SHOUNEN MAID

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyShounen Maid
SPECIAL ComedyShounen Maid: Onna wa Dokyou, Otoko wa Aikyou?

REVIEWS

• 

  KronosBach

  83/100
  Child Labor Laws? What are those?

  Review for Shonen Maid

  Part 0: Preamble

  What happens when you mix a maid anime with good characters and mildly fucked up messaging? You might just make something like Shonen Maid. (Warning: Cognitohazard, as I shit talk some of this anime's themes.)

  Part 1: The Plot

  At the core of it, Shonen maid is a serialized anime about a kid named Chihiro who lost his mother. He is basically adopted by his rich uncle, Madoka, and due to psychological conditioning from his mother, he decided that instead of living a normal life, he lives out an extreme OCD fantasy where he managed to keep perfect grades, become a maid that is constantly cleaning the house, and somehow also maintains good relationships with his friends.

  Jokes aside, it's a spectacularly wholesome anime about a kid who is grieving from the loss of his mother, and the relationship between him and his estranged family. He actually just decides to become a permanent worker within Madoka's household, and while he is employed in a completely legit way, it is to some degree at least clear that it's actually just an adoptive relationship. Still not good for Child Labor laws, but who cares about that anyway.

  Considering that it's very spoilery, and I'd prefer to keep this review spoiler free, I won't go too much into why Chihiro didn't know about Madoka before his mother passed away, but what I will say is that one of the few plot points that I did enjoy was that.

  Another aspect of the plot that comes up is Chihiro's relationship with his friends, with them forming an emotional safety net around him. It's my favorite part of the anime, and it gets a good amount of focus.

  Part 2: The Good

  As an anime, it's a really good slice of life story. It's twelve episodes of completely wholesome stuff that has none of the fanservice, gore, or creepiness that can permeate other animes.

  Mention the soundtrack having some nice calming tunes. The Opening is good, the ending theme is great, and some of the other scenes involving idols have really cool songs.

  For an anime to be good, you must have characters the audience can attach to. Shonen Maid exceeds all expectations in this regard. Not a single character in the entire show acts outside of their characterization. Most are extremely wholesome, with the exception of a selection of maybe 2 or 3 characters that serve as minor antagonists.

  The four that stand out most, Chihiro, Madoka, Miyako and Keiichiro. (Yūji being my honorable mention.)

  

  Chihiro is a young boy who recently was bereaved of his mother. He is a very dutiful kid, who was fucking conditioned taught by his mother to value work and to believe that without work, there is no food. In another sense, his mom instilled a "pull yourself up by le bootstrap" energy in him, which unfortunately still pollutes his mind as the anime goes on. If anything, his friends and family even recognize this issue and try to wean him off his constant work.

  

  Madoka Takatori is a costume designer (side note: I genuinely like this and I think it's an interesting profession for him to have), known for his exquisite work, and reclusiveness, and the fact he's a bachelor, Madoka is a very eccentric man. His love of cats, kindhearted nature, and slight sadness after the passing of his sister really characterize him well. He is your rich friend who just wants to chill and do the things he loves.

  

  Keiichirō Shinozaki, butler and childhood friend of Madoka, is the man keeping Madoka's household from collapsing in on itself. Also, a cat lover, albeit not allergic like Madoka, he is a figure of stability within the household, and generally plays straight man to the rest of the cast.

  

  The main female character among the cast, Miyako Ōtori starts the show in a betrothal with Madoka, although this is resolved through some questionable means. She has a crush on Keiichirō, and through Chihiro, develops a passion for cooking, and learning about the less cushy parts of life. Being raised in wealth, she goes out of her way to be kind and to do menial tasks like cleaning.

  A big part of this show is handling the grief that Chihiro is experiencing following his mother's passing. One of my favorite things in the show is how muted Chihiro's initial reaction is, which I interpret as him being too shocked to be able to able to fully grieve for his mother.

  

  As the show goes on, he does open up and seems to be able to fully process what happened. It is really cute and great.

  And I have to mention this visual joke that I liked a lot

  

  Part 3: The Bad

  A child gets indoctrinated into child labor because the mother teaches him capitalistic values from birth. A phrase repeated ad nausium throughout the series, those who do not work, shall not eat. The fact she taught a fucking child this genuinely annoys me. To be honest, it's not that you can't value hard work, that's fine, but he genuinely seems to take this in as a lesson that he literally shouldn't accept charity despite at the time being a homeless fucking kid. His mom's lesson genuinely angers me, and on some level, I really do not know if it's a message from the author or not. Depending on your opinion on that, you could technically consider this as part of "The Good". I just don't know myself.

  Sometimes the episodes feel chaptered, but I don't know how to fix that. It's a bit of a structural issue where some plots will resolve within the first 10-12 minutes of the episode, and the rest of the runtime is filled up with some other thing. It's not bad all the time but makes the episodes drag at times.

  Part 4: Closing Thoughts

  Shonen Maid is a really great anime that I would totally recommend if you wanna take a break from some of the more serious selections in the anime community. It's a happy little show, 12 eps long. I'd recommend you savor it, maybe sticking to 1 or 2 episodes a day. Shonen Maid doesn't really lend itself to binge watching. It took me a month to watch the whole thing lol.

  • Signed, Kronos Bach
  Continue on AniList

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