I bought an anime bluray at JB today while working in Knox. It was Akiba Maid Wars, a great little title I first read about in an issue of Neo magazine. The idea is they’re like Yukuza constantly warring with other maid service factions – all whilst performing their cutesy maid services. I took it home and watched the first five episodes. It was better and funnier than I expected it would be, following the trials of Nagomi, a newbie maid navigating her way through this unexpectedly violent world. Great soundtrack too. As a side note, I got a $100 parking fine yesterday, and so today I decided I would double down on that figure by buying something at JB, which is what this was. Coz IDGAF.
I watched another four eps of Akiba Maid Wars anime. There’s an episode where MCNagomi, a young girl starting out in the maid cafe business, switches to working as a ninja maid. There’s a hilarious scene in it where she retreats from a conversation with one of her maid friends ninja style, walking backwards, going ‘Nin Nin Nin’ back into the kitchen. So funny, The baseball episode was a pleasant surprise. It’s about as warm and fuzzy as the show gets, though blood is spilled on the baseball pitch. This is a fun show.
I watched the last three eps of Akiba Maid Wars. Boy, it did not pull any punches! It’s MC Nagomi and her fellow maids at the pig-themed Oinky Doink Cafe against Akiba’s biggest maid syndicate. The violence is stylised but still pretty gut-wrenching at times, as is the drama. The show constantly pivots between drama and comedy, and cutesiness and ugliness. It’s sometimes hard to get the tone of the show, but I applaud its decision to not cop out in the end. Nagomi wants peace, but it seems everyone else wants revenge. The show tests just how far that can go. I had a good time, but it wasn’t always comfortable.