When his parents die in a car accident, Yuuri is left to fend for himself in their mansion, as he lacks the funds to keep paying their servants. While he resolves to do everything himself, he soon finds that, having depended on his servants his whole life, he's not exactly capable of doing so.
Enter Lilith, a beautiful maid who arrives one evening out of the blue, offering to work as a live-in maid for free. A hesitant Yuuri accepts, and quickly finds that everything Lilith does is perfect — too perfect. Suspicious of Lilith's talents, and her motives for coming to the mansion, Yuuri begins spying on her, and soon becomes convinced that she's hatched some kind of sinister plot. After all, what else would explain why his heart races whenever she's around?
The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious (Saikin Yatotta Meido ga Ayashii) is a manga by Wakame Konbu. It started off as a webcomic in 2019 before being serialized in the Monthly Gangan Joker magazine in 2020. It received an anime adaptation in July 2022.
The manga provides examples of:
- Beautiful Dreamer: The end of Episode 2 shows that Lilith always stays up later than Yuuri, just so she can admire how "adorable" he looks while he sleeps.
- Bifauxnen: Fujisaki, Tsukasa's butler, dresses in a three-piece suit and has a rather masculine voice. Tsukasa frequently tries to force her to dress in a more feminine way, with little success.
- Book Ends: The first and last episodes both contain a Flashback of Lilith learning about the deaths of Yuuri's parents and running to the mansion. The first time, it's Foreshadowing; the second time, it's at the end of a much longer sequence of flashbacks that puts it into proper context.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Yuuri is honest to a fault, and equally incapable of sugar-coating it. Even when he does lie to Lilith, about the surprise Christmas party, he's unable to maintain the deception for long. Lilith finds it adorable.
- Creepy Housekeeper: Played for Laughs. There is absolutely nothing creepy about Lilith, yet Yuuri is naturally suspicious of the fact that she turned up out of the blue one night and agreed to work for him for free, and therefore perceives her as one, interpreting everything she does as some kind of plot. Lilith goes along with it to tease him, but is otherwise Kindly Housekeeper incarnate.
- Deadpan Snarker: Fujisaki, Tsukasa's butler, often bluntly states that she'll resign in response to her master's antics.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Yuuri's parents died in a car accident. Implied to be the case with Lilith's parents, who disappeared when she was a child.
- "Dinner, Bath, or Sex" Offer: Lilith makes such an offer to Yuuri when he fails to respond to her usual teasing. She then immediately panics, thinking she's gone too far, but Yuuri just sighs and walks off, prompting Lilith to ask whether he's fallen ill.
- Driving Question: Who is Lilith, and why did she come to the mansion?
- Foreshadowing: Lilith noticeably pauses after mentioning her previous employer in Episode 6. Later in the episode it turns out she's still technically employed there.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Justified. While Yuuri has no income and Lilith is working for free, the former is implied to be living off of whatever money his parents left behind, and the latter is implied to be still on the payroll of her previous employer.
- Halloween Episode: Tsukasa invites Yuuri and Lilith to a Halloween party in the sixth episode.
- Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Lilith had overgrown bangs as a child, presumably to hide her purple eyes.
- Lonely Rich Kid: Yuuri has shades of this. A flashback to before his parents died shows that he was upset about how little time they spent with him; after their death, while he's no longer rich enough to afford servants, he still lives in a mansion and attends what is implied to be a private school for the wealthy.
- Ms. Fanservice: Lilith is a dark-skinned young woman with ample buxom and delicate features.
- Once More, with Clarity: The final episode shows Yuuri and Lilith's first meeting in full, after previous episodes (and the intro) had hinted at it. It also repeats the flashback from the first episode of Lilith learning about the death of Yuuri's parents and rushing to the mansion, this time with narration from Lilith explaining why she did so.
- Once per Episode: Lilith does something that causes Yuuri to suspect her of doing something nefarious. Lilith plays along with his suspicion only to blush profusely when Yuuri unwittingly compliments her. This fades away in the later episodes, however.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- In Episode 6, Lilith accidentally puts salt in Yuuri's afternoon tea instead of sugar. Yuuri immediately realises that something is wrong, because in spite of her suspicious behaviour, Lilith has never made a mistake before. Sure enough, she turns out to have caught a cold after getting caught in the rain, forcing Yuuri to take care of her.
- In Episode 7, when Yuuri comes home late from school, Lilith teases him as usual, and is shocked when he just walks past her without a word. She escalates her teasing, and when he still doesn't react, she briefly panics.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: When Lilith's former employer finally catches up with her in the final episode, he's not even slightly mad at her for spending the last several months AWOL. Indeed, he's perfectly understanding of why she left his mansion to be with Yuuri even before The Reveal, and allows her to stay with him without question.
- The Reveal: Lilith finally explains her motives in the final episode: Yuuri's parents took her in after her own parents went missing, and their kindness towards her inspired her to become a maid in the hope of one day returning their hospitality. She had come to the mansion after learning of the death of Yuuri's parents because his situation reminded her of her own.
- Running Gag: The series, at least initially, derives a lot of its humour from a single running gag that goes as follows: Yuuri makes some sort of wild accusation towards Lilith; Lilith responds with a Sarcastic Confession; Yuuri believes her and describes how this explains why he can't stop thinking about her, his heart starts racing whenever he sees her, etc; Lilith is left a blushing mess.
- Sarcastic Confession: Lilith invariably responds to Yuuri's accusations with a teasing confession. Yuuri, in turn, invariably takes these confessions at face value.
- Shipper on Deck: Tsukasa supports the "budding" relationship between Yuuri and Lilith.
- Sick Episode: As a result of getting drenched in the rain, Lilith catches a cold and is taken care of by Yuuri.
- Splash of Color: The manga is entirely black-and-white save for Lilith's eyes, which are a vivid purple, highlighting her mysterious nature. In Episode 7, Yuuri draws a portrait of her that is also monochromatic save for her eyes.
- Spoiler Opening: The anime's opening features a prominent shot of a younger Lilith at Yuuri's mansion, something that isn't shown properly until the final episode, giving away the reason for Lilith's sudden arrival long before the series even begins to hint at it.
- The Stoic: Fujisaki is a humorless butler who hardly changes her facial expressions.
- The Tease: Lilith likes to playfully tease Yuuri whenever he suspects her to be doing something suspicious. Almost always it immediately blows up in her face when Yuuri compliments her.
- Title Drop: Several of the early chapters begin with Yuuri spying on Lilith and thinking, "The new maid I recently hired is suspicious!"
- Too Good to Be True: The entire premise of the series. A beautiful maid arrives out of the blue, offers to look after Yuuri and the mansion for free, and turns out to be extremely good at it? Suspicious!
- Unknowingly in Love: Yuuri regularly tells Lilith about how beautiful she is, how he can't stop thinking about her, and how he wants to marry her one day, yet doesn't realize exactly why. He initially assumes she's placed some kind of curse on him. Tsukasa has to spell it out to him twice before it properly sinks in.
- Wham Episode: Episode 8. Lilith is revealed to have spent time at the mansion when she was younger; Yuuri finally realises that he's in love with Lilith and confesses to her; and a maid named Natsume arrives at the mansion, seemingly intent on dragging Lilith back to her old employer.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: It turns out that the reason Yuuri is Unknowingly in Love is because he doesn't understand what love actually is. Tsukasa offers to teach it to him, but her idea of love comes from sappy romance novels (which Fujisaki doesn't allow Yuuri to read anyway).
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Yuuri is afraid of cats to the point that he refuses to approach Lilith while she's petting one. He gets over it with her help, however.
