Kaichou wa Maid-sama! was a pretty popular series when it first came out six years ago. The studios that produced it, J.C.Staff, is also known for anime series like: Toradora!, Bakuman., Zero no Tsukaima and Nodame Cantabille. The studios has made a lot of romance anime, which happens to be my favorite genre. Kaichou wa Maid-sama! was based off of the eponymous manga by Hiro Fujiwara and has a total of 26 episodes of 24 minutes each.
The anime follows Misaki Ayuzawa, the first female class president at Seika high school, which changed from an all-boys to a co-ed school a few years ago. Because of this the student body currently exists mainly out of boys. Her nickname quickly becomes “Demon President”, because of her strict form of discipline. She’s not afraid to use the Aikido techniques she mastered if she has to, to keep the boys in check. Misaki has a part-time job that no one knows about, yet. It’s pretty logical she’d want to keep it hidden, since she works as a maid at Maid Latte, a maid café. As hard as she tries to keep it a secret, a classmate, Takumi Usui, finds out about her part-time job and holds it over her head, manipulating Misaki whenever he feels like it.
Misaki comes across as a very strong person who can handle anything, which clearly comes from all she’s been through. Her father left her, her mother Minako and her sister Suzuna with a huge debt. While her mother struggles to pay off this debt, Misaki is doing everything she can to get rid of the debt as well. She has an enormous sense of responsibility and is clearly very caring.
The good looking and popular Usui is talented in numerous areas and seems to be the best at everything. He seems to enjoy being an observer of other people’s lives. Usui sees ambitious Misaki as an equal and a challenge once he starts to fall for her. While Misaki thinks he’s harassing her, he clearly cares for her and tries to protect her whenever she needs him. Not much of his background is known, except that he has a brother and lives in an apartment by himself. He’s a bit of a mystery.
Aside from Usui and Misaki there are a bunch of side characters in the story as well. All of whom compliment the story and setting well. The interactions between Misaki and Usui are by far the most interesting interactions in the series. They seem very different from one another, or at least Misaki feels that way, but they add something to one another’s lives. It’s fun to see how oblivious Misaki can be.
The genres of this anime are comedy, school, shoujo and of course romance. All of these themes are clearly represent in the anime. It’s a funny anime with quite a few romantic moments.
When it comes to character design it’s clear that they’re mostly pretty simple, but they are easy to distinguish. The personalities of the characters has clearly been put into their unique designs, with a few designs standing out a bit more than the rest, like Usui and Misaki’s.
The animation in the anime looks good, even when zoomed out they don’t lose much of the details, which makes it a lot less bothersome. The colours used in the anime work together well, especially those in the backgrounds. ‘Shoujo’ describes the drawing style of this anime perfectly. Both the drawing style and animation of this anime are pretty consistent.
The anime opens with the upbeat song ‘My Secret’ by Saaya Mizuno. It fits well with the themes of the anime and the animations fit well with the song. The intro shows a lot of characters and some of the situations that appear in the anime. ‘Yokan (予感)’ by heidi., the first ending song, fits well with the images shown, although sometimes there doesn’t seem to be enough going on for this pretty fast paced song. This first outro focusses on Usui and, if you believe the outro, his lonely and somewhat dark existence. It ends with him running into and staring at Misaki, coming across as if she saved him from his past, or maybe just himself. The second outro ‘∞ Loop (∞ループ)’, also by heidi., seems to have the same, tiny, problems and once more mainly focusses on Usui and Misaki.
My view on this anime hasn’t shifted, although initially watched it quite a long time ago it’s still a fun and very cute anime to me. The relationship between Misaki and Usui is hilarious at times, but also very interesting to see develop and sometimes even heart-warming. The animation still looks good to me and the storyline is still pretty original, as far as I know.
If you can’t get enough of this anime you could read the eponymous manga, which has 98 chapters and has been completed. Or you could watch one of the two specials that came out.
Studios: J.C.Staff
Started airing: 2nd of April 2010
Number of episodes: 26
Rating: 75/100
