アキバ冥道頓堀 Akiba Maid War
Fall season 2022
Studio P.A. Works

As I mentioned before at least on two occasions, Akiba Meido Sensō is one of the surprises of 2022. The story is an anime original and has an unusual angle – it essentially is a yakuza drama dressed in a frilly Akihabara meido kissaten (maid café) costume, with a plot complete with betrayal, murder, gun battles and enka-tinged ED songs. In a nutshell, the meido kissas of Akiba in the late 1990s are rivals (unless it is under the umbrage of Creatureland, Akiba’s largest meido kissa conglomerate) that are literally killing each other’s competition.

Enter Nagomi, a starry-eyed 17-year old girl who managed to land her dream job of being a meido, only to find that her workplace is Tontokoton – a meido kissa located away from the main streets and is pretty much at the bottom of the food chain all things considering. Starting together with Nagomi, is Ranko, a stoic 36-year old meido, and from day one, Nagomi and Ranko seems to get along very well despite their opposite dispositions. The 12 episodes tells the different adventures of Nagomi, Ranko and the rest of the Tontokoton crew, especially their struggle to make enough profit to please Nagi, the head of Creatureland.



I found the episodes engaging enough, with some of the stories while seemingly independent of each other, an overarching story development is seen. The violence depicted is pretty bloody and somewhat comic, not because of Akiba Meido Sensō is an anime, but it is so reminiscent of Tarantino’s films like Kill Bill. P.A.Works’ visuals in the entire series are constantly pretty top notch, which adds to my surprise and interest in watching the series.

While I agree that the end was a bit rushed, I thought it was satisfying. I noted a few comments on how this was a “weird” anime, although if you watch this as a yakuza flick, it’s pretty good. I don’t admit to be a yakuza eiga connoisseur, but having watched a 2006 TV version of セーラー服と機関銃 (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun) which starred Nagasawa Masami, I could see the typical tropes and understand where the story was going.

Oh, there’s a panda too. Named Okachimachi. And only to be revealed midway in the season that the seiyuu is Hirano Aya!

I gave, and maintain, my score of 8 over 10 for this.