Hanaukyo Maid-Tai

It seems that sexism has become a big part in the world that we live in today. In anime, they like to poke funat the sexism by making one sex unable to be around the opposite due to some condition, such as androphobia or gynophobia (fear of men and women respectively) or even some even more bizarre instances. Hanaukyo Maid-Tai, or Hanaukyo Maid Team follows yet another one of these odd scenarios.

Our story follows Hanaukyo Tarou, a young boy who is sent tonlive with his grandpa after his mother died. Little did he know that his grandpa also owns a large team of maids, and they all are told to serve him. There is one little problem with this scenario: it also turns out Tarou is allergic to girls.

Now if that doesn't provide for fan service like no tomorrow. Yes, the maids try to help Tarou with every day life, and most of the time they get in the way, but we all know its not to follow some newly found rich boy and the maids failing at helping him. We know that this anime's selling point, and the story, is the fan service. There is no escaping it due to the fact there is a bunch of girls and one dude. Luckily for us, the fan service only comes in fourteen minute bouts, for each episode is only fourteen minutes long.

The art for this series, in my opinion, is not that good. True, it is old style might work a bit for this series, but it seems there is three main designs: Mariel, Tarou, and everyone else. I honestly feel like none of the characters are distinguishable from the others, and their names even less so. True, the main character is a typical harem lead, and thus looks like one, but even the harem girls, who are supposed to be the best part, and the best drawn, are poolry drawn,and the quality was just dirt poor.

The characters in this anime were almost as bad as the art, to be quite honest. Our "harem" lead is just bland. They could have done so much with the allergy to girls, but they didn't really do much at all. Sure, he turned colors when they touched him, but that's bout it. True, the maids are there, but they are 2-D, and it seems that the maides only appeared in one episode a piece, save for the head of the maides, Mariel. This could be such a character driven anime, but this anime's characters were all over the place and just plain bad.

Overall, this anime has to be one the worst attempts at a harem I have ever seen. This anime had the potential to be a semi-unique harem, and perhaps there was to be a cure for the amlergy to girls, and there could have been less maides, but more character depth, that would have. Een excellent.