Remember when I said I might not make this a regular thing? I went ahead and backpedaled on that because I might as well finish this series.
The thing with the HalloHallo Café series on YouTube is that episodes have varying levels of quality in terms of video. Some would be at somewhere around 720p, others are stuck in 2006 with that 240p goodness. It’s a good thing HHE fixed their act when MNL48 came along (oh how ironic that statement would sound right now..).
Episode 17
This episode is brought to you by Canmake, a popular cosmetic brand known by cute, reasonable, and high quality (at least that’s what’s on the international website). You can even see Sachie Ogawa, Canmake’s COO on this episode.
As you know how these episodes go by now, there’s a challenge. What new spore of madness has Yachang came up with this time? Nothing much, it’s just the Kawaii5 girls putting make up on each other while blindfolded.
This is one of those challenges that has no definite winner, because even though there are three levels of makeup being applied, Yachang just deliberately says that nobody won. We are just getting lazy here mister owner of Hallo Hallo Café, aren’t we? Anyway, our friend Alice makes a joke about lizards being the only animals who wear makeup and she gets “punished” for it by getting placed inside the Hallo Hallo Box and get powdered, I guess?
This episode’s HalloHallo Panalo segment is not brought to you by Canmake but by HalloHallo Town, a search index of restaurants to make your food trip planning much easier.
Considering the state of HalloHallo Incorporated from HHE to Cool Japan Shop is in a state of disarray, it’s kind of laughable how they would go ahead and give you points that are worth Php. 400 on any restaurant back in 2015.
Also, the site hasn’t been updated since April of 2019. A full year before COVID-19 was a thing so that’s no excuse on updating your website, HHI.
Show ends with another Cool Japan Festival 2015 promo we’ve seen an episode ago and with the aforementioned Alice in a Box.
Rating: 2/5
Positives: 720p goodness
Negatives: A wasted opportunity to promote Canmake on Hallo Hallo Panalo, the challenge being another nothingburger, and the irony of HHT giving out points to use their website that looks like it was designed back in 2009.
Episode 18
I don’t know if the previous reviews mentioned about continuity in this show but episode number 18 is somewhat of a sequel to episode 17…for a mere 10 seconds and for a joke about turning off blush-ons. I admit this is a very clever joke on Venus’ part. It seems that she’s getting into the role of being the joke girl of the group.
Today’s challenge is..taking a picture while drinking some sauce. Of course the sauces won’t be sweet sauces, it’s your typical spicy, sour, and salty sauces but what amazes me is that how they were able to turn ampalaya (bitter gourd) into a sauce. It’s a feat of science that Paulo Kurosawa should submit to the WHO to treat diabetes.
Jelline gets to be the winner for this challenge because she chose the ampalaya sauce. Not that I downplay the fact that she was able to glug a bitter substance and smile on the camera but if she knows how to downplay the taste of ampalaya, she would’ve gotten the easiest sauce to swallow. In fact, wasabi is much harder to deal with than ampalaya.
HalloHallo Panalo is something special because Yachang appears in this for the first time. I would say that HalloHallo Panalo is Angel Pancho’s own segment wherein she shills whatever Kuro-P wants to throw away on Cool Japan Shop’s inventory and the Kawaii5 girls appear here from time to time but for Yachang to appear in this? That’s something special in my book.
The show ends with Yachang gaining “revenge” on the HalloHallo staff by making them drink the sauces. I don’t know why he did that because the HHE staff didn’t do anything for the first few episodes. I’m not saying that this is mean spirited but I think this is one of those “breaking the fourth wall” moments on the show (like how Coach Allan broke character at that one iSchool episode) but it’s nice for TV shows to do this from time to time.
Rating: 3/5
Positives: More 720p goodness, the challenge portion is enjoyable, albeit not that unique, and Yachang on HalloHallo Panalo. Also, the ending shot where everyone shouts “See you next week dito sa HalloHallo Café!” with Venus holding the director’s clapboard.
Negatives: Sequelbaiting on the first few seconds of the show, the same Cool Japan Festival ad with AKB48 Team 8. You have Alodia Gosiengfiao as a guest on the festival, why not make her shoot a 15 second ad promoting said event?
Rayas-WEB 