A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.

Smile, Sweet, Sister, Sadistic

What this meme means

Memes built on the Blend S opening sequence turn the bright introduction of anime heroines into a sequence with an unexpected final line. A collage of four characters sets the rhythm and design, to which parodies add a completely outside participant.

Add your caption

The editor opens with this picture. You can download the finished meme as a PNG.

Report this meme

A café opening with special roles

The anime Blend S aired in 2017. Studio A-1 Pictures produced an adaptation of Miyuki Nakayama's manga about café employees who play different personalities in front of customers. The opening sequence introduces the characters with short English words beginning with one letter. These lines tie to the title and turn getting to know the heroines into a quick musical sequence: a new color, a new portrait, a new word.

As early as October 2017, parodies appeared on YouTube that kept the start of the opening and added someone else's line at the end. Sometimes the last hero was styled as a full member of Blend S: the figure was cut out, placed on a single-colored background and labeled with a fitting word. The device was then moved to static collages. Thus the introduction to one story became a way to present a character from another without explaining how they got into the group.

Four colored cards

The image has four panels arranged in a square. Maika Sakuranomiya is shown on a pink background, Kaho Hinata on blue, Mafuyu Hoshikawa on yellow, Miu Amano on purple. Each heroine wears café uniform; beside each is a large English word, a role designation and a name. The visible sequence of large captions reads Smile, Sweet, Sister, Sadistic.

This is not yet a finished joke with an unexpected guest. The collage gathers recognizable motifs of the opening and gives four steps for a future continuation. The colors separate the heroines from each other, while the large first letter keeps the design consistent. When reading, the eye moves left to right and top to bottom, as if scanning a catalog of roles. A new panel after this row may look like just another item, though its content already belongs to a different world.

The list is broken by the last word

The mechanism recalls a musical counting rhyme with a swapped ending. The first elements set a predictable order, so the viewer is ready to accept one more similar item. The parody keeps an outer rule (the initial letter and the styling) but changes the genre. After the sweet portraits a stern hero, a household problem, or an absurd object may appear. Its inclusion looks both illegitimate in meaning and tidy in form.

In the video the effect is supported by a sharp transition between voices and sound worlds. In the static version the last panel does this work: it is first read as the continuation of a tidy row, and then the mismatch is noticed. So the joke does not have to mock the anime itself. It can show what happens to the viewer's mood when one overly recognizable reality is added to a pleasant sequence. The first cards stay stable, and the surprise is concentrated in the final participant.

New guests for the opening

Invented example: after the four heroines, a suitcase labeled Suitcase appears. The word keeps the English initial letter, but the pretty introduction suddenly turns into a reminder of packing. For a person before a vacation, this item may become the main character of the day, though in a café it looks out of place.

Another ending: Sleeping beside a person who dozed off over a textbook. It replaces the promised cheerful role with the only reaction available to a tired viewer. Third variant: Sandwich against a photo of a sandwich. Food substitutes for the next heroine and turns the opening into an expression of plain hunger. In all cases the link to the previous panels is kept by the spelling and the colored card, while the comic meaning comes from the clash between the charming presentation of characters and an unexpectedly down-to-earth need.