Akiba Maid War

 Time for the next installment of the alphabet challenge, and that is for the letter A - Akiba Maid War.

 

 

A fairly recent series from the winter 2022 season, I heard so many good things about it, I decided to slot this one in on the letter.

 

 Nagomi always wanted to work in one of those Maid cafe's and to that end moves to Akihabara, finding a job at the Oinky Doink cafe.  But as soon as on her first day, she learns the rivalries between maid cafe's are pretty intense, up to gun- and knifefights!  Oh, and the first bloodbath, sorry, no other way to call it, to the maid's cafe song was hilarious.

 

But there is more going on behind the scenes, as the manager has put the cafe in debt and now they are out to collect.  They enter the Maid Casino, trying to increase their funds. She looses all the money though, and the cafe faces closure.  They pledge their maid futures as collateral to enter a poker game, but one of the maids, Yumechi, noticed there is cheating going on.  And then the shooting starts...

The girls are as such send on a variety of missions, like a boxing match to get a rare figurine, resulting in Zoya, a russian girl, joining the crew after being defeated by Ranko.  They are send to a creature drill camp, to hone their skills in the various maid parts of the job, but the rivalries continue as Ranko is the target of being killed for having the same birthday as a maid of the sheep club.

But then the Crimson Supernova, a violent maid and rival of Ranko, is returning to Akiba as well.  In the meantime, Nagomi is trying to form bonds of sister / maid hood with other cafe's.  But the girl she befriends, Nerula, is shot down by the Crimson Supernova.  Nagomi can't take this anymore and goes to work for another cafe, where she is approached by Ranko.  But the Crimson Supernova launches a raid on the Oinky Doink cafe, but Nagomi comes to the rescue, rejoining the team.  The Crimson Supernova in turn is executed by the girls she led on the raid...

But when the girls win a the annual maid contest against all agreements, they get the anger of the Creatureland commitee pointed at them.  But Ranko learns the secret of their panda collegue, and how they have been connected since the beginning, and that puts her straight against her handler.

The other maid groups make sure their cafe has no business as they broke the arrangement, in return taking over the cafe of the Lions, the leading creatures.  And then the shooting starts, which I just mention casually as I didn`t include it in every paragraph above.

Ranko and Nagomi meet with the Creatureland head of maids, Uzuko, who had ordered the assassination of her old master as well, and they do reach an agreement in the end.  And the shooting stops!  But Ranko is stabbed on the street when at a market, dying in Nagomi's arms.  This tips her over, and she goes out for revenge, trying to figure out who made the hit but ending beaten up. 

As the rival gangs and Uzuko all come to the Oinky Doink cafe, they are treated to a maid performance instead.  Nagomi is shot by Uzuko in the end, before being killed herself.  Years later, tourists come to the new Oinky Doink cafe, where it turns out Nagomi suvived, but is wheelchair bound.

I can get why it was so popular, as this is basically a bunny girl (or piglet, or whatever) show, but it basically always dwindles down in a gunfight finale in the beginning.  It's violent, I`ll give that, as it is called "War" after all, but to be honest I wasn't over the roof for this series in the end.