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Wednesday 9 January 2019

Maid-sama! Volume 1 by Hiro Fujiwara Review


Authoritarian high school student council president Misaki Ayuzawa may lord it over the students at her male-dominated high school but she has a secret after-school job: cosplaying as a maid at a bar! Takumi Usui stumbles across her secret shame - will he reveal it to the school, undermining her position, and what will Misaki do to keep him from spilling? 

It sounds salacious, even sleazy - it’s not. It’s perfectly safe for kids even, though that only makes it less interesting. The stakes seem a bit of a joke; like I don’t think anyone finding out her part-time job will affect her high school presidency at all - in fact, a number of students find out and nothing happens! 

And (Seinfeld voice) what’s the big deal with being high school council president anyway?? It seems like she’s just taking on more work when she’s already got her plate full and it doesn’t even pay! Then again it probably looks good on college applications. And maybe it’s an outlet for her to get her own back on men/boys after pretending to be subservient in her maid job…? 

It turns out to not be the most compelling premise, compounded further by the fact that nothing much happens with it anyway so it’s actually quite a boring read. The little comments scribbled outside of the word balloons got annoying fast and felt too busy and unnecessarily hyper. The art is typical manga - nowt special. 

I liked the little bit of development at the end between the obvious soon-to-be relationship between Misaki and Takumi, and I would’ve liked more on that in the book instead of the… nothing else we got instead! … but I can’t keep reading this series if the pace is gonna be this glacial. Maid-sama! sounded like a cute concept that might’ve been a fun rom-com but Hiro Fujiwara’s treatment unfortunately turns it into something flat and dull instead.

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