The Ultimate Maid is here! – ‘Mahoromatic Series Collection’ Anime Review

Thanks to Madman, we had the chance to see 2 seasons and the summer special of Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden on DVD.

Mahoromatic is the story of Suguru, who after losing his parents lives by himself and a dog but his terrible housekeeping skills made him seek for help immediately. This is when the lovely maid Mahoro arrives, a cute 19-year-old girl, seemingly a normal girl until Suguru finds out that she is a retired combat android who wants to become a maid.

Suguru decides to put Mahoro’s skills to test and hires her full-time at the end of the day where they became close friends and got into many funny situations, even inspiring feelings in Mahoro she had never experienced for a human. However, it’s not all perfect as Mahoro has a horrid secret about the death of Suguru’s father and to make matters worse, she only has 398 days to live before she stop Suguru’s vital functions.

Directed by Masahiko Otsuka and Hiroyuki Yamaga with a script by Hiroyuki Yamaga, Mahoromatic is a fun ride and reminds us of the fantastic School Rumble (Mahoro’s look and attitude is very similar to the lead character Tenma-Chan) The series has all the right elements to progress from a typical maid/school type of story (ecchi included) to an Evangelion-Battle Angel chapter where Mahoro must combat some enemies from the past.

The animation is very fluid and the character designs are lovely and warm, each having a unique personality, particularly the annoying Shikijo-sensei who is sexually obsessed with Suguru, making her compete with Mahoro in everything. Plus she is the classic apocalyptic teacher, always drinking and trashing her apartment but still keeping a stunning form at the envy of Mahoro and her friends.

The 26 episodes come on 6 DVDs, including a summer special, Christmas and New Year’s episode as all anime do, not forgetting the always classic trip to the beach cliché where the funniest and most dangerous things happen.

So all these elements seems to make Mahoro a great show and don`t get us wrong, it’s very enjoyable as you get totally hooked up into the backup story of Mahoro as an Android and why she decides to spend her time with Suguru. However, the show has a major issue – the very weird and disappointing ending which tries to be an epic romantic human-android love story but finishes backstabbing you big time. It feels like the producers ran out of ideas or that the writer has changed because the story suddenly became a mixture of Evangelion, Cowboy bebop and Space Adventure Cobra for no reason, leaving you with a big question mark on your face, wanting to check the main menu to see if you were watching a spin-off by mistake or an Ova from the series. Luckily after the awful ending, you have a summer special to take you back to the classic elements which made Mahoromatic a great show.

Madman brings Mahoromatic Automatic Maiden to Australia, on DVD, a very enjoyable series full of hilarious scenes and epic battles. Fully recommended despite its weird ending.

Watch the trailer of the series here

Mahoromatic Automatic Maiden – Now available on DVD thanks to Madman.