I admit that I have built up a lot of anticipation within my own crazy brain about Kaichou wa Maid-sama, which by the way, is never a good idea to enjoy anything. Being a shoujo-loving fan, Kaichou wa Maid-sama’s manga had all the ingredients for success. You have a headstrong lady, a cool as cucumber guy with great sarcastic tones and a whole cast of deliciously interesting characters with an almost irresistible need to kyaa your living lights away when the eventual romance between the two main characters blossomed.
So, as with all manga adaptations, how does the transition from manga to anime fare? Will it fulfill the promise of manga lovers swarming to adore the latest shoujo hit, or will it fall flat on its book cover?
Short summary
Misaki Ayuzawa is the authoritative president of the student council in Seika High School, an all-boys school that recently went co-ed. Misaki takes it into her own hands to reform the school and allow the girls to feel safe in the “rough environment”. Problematic boys include the idiot trio who refused to conform to her strict rules or lazy boys who try to avoid roster duty. Nonetheless, every shoujo female lead has a person she cannot handle in school: Takumi Usui, a very popular boy with the girls who has no interest with anyone and anything. His stoic and nonchalant behavior annoys her greatly but she just cannot find a legal fault against this supposed playboy.
Back at home, it is clear that her family is stuck at the poverty line due to her father’s debts and subsequently his disappearance. In order to supplement the income, she works as a maid in a maid cafe. This was a secret to everyone in the school, only for Usui to find her working there one day. Surprisingly, he did not reveal her secret to anyone, but started to visit the maid cafe much to her chagrin. The cafe manager and Misaki’s co-workers started to gossip that he might be in love with Misaki. However, Misaki dismissed the comments, stating that Usui was simply trying to annoy her.
One day, Misaki fell sick after over-working herself. When Usui voiced out his concern in the student council room, she shouted at him to mind his own business. Just as she exerted her strength to scold him, she almost fainted only for Usui to cushion her fall. Instead of appreciating Usui, she swatted him away and told him to get lost. She continued to feel physically weak at work and the idiotic trio discovered her secret and tried to threaten her. Obviously, Usui came to the rescue and Misaki apologized for her rudeness. In addition, it seemed that the idiot trio did not reveal her secret the next day too. At the rooftop in school, Misaki thanked Usui for her help and swore to become stronger so that she will protect Usui instead.
Thoughts
I was really turned off by the animation at the start. I found really sloppy animation at times, with deformed faces and a rather unattractive Usui and Misaki. I would really love for someone to tell me if I have been tainted by the manga disease, namely an almost impossible expectation of how the anime should turn out. Moreover, I really forgot how Misaki was actually pretty annoying at the start because she was simply acting like a domineering pain in the rear. To add on for Misaki, every single action Misaki did in the first five minutes made me recoil in anger.
In addition, I didn’t like the seiyuu that voiced Misaki (Ayumi Fujimura) as I felt that her attempt to tackle and capture the emotions of both the sensitive and fiery side of Misaki was lacking. I am quite sure I will get used to it right now, but it might take some time. Tell me what you think about the seiyuu’s effort for Misaki. Then, the appearance of Usui, who looked badly animated or translate that to not cool and cute looking enough, just made me even more depressed. I mean, the stoic Usui is the perfect foil for the expressive Misaki, but only because he is just too cool cucumber. This one is just a typical brat-looking shounen. Something is terribly wrong.
Nonetheless, despite my petty complaints about the first episode, the essence of the character dynamics is clearly present. Once
Usui and Misaki started to interact like long-lost bickering lovers, I found myself laughing in love and happiness over the sensitive Misaki fretting over every single action of Usui. In the end, the kyaa kyaa moment just sealed the series for me. I live for sweet cute moments like this in anime series, and the importance of shoujo series is to make you squeal in silly giggles at the right moments. This was done beautifully.
Another plus side could be the seiyuu of Usui. I do admit that Nobuhiko Okamoto did a pretty competent job at voicing Usui, and it is probably because of his good interpretation of Usui’s personality in his voice. The OP was mostly forgettable, and I cannot even comment about it because I forget how it sounds like. Give me a moment as I re-watched the OP… Hmm, really nothing special. The ED, on the other hand, will satisfy the fangirls of this series while I bore myself to death because I am clearly not the target group for the ED.
All in all, if you like a bit of gag comedy and a good dosage of shoujo romance in your anime, Kaichou wa Maid-sama is one to catch. Don’t make some of my negativity turn you off, because this is one good gem, as long as the animation issues don’t degrade further.
29 Comments
i watched Kaicho wa MaidSama with nostalgia. lead character of boy is the silent type and makes fun of lead character of girl, but is sometimes very gentle. he is just prince type. this is the royal road of shoujo-manga. but i like it.
i was surprised that they are in good mood from chapter1. i think that who likes this anime take to “Kodomo no Omocha”.
Why are the Uniforms Green…. It looks funny…
For visitors out there, I’m going to blog about Kaichou wa Maid-Sama when I’m done with my post, along with Hakuoki. I’ll be talking about my own opinions when I’m done watching these two.
I love it actually. I was first disappointed that the Drama CD VA’s of Usui & Misaki of Maid sama! won’t reprise their roles in the anime but the new VA’s won me over.
i hated the way Usui looked but i loved how the character were keeped w/ the same attitude as in the manga. I also loved the last second of the ending song w/ the cut picture of Usui and Misaki kissing and the fireworks.
I’m with ReMiNz. Why are they green? I don’t mind dark green, but bright lime green? Eh…
Anyway, having read the manga (and liked it) and having been mentally prepared that the anime adaptation would not be able to rival its manga counterpart, I was still disappointed. The weird thing is that it was so faithful to the manga so I’m still not really sure exactly what I didn’t like about it. Hmm…
I’ve checked the color of the uniform in the manga when I was visiting a comic books store just now (Specially; the cover of volume 2). It’s orange, but for whatever reason, they changed it to green in the anime. Reminds me of Rosario+Vampire, unfortunately green isn’t my favorite color even though I wore green uniforms in secondary school.
I want my Drama CD seiyuu back~ Not too glad about the cast, but Sakura (The ponytail girl with Misaki in school) reminds me of Kuruko in Railgun.
The animation’s decent, but the background seems to be lazy. If you look at it clearly, I swear they used color pencils most of the time. I have a reason why I dropped the manga a few months ago, but you have to read my 1st episode previews to find out why.
I am going in utterly ignorant of the manga, rather enjoyable only she needs to rule by PRESIDENTIAL DECREE.
I would have thought that a Tier-2 tsundere specialist like Fujimura (Tier-1 is Kugyuu and Yukino Satsuki) would have nailed it… does she use her Kokuto Azaka/ Oribe Mafuyu voice in this show too???
While entertained, this was absolutely terribad animation. I know JC Staff can do better than this, and hopefully it will be corrected.
Yes, when did JC staff fall so far from grace….I remember they are much better than that @_@
I personally think both Misa and Usui’s VA are a bit werid. Misa for screwing up the sober moments and Usui for not sounding arrogant enough even compared to say… Ishida from Bleach (well he’s not really ‘arrogant’ yet so…)
your few paragraph in thoughts pretty much cover what I thought of the episode (especially the ‘manga’ sdydrome.)
well, all seems well for now. will continue
I loved the manga version of kaichou wa maid-sama and so my expectations for the anime were really high. Although it was pretty good, I’d have to say that, just like some people, I was also a bit disappointed with the voice actors. Usui’s voice should have been also a bit more “naughty” (like the voice that’s kinda serious but also has some hint of ‘I want to tease you’). Misaki’s voice needs more emotion, epecially when she turns to DEMON MODE–it has to be scarier and more authoritive and firm (her voice was a bit too cute for Misaki’s character). Her demon mode should be like when Sakura (from Naruto) gets mad–”SAKURA’S DEMON MODE” or something like that.
About the appearance–I think Usui’s hair is shorter than in the manga and Misaki’s hair is longer. Sakura looks kinda different too(haha she’s like a kid–so cute). Also, I hope that Usui would be not be (continually) portrayed as someone who is “too uninterested in anything.” Sure he seems uninterested when it comes to joining activities and girls but they should at least portray him as someone who has a sarcastic, naughty side–like for example, his smirk and stuff(like in the manga haha). I also think the characters need to “exaggerate” more in their actions–again, like when Misaki gets mad or her ‘supposed-to-be’ reaction when her secret was found out (PANIC) or when the guys run away from her because they’re afraid and stuff.
Lastly, I think it needs more background music/ effects since I’ve noticed that Misaki was “talking to herself” most of the time, so they should have at least placed background music when she was walking around and thinking to herself or when Usui was sitting there ‘bored’ or when she gets mad (like thunder or weird creepy laughs…. I mean, c’mon she’s Kaichou-from-hell and there was “fire” all around her and yet there are no sound effects to make her even ‘SCARIER’).
***Sorry for the criticisms and maybe there are some words spelt incorrectly or perhaps some sentences with wrong grammar haha.
I still love kaichou wa maid-sama though and I’ll still continue watching the rest of the series. It is quite understandable if the first few episodes don’t really turn out perfect since it’s still the first
Exactly my point!
I think that the essential ingredients for the series is already there. The characters are decent, the story will be quite good too but there seems to be a lack of oomph. It’s like there needs to be a special thing that should be included within the animation to improve the transition between manga to anime. It is not apparent here, but by no fault of the animation company or storyboard.
I also agree that the audio-visual effects to exaggerate things might be more suiting in such a series, rather than being a subtle touch. I mean, the kaichou-from-hell is already ridiculous to start with, so why bother with just a few effects. Just let it loose and go crazy!
a bit reminiscent special a, skip beat
this is hilarious though, I’ll keep watching
…A pretty big disappointment, to be honest. I wasn’t terribly looking forward to this adaptation of the manga since I dropped it a while go when the later chapters just blew the series for me, but I picked up episode 1 just for the sake of it.
My comments? Both the opening animation and song were really a pain to sit through and watch/listen. It felt..dead, somehow. MIsaki’s character design was a little off, and her voice didn’t suit her *at all*. Her personality interpretation was alright, but there wasn’t enough “Oni-Misaki” shown. Usui’s was fine, in most aspects. Pacing was..fine, I think? Some funny moments here and there, and this episode summed up the introductory part of the series. Although, the impact that I got from the manga after finding out that Misaki’s actually working as a maid was lost in the anime, which is bad. Ah well. I’ll stick with this for a few more episodes I guess.
I wasn’t really looking forward to the anime, but it’s really good. The seiyuu’s sound good, and the animation is very appealing, in my opinion, because it looks very unique, but maybe I don’t know any better because this is the first shoujo anime I’ve ever watched. But the small Japanese words that pop up on screen that I assume are sound effects give the animation charm, as well as the nice music. I just thought that their relationship was a little sped up, since she states that whole “always running backwards and laughing” thing right in the first episode.
Well, even for a shoujo series, it can be better. I also admit that part of my rather harsh treatment was the animation company’s attempt to improve the character design, which turned out much worse. I am more liberal when it comes to the actual presentation. They could create their own stories if they want to, but the character design should be more appealing if not equally appealing to a manga series. It’s not apparent here.
Well, in any case, Kaichou wa Maid-sama is always a good place to start for shoujo anime, so you are at the right track ^^
i actually really enjoyed this show. it reminded me a lot of special a, which i thought was great. i found the art appealing and the story premise good. i’ll definitely follow it up.
Oh, that’s the thing. I initially HATED special A, only slowly growing on it (part of the big reason for me hating special A was due to the voice actress too). Perhaps this is another similar show in which I will grow to like.
Since I never read the manga, I’m not comparing the anime to it. I did watch another certain incredibly pathetic series first episode just before, so that probably warped my opinions in favor of this instead.
I thought the animation was generally fine, the voices were good enough and it seriously did make me giggle. I have no idea if they were in the right places though. The OP was too hard to listen to, so I skip it. I should’ve made the effort just once, but maybe next week. I liked the ED though.
Let me guess, Ryan, you watched B something H Kei. I actually wanted to review the show, only to stop myself from reviewing it because it will leave a terrible bad aftertaste. Sometimes, the sheer silliness in plots and cheap attempts at fanservice just falls absolutely flat.
Ya, I think the ED was pretty decent, but no Misaki… Ya.
OP & ED are ok, though the ED song is much better.
Art is ok, too. Story reminds me of Special A very much.
Seems like a decent pick for this episode. It doesn’t seem to be a 2nd KnT unfortunately, but it looks good so far.
I read the manga and well, since Skip Beat and Tora Dora already are in this area with the lead character .. they should have enough study material to do it better! Oh man.
I watched the episodes and well, they somehow gave too much information too early (tension curve? come on ..) etc etc. But I like Usui.
And then there was the first 4 pictures of the ED and I thought, I just jumped to a different anime. I actually expected some vampire fangs in Usuis mouth ^^.
Probably .. they made these first 4 pictures first, then realised, they spend a bit too much money.. and finished the ED with some money from the episode`s budget.
Then they realised, they used too much of it in the ED and had to cut the materials etc for the storyline .. and they looked around for some old color stacks in the back yard: purple, orange and this fabulous green, which is the best choice for uniforms!
.. could this be the reason, why there aren`t that many girls at this school?
At least, I know, when I will laugh: when the ED starts.
i read the first few chapters of the manga. turned me off by chapter 8. i think i’m going to steer clear of this one.
and on an added note, this smells like a re-marketed special a, which downright sucked to me. another good reason to avoid.
Interesting, I had been thinking of following this simply because Animax is showing it (and it’s replacing my beloved, now finished Inu Yasha)
I liked it honestly.
I just finished reading Volume 4 yesterday, so I was all ready to get my fangirl on.
And because I’m lazy, I’m just gonna list stuff down:
<3
It pretty much followed Chapter 1 faithfully, so no one gets totally confused and it's done well, so all's good there.
I like how the maid outfits are drawn here more than the manga. (The first 2 volumes had the outfits drawn waaay too stiff and awkward looking for me).
The voices are really cute and work for me (since I never heard the drama CD).
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The uniform colors are making my eyes fall out. I mean really? Green and yellow? Blech.
And I totally agree that Usui looks weird here. He looks more like…a typical shonen character rather than our aloof-but-loving hero.
OP and ED are really…boring. The Usui ED is pretty cute, but the songs are just…ick.
Personal preference and all, but I figured Usui would have a much better voice. I'm not complaining, but he seems more "I-don't-care" rather than "It's-a-hassle-but-I-LOVE-teasing-you".
All in all, I really liked the episode and I hope that it keeps up the good work.
Wow, these comments are really harsh, but I have to agree with a lot of them.
What’s up with dissing Special A? And really, the uniforms kind of made me want to gouge my eyes out, but all in all, the episode really wasn’t all that bad. The animation was okay but not perfect, and personally i found most of the voices not that bad. I agree, i was disappointed, but seriously, its only the first episode! Remember that there’s room for improvement, people!
I’m sticking with the show all the way to the end.
Though i love the manga the anime is a bit disappointing… The way the manga was drawn has so much emotion and strength to it but, the anime does not. The amine seems a bit rushed and is not following the manga (event wise, etc.) which is turning me away from the anime. The aura and emotions one gets from each of the characters in the manga is not in sync with the anime at all and there is a feeling that a lot is missing when one watches the anime. What I am saying is that the manga and anime are different and the anime is not releasing the same feeling and does not have the same spark the manga has. Though it is nice that the manga was transfered to a tv screen unfortunately, did not come to life and it is a little heartbreaking and hard to watch.