Hand Maid May

Summary: >

Kazuya was a college student who's been intently working on artificial intelligence for some time. One day his over-hyper friend gives him a CDROM to check out, only to find that a virus would launch if he didn't enter the right key sequence. Kazuya tried his best but he wasn't sure exactly what happened to his computer. It was only a minute or so later that a package arrived at his door, and inside a miniature mechanical maid. Kazuya wasn't sure what he was going to do with his six inch high maid named May, but Kazuya wasn't the sort of guy who would just get rid of her either. His life becomes even more hectic as he finds even more mechanical girls added to his life. As he and May live together longer, he finds that he and May are somewhat close, but there are ominous signs that staying together might not be possible in the end...

Thoughts: >

So I wondered to myself what is with all these mechanical maid themed anime cropping up all over the place? I decided to check it out for myself and looked into three titles (hand maid may, Mahoromatic, and Steel Angel Karumi). So what is the point of this anime? I wondered that myself even after I watched the entire series. Well I'll get to the point; I didn't much like this anime. First of all, the story was pretty much flat, and un-exciting at best - even during the supposed climax I found I couldn't really get into it. Pretty much all the characters are one dimensional, which is okay to some extent but doesn't work well without some sort of story, and certainly doesn't make you care much what happens to them.

Then there is the content. It basically consists of two things. First being the shameless gimmicks. Kazuya's overly loud arch rival/friend is a good example. And most of these gimmicks could have been lifted from the Saber Marionette J handbook, but unlike SMJ - this anime never really pulled them off well. The second content aspect is the fan service. Okay I'm a guy so usually fan service is a plus as far as I'm concerned. But Hand Maid May unfortunately devolves into shamelessly pandering to the male audience in an attempt to get them interested in an otherwise mediocre anime. Aside from that a lot of the attempted cuteness fell flat as well.

There were however some good aspects to Hand Maid May as well. It was at times, honestly funny - but certainly not as funny as it wanted to be. I actually liked Kasumi for some reason, which is sort of funny that in an anime that revolves around mechanical girls that I like the human girl the most. Actually if you'd strip the entire series down to two episodes about Kasumi and Kazuya, it would be an interesting cute romance. But, as it happened it just ended up ... well, long and drawn out.

And finally I'll point out that the soundtrack and animation while not being bad, were not interesting either - which pretty much completes this series where basically nothing interesting emerges. I won't say don't watch it, because it's not blatantly bad... Actually I take that back, don't watch it. If you're going to watch something which doesn't have any redeeming values and just a bunch of animation jumping around the screen then that would be the only reason.

Screen Caps: >