Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Misaki Ayuzawa is a unique phenomenon within Seika High School. In a predominantly male institution, she became the first-ever female student council president through her honesty and diligence. Ever since Misaki got promoted to the position, she has been working tirelessly to ensure a better school life for all girls. Despite that, Misaki is very strict with the boys, which has earned her the title "Demon President."

One day, after hearing a girl cry in the hallway, Misaki encounters Takumi Usui—the most popular boy in the school—as he rejects a love confession. Enraged at what she is seeing, Misaki reprimands him for making the girl cry. However, Usui is indifferent and brushes it off as nothing.

Unexpectedly, Misaki soon runs into Usui again, but this time when she is working at a maid cafe! Embarrassed that someone has found out about her secret occupation, Misaki promises herself not to let Usui destroy her reputation. However, the mysterious boy now begins to visit the same cafe regularly to observe and tease Misaki. When push comes to shove, will Usui still be able to keep the president's secret?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Usui, Takumi Main

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Ayuzawa, Misaki Main

Fujimura, Ayumi Japanese

Hyoudou, Aoi Supporting

Igarashi, Hiromi Japanese

Shintani, Hinata Supporting

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Ayuzawa, Suzuna Supporting

Ishihara, Kaori Japanese

Igarashi, Tora Supporting

Suzumura, Kenichi Japanese

Yukimura, Shouichirou Supporting

Shiibashi, Kazuyoshi Japanese

Kanou, Soutarou Supporting

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Hyoudou, Satsuki Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Hanazono, Sakura Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Matsuda, Akio Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Sakurai, Hiroaki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Motoyama, Satoshi Sound Director

Reviews

Sep 27, 2010

Skadi

Recommended

When news of this year's new shows began surfacing, Kaichou wa Maid-sama was near the top of the ones I was looking forward to most. I had read a little of the manga and always found it to be funny. Last year had featured a pretty good run of romance anime and this looked poised to continue that run. Despite the series' fabulous artwork and a lot of great comedy, it is unfortunately a bit of a disappointment.

The premise behind Maid-sama has an initially interesting hook. Misaki Ayuzawa is the newly elected student council president at a mostly male high school. ... She is strict and violent in protection of the female students and in making it a place friendlier to girls. But she has a secret that could ruin her image as the tough and unyielding class president, she works part time in a Maid Cafe to help her family with the bills. Of course this means that the ultimate alpha male at the school, Usui Takumi, will find out about her secret. Blackmail, as only shoujo can do ensues... or does it?

Thankfully the answer is no but what does follow, at least initially is a pretty fun and entertaining back and forth repartee between Misaki and Usui. Misaki is revealed to not be quite the man hating tyrant she is in school and Usui is not the cold, unfeeling ladies man either. The romantic chemistry between the two characters is quite good and builds very quickly early on. But the typical problems that plague shoujo romances soon follow. Relationship development slows to a crawl and nothing of significance happens after the first third of the series until its end. Despite this the series does end with a bang and has a very touching and satisfying conclusion which is probably the only thing that saved it from a lower overall score.

Maid-sama at its best is extremely funny and enjoyable to watch. The series' comedy is really quite good most of the time. But no amount of jokes can hide the fact that it doesn’t have any kind of story what so ever. Misaki's job at Maid Latte is mostly just a gimmick, and besides for a handful of episodes it’s totally unimportant to the plot. Basically what we get is a series of loosely connected stories with the same underlying theme. Even though they are mostly funny it gets tiring when you realize that nothing significant is ever happening. When things do finally start to get interesting between our couple, not unexpectedly a rival appears. Though he is so poorly conceived and much too late to the party to have any real significance. It was almost like someone in the production staff realized with five episodes to go that they nearly made an entire anime without a love triangle. Though despite all of this the biggest flaw is the sheer weight of supporting characters and their overall detraction to the screen time and back-story of the lead characters.

Misaki makes for a good heroine. She is quite funny walking the line between her dictator president and her submissive maid persona's. However she is a bit of your stereotypical tsundere, but it's easy to root for her. Shockingly we really don't find out all that much about her with the exception of some flashbacks of when she was a little girl (which in actuality weren't even about her). Other than learning her father had walked out on her mother and sister, leaving enormous debts and apparently they are also really poor. An aside to Misaki's family poverty though. I thought the way they portrayed her family was kind of offensive. The inside of the house is crumbling and dirty. Walls have paint peeling off them, the floor has holes in it, and their are spider webs and other cliches. Yes we get it, they're poor. Like poor people can’t keep a clean house? Besides this is completely out of character for someone as meticulous as Misaki. When you consider how fanatical she is at school about keeping things clean and orderly the very idea that she wouldn't do the same at home is totally implausible.

Usui on the other hand initially comes off as the kind of love interest I hate. Aloof, privileged, and apparently great at everything he tries he is precisely the kind of ideal man that makes shoujo romances so unbelievable. However it is pretty quickly apparent he isn't your typical leading man. You can tell he is immediately smitten with Misaki from the start and he uses this droll personality of his to push her buttons and amuse himself while at the same time bring her closer to him. I ended up liking him quite a bit. Like Misaki, his past remains as much of a mystery at the end as it was at the beginning. Especially frustrating considering the amount of time that was given to Misaki's childhood friend Shintani who basically only appeared in 4 episodes.

The supporting cast really brings down this series though. As much as I enjoyed the leads, I found the rest of the cast to be uninspired and lacking substance. The main reason for this is that there are just way too many of them. Maid-sama features nearly 30 supporting characters and they take way too much from the ones that are actually important. Even if many of them are likable and funny, they have absolutely zero depth and at best one facet to their personalities. Stories with lots of characters rarely work that well especially when the majority serve no purpose and overlap one another. Too many of them are basically identical to each other and were unnecessary. For example I know having a cross dresser is a shoujo staple but having more than one in the same anime is overkill, regardless of whether or not they both did it willingly.

The anime is well acted and I enjoyed the performances for the lead actors in particular. Though neither of them are rookies by any means, they aren’t the typical names we are used to seeing at the top of a cast either. So I enjoyed hearing some fresh voices for a change. The music is solid but unspectacular. Saya Mizuno's "My Secret" is an appropriate if kind of generic shoujo OP. Both ED songs by heidi are pretty good though and I liked them a lot more.

Artistically Maid-sama is strong. I did enjoy the character designs and the frequent use of deformed and chibi characters to complement the series comedy. The art really brings out the emotions of Misaki and Usui and is able to speak volumes about their feelings for one another even with nothing is being said. The quality of this non audible communication is one of the best I have seen in an anime.

Even though I was ultimately disappointed with this anime, it was not a complete waste of time to watch. If you enjoy Rom-Com anime then you will most likely not be sorry for watching this. The comedy is great; the romance is hit or miss.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 10, 2010

Bryce-kun

Mixed Feelings

Kaicho Wa Maid-sama, another series put in the category of typical.

Plot:
Typical. The main character, Misaki is your not so average shoujo lead, why? Because she is the head of the student council but also conceals and dark secret; she works in a maid cafe. Big whoop. The plot is very linear she meets the handsome, popular bishie of the school and gradually throughout the episodes romance is suppose to flourish. Slice of life is evident because of school activities, competitions, pesky, convenient love triangles and maid service to make the anime seem related to real life. There's is nothing special about the plot, if you ... seen other shoujos then you can predict what's going to happen next. On a side note when the words "Maid Cafe" appear, I automatically guessed more fan service than the usual. Yup, there is plenty of fan service for both sexes. Hurray.

Characters/Development:
Very static. Misaki may appear strong at first but after seeing her character I have one thing to say, Tsundere. Everything about her is "Tsundere". How she treats her fellow students with her Iron Fist. How she treats Usui harshly and then tenderly is just plain nonsensical. Did I also mention that she is poor too? Typical. Usui is definitely the worst character in the entire show. He has no flaws, everything about him is perfect and to add he's from a wealthy family. Wikipedia even says so! How is this bad? Usui stalks Misaki... and this is suppose to be sexy? He does not show any emotion, and character at all. Essentially he is a boring robot. Incredibly indistinguishable if you line up him up with other male leads. Expecting character development? Than you'll be disappointed. Side characters are quit forgettable except Hinata and Aoi. Well there's the egotistical rival of Usui, the fan-boys and Misaki's classmates/co-workers. Blah
I have a problem with people liking the series just because they think Misaki is a "strong" lead. If that's the case then why does Usui always comes to the rescue? Even when someone is harassing her, Usui seems to be there to stop it automatically.

Art/Sound:
Decent.

Enjoyment:
Mediocre. I was expecting something out of the norm since this series was so "talked" about.

Overall:
The only thing that is unique about this series is Misaki working in a Maid Cafe. Don't believe the hype.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 27, 2011

tehsystem

Not Recommended

Well, let me get started on this review.

Story? There is no story. There is no objective in for the plot, and the same episode plan repeats itself until the very end. It's always Misaki having trouble with something, then Usui does something incredible or they have a romantic moment where she doesn't trust him or what he feels about her. She's always worrying if people will find out she works as a maid, but there isn't drama involving this fact. You would expect to see problems involving the main character being with the popular guy in school, but nothing happens. 4/10

The art is okay. ... Just okay. It doesn't have anything special about it, Usui could have been drawn better, but that's just my opinion. Not much details and there is a lot of chibis in the anime for comic relief. 7/10

Sound is okay too, even though easily forgettable. Nothing special. 6/10

Characters? Well, this I feel the need to write about. The characters have absolutely no character development. We see Hinata, that only appears in the last episodes, having more character development than the protagonist! It's just absurd. There is no depth in her character, and not even in Usui's character. All we actually know about Misaki is that she is poor, has a lot of work to do, and hates boys. She's a typical tsundere. We know very little about Usui, except the fact that he is some-like a God, being perfect on everything he does. There are a lot of characters I could name here that appear almost every episode, but don't have any importance. 2/10

I'd put 4/10 on enjoyment by the fact that I had nothing else to watch.

Overall, 4/10. Characters were bad, plot was pretty bad(since there was none), and the art and sound weren't enough to compensate those both, that together are just asking for disaster. You could have a bad plot(or none) and good characters, that would probably be a good rated anime. And the other way around too, it isn't that unusual, with great plot but bad characters. When you don't have either of them, it tends to be badly rated.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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