In this world, maids go about their everyday lives dressed in long black dresses, frilly aprons—and skate shoes?! Whether they're running errands or hitting the half-pipe, these maids shred the town. Like witches have their brooms, these ladies have their boards.

Maid to Skate has story and art by Suzushiro. English translation is done by David Evelyn with lettering and touch-up by Madeleine Jose. Published by Viz Media (December 16, 2025). Rated T.

Caitlin Moore
Rating:

This review is dedicated to the memory of my friend and colleague, Nick Dupree, who often retweeted Suzushiro's art of maids on skateboards back when they were just illustrations he posted on Twitter. Miss you, buddy.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of nice things to say about Maid to Skate. The illustrations were delightful because of the incongruity of our image of maids – tidy, prim, and feminine – and our much crustier, punkish association with skateboards. The illustrations were beautifully drawn, with care and love put into the details of the maids' skirts fluttering as they pulled off a sick kickflip or grinding a rail. Oh, and I apologize if I get any skateboarding terminology wrong. Everything I know about the culture, I learned from Rocket Power and Sk8 the Infinity.

It didn't take long for me to realize that while Suzushiro is a skilled illustrator, he leaves a lot to be desired as a storyteller. I don't think I've ever read anything set in a world this obviously retrofitted to justify that which was never meant to be justified. The maids clean their enormous house, which also has a skating ramp, and run errands on their skateboards. They don't seem to actually work for anyone else. They cook and clean and run errands because they are maids, and that's what maids do. The protagonist, Benihana, is cut from the same cloth as Akari from Aria and countless other moe manga from the 00's: airheaded, sincere, and kind to a fault. If she were novel, I may have found her charming, but sadly, that archetype wore thin for me about twenty years ago.

But every so often, Maid to Skate dawdles in a moment; when that happens, it returns to its roots as a loose series of illustrations. Am I enthralled by Benihana chasing a cat through vaguely European streets on a skateboard? Not in the least! But I can still appreciate the absurdity of the drawing of her flying over a crowd after going off a ramp with a baby carriage. There's so much detail in the ruffles of a maid's skirt as she does a (*quickly types “skateboarding ramp trick upside down” into search bar*) handplant that for a moment, I forget the insipid plot and appreciate the simple, pure beauty of a guy taking his two interests and mashing them together.

It's hard to imagine anyone getting excited about this manga. Its characters are thin and bland, and its story couldn't scream, “I don't actually have any ideas” louder if it tried. Maid to Skate would have been better as an artbook.

Kevin Cormack
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Victorian era-style maids, sneakers, and skateboards don't tend to be associated with one another in my mind, but author Suzushiro appears to be obsessed with each of these things, synthesizing them all together into a deeply odd but whimsically fun whole. I've never been a skateboarder personally (I was always more into rollerblades and ice skates), but I can very much empathize with plucky young maid Benihana and her thrill-seeking skateboard antics. She lives in a large manor along with multiple other maids (we learn nothing of their employer; maybe they all live together like nuns in a convent, except maids?), and once her work is done for the day, she likes nothing better than to race through the streets on her trusty board.

Multiple of her coworkers also live to shred, and they all have their own styles and tricks. Benihana's board-related adventures land her in trouble almost as often as she receives praise from those who witness her virtuoso skills, launching off ramps, railings, and rooftops in pursuit of her goals. Artist Suzushiro's dynamic character art is remarkable. I wonder what reference material they used? (I'd like to believe they dressed up a bunch of real skateboarders in maid costumes and filmed them doing tricks.)

It's a very episodic, light-hearted manga that slips in lots of educational material about how to choose the right board and what to do with it. It doesn't quite inspire me to take up skateboarding, as I know that I'm likely to fracture something, but it does succeed in making the life of a skateboarding maid look like a lot of fun. There isn't a whole lot else to say about Maid to Skate, I probably won't seek out any more of it to read, but I'm glad something like this exists. There truly is a manga for everyone, and that makes me happy.

Bolts
Rating:

Sometimes a series doesn't really have a story. Sometimes, it is a glimpse into the lives of characters that a writer really wanted to write about. Other times, a writer or artist has an idea and decides to make their entire series about that. These are the ways I can best describe Maid to Skate because I felt like I was reading a book written by somebody who just really REALLY wanted to draw maids skateboarding, and you know what, good for them!

There isn't really a story here. Maid to Skate is just a series of glimpses into the days of a group of maids who perform their maidly duties, which sometimes involve riding skateboards. This might be a world where that is a common practice because nobody is surprised by it, and everybody talks about it as if it is an almost required curriculum or training. There is a little bit of a comedic angle concerning how everyone treats skateboarding in this book, but this is not a story that is meant to be taken seriously; this is just an excuse to show off a genuine love of skateboarding, which you can feel on almost every page.

There is gorgeous artwork, and to the best of my knowledge, I don't think I've ever seen skateboarding portrayed that often in the manga medium. That's a shame because this book has definitely made it clear that there is a lot of potential for showing off dynamic poses and creating a lot of flowing movements. There are sometimes just half a dozen pagesportraying a character silently skateboarding on a half pike or across the town. It's really impressive stuff. Even if the author doesn't skateboard themselves, it's very clear that they put a lot of research and care into understanding it. If you're a fan of skateboarding at all or at least curious about it, then this might be worth checking out. You might find it more enjoyable than you originally thought.