Hand Maid May

Director
Shinichiro Kimura
Production
TNK, Pioneer, Wonder Farm, WOWOW
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
10+1 Episodes/25 min each
Year
2000

Hand Maid May

By Bryan Hoang
25th Aug 04

Love Hina, the anime that gives us laughter and romance. Though I must admit, the anime community has gone over board with this theme. Seriously, how many of these shows can you watch before hating it? I guess this theme would never die out, oh well a fad that becomes a trend. Another spectacular anime that has this traditional theme I present to you is Hand Maid May.

So as the anime goes, let's start with the main character Kazuya Satome. Kazuya lives in an apartment by himself studying and working on making artificial intelligence. He sits mainly at home working and getting surprise visits from the manager of the apartment building, Kasumi Tani. Surprisingly, Kasumi's house is right across from Kazuya's home. Both their houses are connected by a ladder that stretches from across one window to another. So you can be sure to see a lot of up skirt from Kasumi since she usually walks across it to visit Kazuya. So the main story begins when Kazuya meets with his arch rival Kotaro Nambara. Kotaro gives Kazuya a CD which contains a virus that purposively ruins Kazuya's artificial intelligence research. When Kazuya installed the CD, a pop up comes on and Kazuya had to type on the keyboard like a mad man trying to stop the virus, and after all that work, his door bell rings. Kazuya opens to the door to see a mail person giving him a small box. Kazuya opens the box to find a miniature doll that's 4 inches tall and is dressed as a maid. Unexpected, this doll comes to life for the purpose to help aid Kazuya in his work and house cleaning. This is how the story begins, and as it ventures on you can probably expect great comedy and romance where just about every girl that visits Kazuya wants him (even the doll named May).

Hand Maid May is also packed with a special that’s also supposed to be episode 11 out of 10. Yes, I don't understand why the Japanese chose to make an improper fraction, but knowing that 99.9 % of the citizens in Japan can read, they're no dummies and made it on purpose. This special, like most specials, have probably no point in the series, its just one of those great episodes that can insure some laughter, but has no significance what-so-ever. I guess after you finish Hand Maid May, I advise you to watch the special since it's good fun, laughter and there is some hints of foreshadowing or depth to it.

I think Hand Maid May is typically similar to most comedy/romance anime to be just another waste of time. Though I watch a lot of these after a good storyline based series since it usually refreshes my mind before I start another storyline based series. I think that even though Hand Maid May is mainly comedy and barely any storyline or character development, it's still fun to watch, even though it can get very repetitive. So to most of these anime that are usually only comedy based I can't say its good, I think the most I would give it is below average, just cause I'm not much of a fan of only comedy anime. The romance isn't that bad, but it doesn't really explore it much in detail and the ending wasn't that great either. So if you are a type that enjoys Love Hina, I suggest you try watching Hand Maid May since they're both almost identical by theme based.

So to all viewers out there, try Hand Maid May but try not to expect much from it. If you are looking for more romance I would rather watch Kanon, but if you are looking for comedy then Hand Maid May or Love Hina is your best choice.

-- Bryan Hoang 25th Aug 04

Hand Maid May Images