Anime Reviews
Akiba Maid War (2022, PA Works)
アキバ冥途戦争
Akiba Maid Sensou
無中文版
Naive 17 year old Nagomi Wahira is excited to start her new job at Oinky Doink Cafe, Akihabara. Before long, she discovers there was a darker side to the maid cafe business where rivals violently disputing their turf. As the piggy themed cafe struggle pay off the "sweets money" they own to the Creatureland Group, Nagomi finds herself caught up in a variety of crazy life threatening schemes to keep the cafe alive.
Despite that, Nagomi continues to restrain herself from using violence. On the other hand, Ranko Mannen a serious 35 year old woman returns to the Maid Cafe scene on the same day as Nagomi. She seems to be not the least surprised at the underworld side of the business.
It looked like one of those mindless fan service show so I wasn't planning to watch this but once again, saw a few fun clips and some people praised it. Since Akiba is also one of my favourite places, I dedided to give it a chance.
Basically what if you made a gangster show but had maid cafe girls snuffing out the competition with brutal violence instead? It cracks jokes at the worse times and wrong things as you can imagine for a dark comedy. If you've ever watched the movie Battle Royale, you'll probably know what to expect. Lots of blood filled fights while everyone puts on cute personalities and making jokes about it. Good reminder of how all the "kawaii" cutesy acts are all fake (of course).
As with other gangster stories, you have your loyalty and friendship drama which isn't missing here. Bit of romance even. Despite some cheezy moments where it fairly much mocks those cliche moments from old movies, it's pretty wholesome to see a team of different (and sometimes conflicting) personalities backing each other up. It has some good moments, the kind that makes the Yakuza game stories good I think.
There isn't any fan service apart from your usual revealing clothing and even that is rare. Animation's smooth as you'd expect from PA Works. It's violent as you'd expect from gangster shows but lots of over-exaggerated blood. Silly, horrible OP. Background tracks on the other hand is surprisingly good (excluding the fight scene ones of course).
It's silly but in a good way. I enjoyed the show overall. Seeing real world scenes of Akihabara in the 90s and then reading up some more about its changes is pretty cool.
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