Akiba Maid War – Don’t mess with these maids.

Akiba Maid War isn’t what it sounds like.

I really want to visit Japan one day.

Aside from being able to get anime collectables on the cheap by going right to the source, the country’s history and culture have always interested me. And of course, there’s the food too. Visiting an authentic Japanese ramen stall will be the first thing I do after disembarking the plane.

The only thing stopping me is the fact that I can’t speak Japanese or read kanji and kana. I know most Japanese people can speak and understand basic English, and many places have bilingual signage, but I don’t want to be one of those filthy gaijin who don’t at least attempt to learn the language of the country they’re visiting.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff in Japan, but one of the more, um, unique attractions in Japan are maid cafes. Explaining maid cafes in their entirety would warrant its own article, so just go read the Wikipedia article if you’re interested. Essentially, maid cafes are restaurants where the waitresses cosplay as maids. The primary clientele of maid cafes are otaku. It’s important to note that being an otaku carries more of a stigma in Japan than it does in western countries. Us roundeyes have no problem calling ourselves otakus, but in Japan, calling someone an otaku is like calling them a neckbeard. These are the guys who form relationships with anime characters and unironically have waifus. Maid cafes cater to Japan’s nerds, geeks, and other assorted dorks.

Akiba Maid War is an anime about maid cafes. I discovered this series while looking for more anime about the Yakuza.

Yes, you read that right.

When I was searching for more Yakuza anime, I kept seeing people suggest Akiba Maid War. I mean, a lot of people. I was skeptical, because maid cafes don’t exactly conjure images of organized crime. Who would think to mix moe and murder? How would you mix moe and murder?

Boy was I wrong.

As soon as the opening hit, I said to myself, “This is either gonna be really weird or really good”. Surprisingly, it turned out to be really good, and only marginally weird.

The premise of the series is pretty simple. A young girl named Nagomi has dreams of working in a maid cafe. She gets herself a job at a struggling pig-themed maid cafe named Oinky Doink. Joining her as a new maid is a 35-year-old named Ranko, a seemingly stern and cold woman with a prison record and a checkered past.

On their very first day, Nagomi and Ranko are sent to deliver a message to another maid cafe in the area. Unbeknownst to the young and naive Nagomi (but figured out by Ranko), the message they were sent to deliver was a declaration of war, and they were sent with the expectation that they’d be killed. Ranko, who sussed things out and bought a gun on the way, goes John Wick and massacres the workers of the rival cafe while the maids back at Oinky Doink sing and dance to an upbeat pop song, completely unaware of the carnage that’s unfolding elsewhere. Nagomi and Ranko return covered in blood, much to the surprise of the other maids. Nagomi is shocked by the apparent violence of the maid cafe world, but vows to be the change she wants to see.

The comparisons to the Yakuza are very evident throughout Akiba Maid War, not just in the violence, but also the structure and behavior of the maid cafes and their parent companies. In this version of 1999 Akihabara, there are two prominent maid cafe parent companies. Creatureland, the parent company of Oinky Doink, is animal-themed. All Creatureland maids dress like animals and use animal-related puns. Their main rival is Maidalien, a space-themed group of maid cafes that dress like aliens and make space-related puns. The two groups operate exactly like Yakuza clans, with similar hierarchies, division of territory, and an enforcer coming around to collect earnings.

Nagomi may be naive to the gritty maid underworld, but her coworkers are veteran maids. Yumechi is the cafe’s top earner, Shiipon is a ditzy gyaru with a spray tan, and Zoya is a Russian girl whose strength and combat prowess are second only to Ranko’s. The cafe itself is run by Yasuko, who is terrible with money and borderline inept. Oh, and there’s a girl in a panda costume who serves as Oinky Doink’s mascot.

These maids are fucking brutal. Entire cafes get massacred in insane gun battles, maids are throwing down on the streets with baseball bats, and one maid even gets shot dead in an alleyway. This isn’t some kawaii moe moe kyun fetish bullshit, this is a series of literal gang wars that end with casualties. Even something as innocent as a baseball game between two cafes ends with fatalities.

I know a lot of you might be put off by the maid thing, and at first I was too. But Akiba Maid War is anything but your typical maid anime. This is a Yakuza anime first and foremost, one that utilizes maids to create a parody of the maid genre that’s twisted yet interesting.

I give Akiba Maid War an 8/10. This violent and gritty anime is a wonderful subversion of the maid genre, and I think most people will enjoy it for sure.