Forum - View topicAkiba Maid War (TV) (w/ index).
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11299 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Akiba Maid War (TV) Genres: action, comedy Themes: absurdity, gangs, girls with guns, maids, mafia, ultraviolence Plot Summary: Akihabara is the center of the universe for the coolest hobbies and quirkiest amusements. In the spring of 1999, bright-eyed Nagomi Wahira moves there with dreams of joining a maid café. She quickly dons an apron at café Ton Tokoton, AKA the Pig Hut. But adjusting to life in bustling Akihabara isn't as easy as serving tea and delighting customers. Paired with the dour Ranko who never seems to smile, Nagomi must do her best to elevate the Pig Hut over all other maid cafés vying for top ranking. Along the way she'll slice out a place for herself amid the frills and thrills of life at the Pig Hut. Just when Nagomi's dreams are within her grasp, she discovers not everything is as it seems amid the maid cafés of Akihabara. October 6, 2022 (Thursdays; HIDIVE) ---------------------------------- EPISODE INDEX (Clicking on the episode will take you to my post that has a summary, comments, and screen-caps) Episode 01: Oink It Up! Starting Today, You're an Akiba Maid! Episode 02: Gambling Adoracalypse: Yumechi Episode 03: The Worth of a Maid's Fist and Pancreas! Episode 04: The Inside Story! A Drillmaster for the Swine!! Episode 05 Episode 06 Episode 07 Episode 08 Episode 09 Episode 10 Episode 11 Episode 12 Episode 13 Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Nov 03, 2022 12:49 am; edited 7 times in total |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4083 |
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This. This one... This is the greatest show ever made.
An over the top scenario deserves an over the top presentation but there is no top here. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23779 |
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The show is stylish and slick but I'm not totally down with it. There's just something about the wanton slaughter that leaves me kind of cold. Also, I know it's supposed to be "funny" but I'm not enjoying the horrific situation our lead finds herself in. She's a nice kid who just wants to work at a maid cafe and now she's involved in a bizarre gang war. Ha ha?
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4083 |
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The Godfather but more moe.... moe... kyun.
"As long as I could remember, I wanted to be an Akiba Maid!" Not quite Kagomi but it is there. Godfather, Goodfellas but as maids fighting over Akihabara, that's vaguely the scenario. However, the way everything gets told is 100% Tarantino. I love the soundtrack, I love the montage, I absolutely love the juxtaposition between the song and the shoot out in the street. But why stop there? There's no reason for that, this is anime! Throw in Bride versus the killer 88, throw in some Dario Argento, throw in some pop art, everyone will notice but no one will care! Tarantino stole from anime, it's about time anime fully stole it back. And yes, it's a comedy. Ranko acting as a maid, Kogami as a mafia underling. Blood squirting 6 feet from a headshot onto her uniform- several times. But she realizes it's ok... she's still wearing her paper bib. I wouldn't trust Kogami as a narrator as she had no surprise at those bullet proof mirrors or that she's hired to be a live in cafe maid. Or the headshots, the guns, the violence, the turf war. You know, normal everyday stuff. The panda? That she didn't expect but she believes that a panda must be normal for maid cafe then. Really, the Panda maid is unusual to her and not the rest of it? I'm guessing animal eared maids have a kind of hierarchy... Would cat eared maids be the top dogs? The pig ones seem to be on the bottom. And how would they rank against other themed maids? Are we going to get gun tooting nun maids? Please let there be gun tooting nun maids. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11299 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Episode 01: Oink It Up! Starting Today, You're an Akiba Maid!
Summary: Nagomi prepares to begin her new job working for the "Oinky Doink Cafe," a pigsty-themed maid cafe. Despite her enthusiasm for the job, her lack of experience creates problems for the other maids. Then, a hard-boiled otaku shows up threatening the manager of the cafe for not paying her dues to his organization. After eating some ramen, Nagomi and the older maid, Ranko, head over to Wuv-Wuv Moonbeam to deliver a letter that turns out to be declaration of war. ---------------------------------- Comments: "Maids sound like a cute idea. They can look pretty and make people feel good. But how can we make that concept more interesting as an anime? Wait, how about we put all the maids in their own respective mafias and then have them stylishly start killing each other in a giant bloody turf war? Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do it." I'm a bit flabbergasted, but in a good way. Idols, maids, and moe, in their purest forms have always made me cringe. When I started making a discussion thread for this, I had zero interest in watching it. But something about the synopsis felt like it had some potential. I thought to myself, "hmm, a maid war? How violent can it be?" And like many a viewer have commented, it is, indeed, Tarantino-esque, but funnier, because you never would've expected it. You'd think the maid gunning down the other maid in the prologue was a shocking surprise. But just wait till you see Ranko turn into Roberta from Black Lagoon. Holy crap, that was wild! Definitely gonna' be looking forward to the zaniness of this one, each week. ---------------------------------- Caps:  
 
 
 
 
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ACｘS
 Posts: 882 |
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1:
I ACTUALLY AGREE, BEST SHOW OF THE SEASON F**K OFF CHAINSAWMAN |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15464 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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If I was to talk about the parts that worked for me, it would have been the humour of maids treating the chopping off pigtails as like a finger in yakuza media, that the letter they were forced to give turned out to be so crass, and then the shock that it actually went for such brutal violence of a headshot. The blood squirting once I thought was okay, but not so much the extras that I thought went on a bit too long, and then the mowing down of the entire bunny girl maids. The shock as comedy might work as a start of early on, even against how grounded the very start of the episode was, but I don't have the highest expectations that it would work unless they found ways to make it surprising again.
The comedy worked as surprise to me because I didn't expect it to look so yakuza like in all but the fact that it was about a pigtail of a bunny maid, followed by that letter really sounding like a gang war, and then undercutting the thought that it would just be pigtails by having an actual bloody death. It really works because it is a surprise, but it has let the cat out of the bag now, and will have to continue that within presumably 1999 otaku/Akihabara culture. I do have a weakness for gyaru characters if they are done well. |
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ACｘS
Posts: 882 |
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2:
Okay, unlike my previous post, I'm gonna take it down a notch now. I'll be real this time: I can see the tricks up its sleeve by now. Dusky pointed them out before, but at least I am pretty sure what they are by now. The whole maid thing going on is just a plot device. It's basically a mafia show, but with little girls. But you can't simply "let's make a mafia show but with girls!". There's got to be a catch. That catch is the whole maid thing. Every aspect of having a maid cafe—rent and competition for this episode—is getting blown out of proportion when you involve dirty money and guns. That's the whole premise. Ranko is basically the Pig Hut's John Wick / "sweeper". Manager is the unreliable boss who lands everyone into trouble everytime. Nagomi is the greenhorn who is being brought along for the ride. They're stereotypes in every mafia show. The patterns are obvious now, so the big issue that we now know is this: how does the show plan to keep itself fresh every episode? The maid gag will grow stale very quick, so it's just "So, what kind of hot water do the Pig Hut maids land into this time?" for every episode. At least the show is self-aware to keep itself to just 12 episodes; it would be ridiculous to see it twice the length. I guess the pressing question is: why is Ranko at the Pig Hut? She was the one who witnessed her boss's death at the beginning of the first episode, so I guess she has a vendetta. Surely that plot has to go somewhere; Ranko still has a story to tell. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11299 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Episode 02: Gambling Adoracalypse: Yumechi
Summary: Nagomi starts thinking about the previous night's "adventure" with Ranko and begins to freak out a bit. She really wants to be a maid, but doesn't think she can withstand the pressures and violent lifestyle that apparently come with the job. Manager still owes people money and decides to go to a loan shark, putting the cafe up as collateral. She loses the money gambling, but then finds some cash in the register and decides to make or break everyone's day at the local Maid Casino. ---------------------------------- Comments: The zaniness continues by proverbially disguising the mafia (wolf) body with a maid (sheep) costume. I think it's pretty clear the show has differentiated itself just from the first episode and is continuing to be a satire for the extra shock value from the (not so unexpected, now) violence. Even though I expect the show to get violent, at some point, I don't think it's worn out its welcome, quite yet. All the maids and the Manager still have some goofy chemistry together, and we don't even know who or what exactly that panda's purpose is. Is it an actual panda? Is it a person inside of a costume? Is he the actual John Wick of the group, instead of Ranko? Then you still have Nagomi really wanting to be a maid, for whatever reason. And I'm wondering if she's gonna' be one of those naive characters that has a rude awakening and realizes the world's not as easy and clear-cut as she thinks it is. I think it'd be a real surprise if the writing, somehow, remained satirical and violent, yet still got something deep like that across. Although, the quality of that writing (if it comes to fruition, at all) may vary because the show is really pushing for the satire and ultraviolence angles. I'm still likin' the show, a lot. ---------------------------------- Caps:  
 
 
 
 
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ACｘS
Posts: 882 |
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3:
Previously a gambling den, now an underground fight club. You can probably guess what kind of scenarios will come next if you like mafia shows. So the mystery is solved: we finally know who exactly the "mysterious lady" in the OP is. I mean, it's kinda obvious the moment you see Zoya. It's just like figuring out who the Female Titan is on AoT. The pattern for every episode is confirmed: the Oinky Doink Cafe lands into hot water over mounting debt, the Manager sells out her staff (i.e. Ranko 90% of the time) out, they renege on whatever the original deal is, and it ends with guns. Lots of guns. I will reiterate that keeping this show to 12 episodes is a good call. It's getting stale but for 12 episodes, I think it can find enough ideas to keep itself afloat till the end of the season. Last edited by ACｘS on Fri Oct 21, 2022 7:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23779 |
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I'm warming up to the show. I was initially put off by the premise of an innocent young woman (Nagomi) who just wanted to be a maid in a cafe getting caught up in a bit of the ole ultra violence as Little Alex would say, but she seems to be adjusting, so it puts me more at ease. Ranko is growing on me in a good way, too. I love the manager. There's always something about straightforwardly scumbaggy female characters that I tend to enjoy. The show always makes sure she's put in humiliating positions, which she deserves. But hey, who can argue with her fantasy of relocating to Hawaii, doing no work and being waited on by pretty boys? Very relatable.
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11299 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Episode 03: The Worth of a Maid's Fist and Pancreas!
Summary: A seller named Kijima is in town to sell a rare anime figurine to Taira, the owner of the Akiba Fluffy & Sweet Club, which also moonlights as an underground fight club. To help clear some of Oinky Doink’s debt, Ranko agrees to become a contestant, then throw the match in the third round. But after winning in one punch, Taira kills Kijima out of anger, and Manager swears Ranko will advance to the final round and throw that match, instead. In the finals, Ranko encounters a Russian maid, while Kijima’s men seek vengeance. ---------------------------------- Comments: A little bit of the same outlandishness, albeit less chaotic feeling. By this point, the craziness isn't quite as shocking, but I, personally, still find it silly enough that the entertainment value remains consistent. The fact that it dips a little into otaku culture is pretty funny. And I find it ironic that the female mob boss is a collector of such things. I used to be into figurines, years ago (particularly Gundam model kits). But after running out of space and realizing how hard it was to maintain and display everything, I called it quits for that aspect of my fandom. I still collect physical media in the form of Blu-ray/4K sets and SteelBooks, but am so out of space since, about, 2 years ago, that I currently have piles of live-action movies on my game room floor that won't fit on the media shelves. I understand the desire to own and collect things. If there's something out there you really like or that means a lot to you, and you wanna' spend your money on it, do what makes you happy (unless it's super illegal or hurtful to other people; that's bad!). The Russian lady should be an interesting addition to Oinky Doink's roster. I always find the exaggerated stereotypes of Russian culture to be amusing because they're always painted as really "harsh" people. I think it'll add some quirky culture-clash between the rest of the maids, and maybe she can serve as the other half (along with Ranko) as a tougher-upper for Nagomi. ---------------------------------- Caps:  
 
 
 
 
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ACｘS
Posts: 882 |
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4:
I know that this is a Shiipon episode; it was also like that in the previous episode for Zoya in the previous episode, and Yumechi before that. But do you wanna know who the star of the episode is? The Manager. 1) Lost it when she hid the coffee cup in her pants. 2) Lost it again when Shiipon saw the Manager and Panda scouring for food in the trash can. This episode is awesome. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4083 |
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4:
Lost it when the Manager handed a bamboo branch she was carrying with her to a hungry Panda but hesitated, saying "Oh right, you're human." I now have fewer questions about Panda and more about the Manager. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11299 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Episode 04: The Inside Story! A Drillmaster for the Swine!!
Summary: Creatureland sends a trainer named Sano to help shape up the maids at Oinky Doink. When Sano arrives, she kicks Manager and Okachimachi (Panda) out onto the streets, claiming they’re a bad influence. ---------------------------------- Comments: Not really sure why, but this episode gave me Full Metal Jacket (1987) vibes. I guess it was the whole Sano being a hard-ass drill sergeant gig. I’ve never been into maid café culture enough to really understand the subtleties that go into performing the job. Just based on what I’ve seen from other media, I’m gonna’ guess it’s mostly about having overly perky demeanors, being skilled enough to create cute designs with foods and drinks, and to readily accommodate or pamper their clientele. It basically sounds like an over-the-top cutesy combination of a waitress and servant, but dressed up and themed after something? I can see how this would really pander to otaku. But with this show being what it is and totally going against the grain, I haven’t seen any of that, and I’m liking it. It’s kinda’ weird that Nagomi still has this sense of innocence, when there’s clearly nothing innocent about this crazy maid café underworld she’s living in. But I like that she’s maintaining the desire to still be a great maid, regardless, as it helps balance out all the chaos and violence. Although, frankly, I’m okay with the mindlessness, too, because it’s not anything I expected out of a maid-themed show. I’m also wondering just how much of a poor-decision-maker Manager really is since she's literally left homeless after getting thrown out. Also, now that we know Okachimachi is (most likely) just a human in a panda costume and was also living homeless with Manager, what’s the story behind that? I guess they could be saving the reveal for a later episode when they run out of crazier things to show. ---------------------------------- Caps:  
 
 
 
 
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