Play “Bon Appétit♡S” after a long break and the whole café comes rushing back: Stile, its staff, and Maika somehow turning an intimidating stare into a job skill.
It feels nostalgic. It also feels weirdly recent.
Hold on. Is Blend S already a decade old?
Not quite—but the calendar is winning
The TV anime began airing in Japan on October 7, 2017. It passed its ninth anniversary in October 2026; the tenth arrives on October 7, 2027.
So “ten years ago” is slightly premature. Unfortunately, “almost ten years ago” sounds entirely reasonable. That might be worse.
Maika is still starting work at the same café whenever we press play. The viewer, meanwhile, has aged nine years. Rude of the calendar, really.
The theme song brings back more than the show
Read “2017” on a page and you can calmly do the math. Hear the opening, and you might remember the room where you watched anime, the shows you followed that season, or what daily life felt like then.
Researchers have found that familiar music can cue autobiographical memories. That does not mean a study proved every Blend S fan experiences the same rush. It's simply a useful explanation for why the song can feel closer than the date.
The calendar says nine years. Your ears reply, “Wasn't that last week?”
The joke still works, so the years disappear
The premise is easy to slip back into: Maika struggles with job interviews because of her sharp-looking eyes, then lands a café role where she is asked to act sadistic. Her coworkers perform other character types, including a tsundere and a little-sister persona.
You don't need a lore encyclopedia. One familiar scene and you're back in the rhythm of the comedy.
That's the trick. The joke reaches you before the age of the show does.
Nine years on paper; five seconds to feel right back there.
When the tenth anniversary rolls around, the opening won't have changed. The only suspicious thing will be how quickly our own calendars filled up.
Sources: Aniplex's 2017 broadcast announcement and research on music-evoked autobiographical memory.
