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Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden: Volume 1

Review Date: 2005 April 19 17:22

Reviewed by: Spike

Released by: ADV Films UK

Age Rating: 15

Region: 2 - UK

Volume 1 of 3

Length: 100 minutes

Subtitles: English

Audio: English Dolby Digital Stereo
Japanese Dolby Digital Stereo

Summary

Unbeknownst to the rest of mankind, the earth has been at war with an alien race for years. The only defense against these intruders is the mysterious angency Vespar, and the android warriors they created. One of these combatants is Mahoro, elite agent of Vespar, who has come to the end of her operational lifespan and has been given a choice: to continue to fight for the rest of her days, which is only a month or so, or to remove her armor and live for over a year following whatever path she chooses. Mahoro's dream is to become a maid, and her first assignment is Suguru, a young orphan that rewrote the book on untidiness. Now Suguru has a problem, at school boys envy him and girls look at him more, even worse, his teacher sees Mahoro as a love rival! The new maid may be cleaning up at home, but Suguru's life is more of a mess than ever!

Review

The animation looks bright and fluid, and it is obvious that Gainax has thrown quite a lot of money at its production. Mirrored in this is the sound, upbeat and energetic in both the score and the theme songs, leaving the viewer in no doubt that this is a light-hearted romantic comedy.

Mahoromatic may be reminiscent of many other guy-gets-robot-maid Anime out there, but the difference in quality between most of them and this is enormous. While Mahoromatic has plenty of fanservice, it isn't using this alone to hold the viewers interest, and although, yes, it has breasts, and certainly isn't afraid to use them, this is certainly only used to squeeze a few more laughs out of the already hilarious plot. Against this backdrop of humour, there are certainly darker things going on in this series, thankfully hinting at a deeper ongoing plot rather than just laughs all the way to the end, even to the extent that every episode ends with a count of how many days Mahoro has to go until she expires.

Despite being orphaned from an early age and having had to live on his own, Suguru is a remarkably normal young man. That is, he has no domestic skills at all and a pornography collection of titanic proportions, both of which Mahoro seems to have made it her personal mission to change. Even though he seems to have brief moments of bravery, Suguru is a bit of a wet blanket as far as characters go, mainly going with the flow unless placed in an unpleasant situation. Mahoro is as one would expect from this genre of Anime, ditzy, but also extremely strong. Never one to back down from a challenge, it's clear that she is very protective of Suguru, and may have feelings for him, although to what degree it is not clear. Suguru's teacher, Saori, is surprisingly prominent in the series, spending lots of screen time attempting to analyse his relationship with Mahoro to such an extent that she even hangs out at his house (something that doesn't go down too well with Mahoro).

All in all, Mahoromatic is a well made light-hearted romantic comedy, that will appeal to any fans of the plethora of other comedies of this type. The only thing I can say is that for some, Mahoromatic may at first seem a little too sweet and sugary, as it takes time for the characters to become established in their setting. However Mahoromatic does get there, giving the show substance and rewarding patient viewers with a bizarre but exiting plot.

Rating: 7/10

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