Anime: Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Incredibly fun, fairly romantic at times, but oh so shallow - especially the rushed ending.

Kaichou wa Maid-sama is a fun show, it really is. There are plenty of fun characters, the events happening in the show are also pretty fun to watch and generally the show doesn't fail anywhere. Anywhere except for the lack of depth and the lousy ending.

Animation: Cutting corners.

The show doesn't feel like it uses bad animation, but while the characters generally look okay (note, okay is not similar to ‘good’), there are many, many times that the characters degenerate into comic relief chibi's. Although I have nothing against that, it can also take away the focus from the good parts. In this case, it takes the focus away from most of the other animation. Which isn't too bad, considering there are on a regular base no backgrounds or simply very basic. And that is too bad, especially if you see how detailed they can be in some particular scenes. Still, the lack of good backgrounds sometimes makes you wonder whether they put some effort in at all.

Sound: Good voice acting, good music.

I don't think I have much to comment on the sound-section. The music was good, suitable and properly used in most scenes, although I do find it hard to believe that the music from the band which appears later in the show is actually popular, considering the voice quality of the singer. He simply didn't sound good enough in order to get anyone listen to him, let alone a whole crowd.

The voice acting seemed fine to me as well. I didn't find any wrongfully casted voice actors (aside from the band singer) and none of them seemed to be having trouble with their roles either, so it is nice that the voice actors were fully capable of making the show a succes. I'm really surprised at how even the side characters were able to fully play out their roles with the voice actors, making me wonder how much time has been spent on finding all the right voices for the numerous characters in this series.

Story: Bam! The evil one got shot. The End.

Considering the genre, there usually is not too much story. Kaichou wa Maid-sama confirms to that part in a certain way; when looking at the core plot, it is clear that Misaki is the center of the series. But where one would think that Usui is the other protagonist, the series seems to think otherwise. He gets used in pretty much every situation, but it seemed like they didn't really know what to do with him. So instead of focusing on the two main characters and going more into detail, they kept the story happily jumping around all kind of side characters in order to exploit the comedy until they got tired – then they turned off the lights and went to bed, leaving you wondering where the main characters are.

“Whoa, so harsh!”, I hear you think. Well, actually, that's how the show came across to me. There was nothing to comment on during the show, right until they reached the final few episodes. By the time they reached episode 25, it suddenly felt rushed. And with an episode title like ‘Hinata, Misaki and Usui’, one would think that there is some kind of build up to … well, to something. Or something like a conclusion. The opposite is true, as the series bubbles around a little more, with little more than the regular episodes we've already seen.

The final episode also brings pretty much nothing new to the show, but then again, the episode title ‘You're really sly, Ayuzawa / Usui, you idiot!’ kind of tells you that already. My first reaction upon seeing that title made me wonder if they really realized that they reached the final episode, or that they simply wanted to close the curtains until a second season would appear. Awkwardly, the show does seem to get some sort of conclusion, although the matter in how it gets there could actually be slapped on any of the other episodes as well, as the episode itself isn't much different than the rest. It just has a some sort of conclusion at the end, giving me the feeling they eventually rushed an ending into the series rather than getting to an ending. If you consider the show is based on a manga, it kind of feels like they animated the first 5 volumes followed by the last chapter in volume 20 (regardless if the manga actually ends there). It simply doesn't feel like it is part of the series and they left out all the character development necessary to get to that conclusion.

This is also confirmed by the ‘epilogue’ they felt like doing at the end of the show, solely consisting of all the characters having to say a particular line in a space of, what, 5 seconds? If anything, this is an obvious confirmation of a show which suddenly needed to end. Like kids who are playing until they get tired and decided to call it quits; after a whole length series suddenly it ends with a ‘Bam! The evil one got shot. The End.’ and you're wondering why you've been watching it at all, if it has such an uninspired climax.

The only thing the show was actually good at was in introducing side characters. Every single side character manages to get plenty of screentime and many of them even got episode-stories in order to give them more depth. It helped the series run and they were truly fun to watch as well, but it hardly helped in getting the main dish done.

Characters: Plenty of good side characters. Too bad about the main characters.

A lot of characters are good characters and they are often contributing towards the comedy aspects of the show. As said before, many of them even get their own episode in order to tell a particular story about themselves, resulting in them becoming more round. That's good. What isn't so good is that every single side character and their dog gets one, except for Usui. They simply didn't have a clue what to do with him, so despite him being everywhere we hardly know more about him than his name and that he likes Misaki.

Misaki gets developed pretty decently, every episode added somewhat towards her character and that felt promising.

I can imagine how they slowly build up towards character development, as usual in these kind of shows, but this one doesn't. So the only one effectively gaining character development is Misaki and the rest of the cast either gets his/her episode or not. And Usui simply gets nothing, as he stays the mysterious stalker who appears everywhere and anywhere.

So, is it worth watching?

The show is definitely worth watching if you're a fan of romantic comedies – or perhaps I should say, comedies with a romance core. There are plenty of characters to like, the core romance is at times romantic and at times really funny, so generally there shouldn't be anything wrong with the show.

That is, until the end, where it suddenly feels they skipped 10 volumes in order to get to the ending, effectively leaving out all the character development necessary to make the ending match the series. The feeling I got at the end of the show was one of emptiness and disappointment and that is such a shame for a series which had me glued to the screen for 24 episodes.

- Pfew, my first review (and finished anime) in what, half a year to a year? It's not as good as I liked it to be, but it should still be good enough to leave an impression :)

Overview
Student council, maid cafe and episodic resolutions is what comes to mind for Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Kaichou wa Maid-sama is a pretty typical high school romantic comedy, aside from the premise that it is set in. Basically, the main female lead Ayuzawa Misaki is a hardworking student president and model student at school. However she has a secret that she works at a maid cafe. She then proceeds to meet the most popular male student in the school Usui Takumi, who finds out her secret and also falls in love with her. The story revolves around Usui helping/teasing Misaki while the relationship between continues to blossom.

The anime is quite a quick and easy watch, but in terms of depth you won't find much of it. The resolutions are quite typical and happen within one or two episodes and really you will never be surprised by any of the events. Therefore, it is recommended to fans of those who enjoy standard romantic comedies. If you are looking for creativity, I think you should search elsewhere.

The numbers...

Animation
In general the animation required for these types of animes are quite minimal, and in this case it was fine.

Character sets
For the most part the characters stayed consistent. In some moments you had some distortion in a few angles but not too bad. I think, what I liked most about the sets were dressed in many different types of clothing which definitely added to the anime. It really made the whole maid cafe part of it work much better.

Backgrounds
They were bland and unimportant. I rarely found myself looking at the background and finding anything important in it. Most of the focus was on the characters.

Motion
The characters didn't move much, aside from sometimes falling on each other or running after one another. So this part played a small role as well.

Sound
I wasn't a big fan of any part of the sounds. The opening and endings fit the series, but didn't really appeal much to me. The OST mainly stayed that way and added very little as well.

VA
For the voice actors Misaki was done by Fujimura Ayumi who has mainly secondary cast roles. She did a pretty good job as an innocent tsundere. Usui was done by Okamoto nobuhiko who has had a wide variety of roles from innocent characters to darker and annoying characters: I.e. Kanzato in Persona and Accelerator in Index. This time he did an ok job, I feel that Usui could of had more variety and feel instead of being mostly seductive and needy.

Story
This is the part that lacked the most. They didn't really have much of a story at all. They started and then they ended, no real change in plot only changes in characters. Usually the episodes would either be dealing with a specific character, or a specific situation be it a school event or maid cafe event. Having many side characters also made the story even less important, thus I can't really give it a good score. I think if they do another season, which is quite likely they won't have much of a story either.

Character Development

Mains
A big BIG focus of the anime was the development of the main characters Usui and Misaki. Although Usui does get some work in, you really never find out much about his background or story. You know he has some issues, but they are yet to be resolved. Misaki on the other hand is constantly changing throughout the series. They really put a big focus on her life and lessons she learns from each new situation she is in. Thus, I think if we only cared about her the character development would of be amazing. Unfortunately, that doesn't fly.... Unless they make another season they really failed in making much of Usui as a character.

Minor
Surprisingly, they find lots of time to talk about the side characters. They even have entire episodes that are used to deal with them. I mean some of the stories are ok since the characters appear many times. But, then they have some that are much more forced and added in. I think that the real problem is all this time they spent working on the side characters they really forgot that Usui the other main character never got his time of day.

Value and Enjoyment
The anime teaches the same values and other anime of the same genre would. It doesn't have any special messages or life changing events. I would also never watch the series again, because it really has nothing to revisit. In terms of enjoyment the series was meh. I got through it without too much complaint. Granted I cringed a few times watching some of the cheesiness, but hey I think I'm probably too old to watch these series anyway hahahaha.

So if you give it a go well hope you like it.