As of late I have rediscovered a series that sort of left me in a daze and I, in turn, left the series to sit.  Perhaps it was something that was working deep within that I was unaware of.  Perhaps the show was, no matter how you looked at it, a maid anime.  However, for Gainax’s Mahoromatic, the original work called for Mahoro to be a maid.  Like all maid anime, the whole concept sounds great to investors who can cash in on fanboys.  To fanboys (and perhaps fangirls), the idea is nothing more than a flimsy pretext to have girl meet boy and for romantic and perverted situations to be abound.  Except, in Mahoromatic, there is slightly more resonance behind Mahoro’s maid job than any other series attempts.  There is pandering, but also respect for storytelling.  Perhaps I did remove myself from Mahoromatic because I did not want my inner fanboy to cry out to pay more attention.  Now I’m back to the series with one conclusion.  Mahoromatic is the greatest of all maid series, and a complete Gainax masterpiece.

As it should be obvious, Mahoromatic was adapted from the manga of the same name.  There was a frame for Gainax to work with, and a story to compress, tighten, and push to its limits.

The story is about Mahoro and Suguru Misato.  Mahoro is a combat android that has become disarmed from combat and is hired as a maid by Suguru.  Mahoro has only a limited about of time to live, so she spends her remaining days helping Suguru.  Flimsy sounding?  Well, initially yes.  Those who have seen the series knows that some context is placed behind this idea.  As I have heard, the story was, for the most part, faithfully adapted by Gainax.

Now comes the tricky part.  Explaining why Mahoromatic is a Gainax masterpiece while at same the time giving credit where it is due; with the original artists, Bow Ditama and Bunjuro Nakayama.  From what I have read of the manga, the serial is well drawn and certainly well told.  However, director Hiroyuki Yamaga pushes feeling into Mahoromatic that rivals more heartfelt projects.

Consider a scene at the end of the first series; in episode 12.  A raging battle is ensuing between Mahoro and an old rival.  The violent battle leaves Mahoro with nothing but a knife.  Her mind is not in the battle, though.  She is thinking about the repercussions if she was able to hide the note she left for Suguru.  Hiroyuki Yamaga does something few directors would dare, and I bet many people find irritating.  I, on the other hand, celebrate it.  Instead of letting monologue play out with the drama, he devotes an entire six minutes to a dream-like sequence in which Mahoro, Suguru, and their friends have a picnic and climb a tree.  This sequence is not in the original work.  This sequence is all Yamaga.  Instead of playing out the battle, Yamaga has the four younger female characters toy with their dreams and aspirations while in a tree.

Why is this scene in the series?  It is Yamaga’s directorial signature in six minutes.  A signature that usually takes a whole series to see.  This out-of-place scene is Yamaga injecting a yearning of being together with loved ones and the loss that can come about from departing.  He is slowing down the audience to reflex on why Mahoro has to win the battle.  He is waiting as long as he can before he has to tell the deeper story.

Three of Yamaga’s works have one major thing in common.  Roughly the first eighty percent of the show is devoted to character filler while the remaining percentage is the plot playing out inescapable fate that the story has for its characters.  It started with Mahoromatic, a series consisting of two seasons, with each season ending with far more power than one would ever expect by watching the first few episodes.  The second series was Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi.  A series were once the parody was finished, the story commenced in full force.  Finally, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, which Yamaga is accredited with original idea and series composition.  Though, the series fatal flaw was that Yamaga was not in the director’s chair.  Only he is able to pull off this abandon for series length stories.

Though, that is not to say that the show is only great at the end.  Far from it.  Yamaga’s character filler is fascinating and truly entertaining.  Yamaga focuses on true character, mini-plots, and episode construction.  He pulls off filler with agusto.

Plus, only he is able to push so much meaning into simple “camera” angles.  When he is not mimicking the manga, Yamaga’s “camera” adds a large amount to the story.  This show contains some masterful “cinematography,” specifically in the dream-sequences by Mahoro and the robust imagery of each season’s final episodes.  Even the outline drawings bring out a sort of perfection to animation, both in terms of cinematography and stylized drawings.

The story’s structure, the characters, and execution plays towards achieving a series that when fanboys look back at the maid-era, they can say something of value was actually produced.  Mahoromatic uses many tricks to rise above its maid-anime status.  The best trick is the simple use of text to countdown Mahoro’s remaining days.  The text uses the entire screen, is stark black-and-white, and is both a wink-wink moment reminding viewers of other Gainax works and it is a solemn reminder that contains nothing more than what it needs.  While an episode could have been comedy filler that generated character attachment, the end of every episode shoots straight back to the fact that this series is not going to end happily.  The effect is simple, but powerful.

But was it all Gainax?  Well, not really.  I believe Gainax, with a special part by Yamaga’s direction, permeated a fantastic dramatic theme of loss behind the entire series.  At the beginning of the last episode, Suguru sums up the entire series’ theme best.

Mahoromatic is by no means perfect.  The teacher character, Saori Shikijo, is a nuisance.  Her character lies little in the realm of realism.  She is a sex-crazed maniac that longs for the loins of Suguru, who happens to be a middle school kid.  I believe this is one fault that the original work brought into the series which was unable to be dealt with properly.  Cutting a character that shows up in nearly every chapter would cause riots among fanboys.

Though, Shikijo’s character has a purpose, and that is causing insecurity in Mahoro’s mind about her own appearance.  Mahoro wishes to have a fuller chest, yet at the same time tells Suguru that dirty thoughts are inappropriate when he is caught ogling dirty magazines.  Mahoromatic’s sexual themes, ranging from the normal to the bizarre and touching on many sexual subjects, are oddly contrasted by the characters’ thoughts on sex and sexual appeal.  Mahoromatic’s stance on sexual thoughts is one huge paradox, and a blast to dwell on after the series ends.

Mahoromatic is great anime and the greatest of maid anime.  It is a series of unmistakable depth and resonance.  The character development by Yamaga’s directorial strategies and Gainax’s ability to push original works to their absolute limit brings so much drama, comedy, and entertainment behind Mahoromatic that it surpasses the maid label and breaks into the realm of masterpiece.  Its not that Mahoromatic is a maid story, but it is a story about loss that hits right at the soul, executed in ways that only Gainax can produce.