Tontokoton Staff -- Maid Dai Kaiten（メイド大回転）

 

Well, we're just about halfway through the current anime season and that includes the gritty-as-sand but frilly-as-frills show "Akiba Meido Senso"（アキバ冥途戦争...Akiba Maid War）. The series has been following the pattern of a typical yakuza movie but instead of thugs, we have maids battling it out. At the same time, there has also been a goodly amount of fun music coming out of this as well. So far on the blog, it's been the homicidally hilarious "Junjou Maid Bukkoroshi Kiss"（純情メイドぶっころ主KISS）in the standout scene of Episode 1 and the ending theme "Meido no Komori Uta"（冥途の子守唄）which is in the same vein of the downtrodden-but-unbowed type of Mood Kayo of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Now, let's tackle the opening. First off, those opening credits with all of us entering the tough-and-bloody streets of Akihabara communicate to us in those one minute and forty-odd seconds about what the whole premise is right down to the combination of aprons and arms and of course, the power walk of the staff of the Tontokoton Maid Cafe（メイドカフェ とんとことん）which ought to bring a smile to the face of Quentin Tarentino.

As for that opening theme, it's "Maid Dai Kaiten" (Giant Maid Slalom) by the Tontokoton staff themselves. We have Reina Kondo（近藤玲奈）as the scared newbie Nagomi (although after Episode 6, there may be changes ahead for her), Rina Sato（佐藤利奈）as the hardened warrior Ranko, Minami Tanaka（田中美海）as the alternately sweet-and-snarky Yumechi, Tomoyo Kurosawa（黒沢ともよ）as the gyaru maid Shiipon, Jenya（ジェーニャ）as the Russian battle maid Zoya, and Ayahi Takagaki（高垣彩陽）as the scheming manager Yasuko Yaegashi. Words and music were provided by SHIBU and Getamono Land Keiei Senryaku Shitsu（ケダモノランド経営戦略室...Beast Land Administrative Strategies Office）, the latter of which produced the show.

One YouTube commenter pointed it out well that "Maid Dai Kaiten" is a hard techno piece that seems to have come out of the "Matrix" franchise, and the contrast between those dark beats and the typical Maid Cafe patter works well, both as something oddly kakkoii and tongue-in-cheek. However, the main chorus then launches into something major chord upbeat and aidoru-esque. Maybe that means there is hope around the corner for the Tontokoton maids. Regardless, there are a couple of music snippets that have also popped up; I hope that they get their due as full-fledged songs soon enough on the soundtrack.

Rina Sato -- Meido no Komori Uta（冥途の子守唄）

 

I've been back in the anime-viewing game for about a decade thanks to my friend, and over that time, my impression of the seiyuu who get cast in the various TV shows and movies is that they have to be ready to take on characters of wildly varying vocal pitches: from cute babies to monstrous ogres and everyone in between.

Take for example, veteran seiyuu/singer Rina Sato（佐藤利奈）who's been working for 20 years. I never got into the series "Toaru Kagaku no Railgun"（とある科学の超電磁砲）from more than a decade ago, but she played the main character, Mikoto Misaka（御坂美琴）who has a whole ton of power, speaks like any contemporary high school girl who's a bit of a tomboy, and loves cutesy things.

I think that my first time seeing Sato in action though was through the 2015 food-based anime "Koufuku Graffiti"（幸腹グラフィティ）which I thoroughly loved, and as Machiko Ryo（町子リョウ）, she sounded completely different with a much more feminine timbre to her voice. Also, I did write about a couple of songs from the show, one of which was "Shiawase Graffiti"（しあわせグラフィティ）, an insert tune performed by Sato and her co-star Asuka Ohgame（大亀あすか）that reached meme levels of popularity.

Now, let's come back to 2022. All I can say is that Sato must have needed a lot of that Gollum juice to prevent her larynx from tuckering out after voicing Ranko Mannen（万年嵐子）from the currently playing anime, "Akiba Meido Senso"（アキバ冥途戦争...Akiba Maid War）. A week ago, she was featured pulling off one of the highlights of the anime season as she became a potent one-woman exfiltration team that would have had Josh Brolin's character in "Sicario" going "Hmmmm...". Although it was her fellow seiyuu Minami Tanaka（田中美海）singing "Junjou Maid Bukkoroshi Kiss"（純情メイドぶっころ主KISS）, it was Mannen going all Meiko Kaji（梶芽衣子）on the enemy maids.

This time though, Sato is behind the mike channeling the late Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）and her dusky tones as she sings the ending theme for "Akiba Meido Senso", "Meido no Komori Uta" (A Maid's Lullaby). Songwriter Takeshi Isozaki（磯崎健史）created this with a number of influences in mind. First of all, it starts off with a brass vibrato blast which brings back memories of the theme song from the classic 1973 yakuza film by Kinji Fukusaku（深作欣二）, "Jingi Naki Tatakai"（仁義なき戦い...Battles Without Honor and Humanity）: the theme has since become the fanfare to be played on any Japanese TV show whenever anything to do with Japanese gangsters gets featured. Then, while Sato goes into deep Fuji mode, Isozaki's melody mixes in Fuji's brand of down-in-the-dumps Mood Kayo with some Hollywood film noir gangster jazz that had me thinking of Michael Buble's rendition of "Feeling Good". Just like the depiction of Mannen's massacre in Episode 1, it looks like the songwriter went all out to come up with something faithful for this show of Akiba maids going into organized crime. Mind you, it'll be a few more weeks as of this writing before the theme songs for the show come out on sale.

Minami Tanaka -- Junjou Maid Bukkoroshi Kiss（純情メイドぶっころ主KISS）

 

It's been the case with a new anime season that I would write about the theme songs for the fresh anime a few weeks after they had begun. One exception has been for the "Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon"（小林さんちのメイドラゴン...Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid） franchise for which the opening themes were so delectable that I wrote about them even before or just when the first episode exploded out of the gates.

That was when I was still doing the anime-and-food Sundays with my anime buddy. I don't do that anymore; it's now waiting until the whole series gets broadcast a few months later before I get to see it, so when a scene from a new season's anime pops up and has me repeat watching it, I definitely know that another exception has made its presence known.

I am not sure whether there is such a thing as watercooler talk among the anime fandom following a particularly intriguing episode, but this one would be my candidate. A few weeks ago, I looked at one site to see what would be showing for the fall season when my eyes landed on a poster for one show titled "Akiba Meido Senso"（アキバ冥途戦争...Akiba Maid War）. At first glance, I assumed that it would be a comedy about maids from different backgrounds bantering on in their cafe like the rakugo ladies on "Joshiraku"（じょしらく.... Girls In Rakugo), which came out a decade ago. Then I saw the above trailer and said "Nah!"; with all of the censor bleeps and pixelation, this was going to be different. My buddy caught Episode 1 last weekend and he just told me that he couldn't believe what he had seen.

Well, I did see a few scenes on YouTube last night, and one of them did have me repeat watching it as I remarked above, and I've got a feeling that a lot of folks who caught "Akiba Meido Senso" have probably done the same. I never thought that I would see a smooth melding of yakuza movies and maid cafe culture, but it's happened. John Wick and The Bride from "Kill Bill" would have stood up and applauded the relatively older but still stunning maid, Ranko Mannen（万年嵐子）, who went totally and simultaneously wotagei and Meiko Kaji（梶芽衣子）on her maid pursuers in Akihabara which automatically became the world's most dangerous area. Blood and frills...what a concept!

And the massacre was choreographed to a cutesy maid tune sung by one of the other characters, Yumechi（ゆめち）, as played by seiyuu Minami Tanaka（田中美海）. That high-pitched voice struck me as something familiar, and as it turns out, Tanaka had played one of the members of Franchouchou of "Zombieland Saga" fame, little Lily Hoshikawa（星川リリィ）. The lass had the fans dying figuratively with "Junjou Maid Bukkoroshi Kiss" (The Pure Maid's Killer Kiss) while Ranko had the maids dying literally. Animators at P.A. Works must have loved coming to work every day to do this scene.

The song might come out as a single by Tanaka or it could be included in the soundtrack for "Akiba Meido Senso" or both. It was written by nobara kaede and composed by Yusuke Kato（加藤裕介）. It's still early days to say that this anime will be the hit of the season, but Episode 1 looked really promising. As long as we see some more Ranko going all Meiko. Speaking of whom, let's watch some of her carnage.