loves pairing random people and shipping them together. Recently, the bar hired a young bartender named Chita. With his boyish looks and enthusiastic personality, Hibiki's imagination goes into overdrive as he envisions Chita in his BL fantasies.

Fudanshi Bartender is a funny slice-of-life comedy that parodies BL tropes. The protagonist constantly overthinks and overreacts to the men around him, turning their mundane scenarios into romantic fantasies. The humour comes from his hysterical reactions, which become increasingly wackier. That's basically the entire premise of the drama. It repeats the same joke in different contexts and tweaks the formula slightly each time. After the novelty wears off, this series doesn't offer much variety.

Despite its simplicity, Fudanshi Bartender delivers the quirky comedy with relentless enthusiasm. Every scene is silly, energetic, and gleeful. Even if some of the jokes are hit-or-miss, they successfully convey a sense of liveliness and excitement. This drama embraces offbeat humour, wholly committed to its eccentricity. It feeds off the ridiculousness, making you laugh because the main character's BL delusions are so far removed from normalcy. Unable to take itself too seriously, Fudanshi Bartender loves being campy, flamboyant, and over-the-top. 

The lead (Takuma Wada) helps propel the zany energy with his boisterous performances. He captures the suaveness of a bartender and combines it with the giddiness of a fudanshi. You wouldn't think these two personas go together, but the actor makes his unique role work convincingly. He's charismatic enough to carry the exaggerated overreactions, goofy expressions, and slapstick gags. The rest of the supporting cast is also bubbly, albeit they don't have as many chances to shine in the spotlight.

Fudanshi Bartender reminds me of the Japanese BL comedy, A Man Who Defies the World of BL. They share a similar brand of humour, so both should appeal to the same demographic. Fudanshi Bartender is more outlandish, has less versatile jokes, and comes with lower production values. In contrast, A Man Who Defies the World has a longer length to leave a memorable impression. It also benefits from simply being introduced first and gets credit for originality. Some may consider Fudanshi Bartender inferior, but the quality difference isn't massive.

Even though Fudanshi Bartender is packed with BL fantasies, these flirtatious situations are primarily played for laughs. Hibiki may daydream about a hypothetical attraction between his male colleagues or customers, but they only occur in his imagination. There isn't a lot of actual romance happening for real. Nonetheless, we see several characters in physically intimate encounters that tease homoeroticism. Interestingly, the series includes a BL pairing between two elderly men. It's refreshing that Hibiki's gay fantasies do not discriminate against age.

Fudanshi Bartender doesn't have a significant storyline to tie the playful jokes together. The series consists of scattered slice-of-life scenes without depth or overarching themes. Sadly, there's no plot development, character growth, or meaningful progress. The randomness works against its favour, making the BL parody feel trivial and frivolous. Although it's casually funny, I don't think this drama includes enough content to be considered essential viewing. Fudanshi Bartender is an amusing niche product that will only appeal to some fans.