After losing her mother to illness, Russian grade-schooler Misha has become a total recluse, locking herself away in her room to play video games all day while cruelly driving away each and every maid her Japanese stepfather hires to keep house. Desperate for somebody who can deal with her outbursts, he posts yet another ad for a new housekeeper.
It's answered by Tsubame Kamoi, a muscular, implacable ex-JSDF fighter pilot and unrepentant lolicon who only has eyes for Misha.
To Misha's chagrin, Tsubame effortlessly shrugs off every attempt to drive her away. Now a mainstay at Misha's house, Tsubame becomes obsessed with ingratiating herself to her young ward, whether it's making her frilly clothes and trying to get her to play dress-up, pretending to be another little girl so she can win Misha's trust in an MMO, or ending every conversation by pulling out some marriage papers. Disgusted and creeped out by the ex-military maid's lecherous advances, Misha will need to keep all her wits about if she wants to keep her dignity intact. There's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide when Tsubame comes to clean house.
Uchi no Maid ga Uzasugiru! (うちのメイドがウザすぎる! / "Our Maid is Way Too Annoying!") is a Black Comedy Slice of Life manga written and illustrated by Kanko Nakamura. It began serialization in a defunct yuri magazine named Hikari in 2016 before switching over to the seinen Monthly Action.
Doga Kobo released an anime directed by Masahiko Ohta during the Fall 2018 season. Crunchyroll has licensed the show, which can be viewed here
for the following countries: note
This manga provides examples of:
- Affluent Ascetic: Midori. Though her family is very wealthy, she joined the JSDF, and initially is hired by Misha as a way to get rid of Tsubame. When asked about the job, she simply states that she doesn't need money, and mostly working just for fun. Even when Misha and Tsubame spend a night at her family's hotel, she seemed more comfortable sleeping on the floor than on her bed.
- Amazonian Beauty: Tsubame is ripped, especially in the abs department and a lot of characters in the series find her very attractive, unfortunately for her none of them are Misha.
- Animal Motif:
- Misha was named after a Russian bear mascot from the 1980 Olympics and is often associated with bears, such as bear pillows, bear caps, and bear cosplay pajamas. She's also very grouchy and insular, and starts the story locked away in her room like a hibernating bear.
- Midori was a former kennel trainer for the JSDAF and frequently acts like a loyal dog towards Tsubame.
- Animation Bump: Though the anime has quality animation in general, episode 6 goes fucking nuts with extremely detailed comedy poses and gag faces, very lively and fluid animation, full-on cartoon physics, and weird fisheye lenses all over the place.
- Attack Backfire: When Tsubame is being interviewed, Misha dumps a bucket of water over her head to drive her away. However, Tsubame just squeals with glee and glomps onto Misha, getting Misha's clothes all wet too.
- Bears Are Bad News: Misha follows what she thinks is a panda in episode 10 while at the hot springs inn. But after watching it eat a fish, she realizes it's actually a brown bear. She then meets its Mama Bear, and even Tsubame exercises extreme caution when confronting it.
- Beat: When Misha looks up Tsubame's seller profile for her doll clothing business, she is initially impressed. Then she sees Tsubame's screenname is "misha_lovelove_forever". It's followed by a moment of stunned silence, and then Misha quietly closes the laptop with an audible click.
- Big Damn Heroes: Tsubame does this in episode 10 when she confronts an angry Mama Bear who was about to attack Misha for being too close to her cub. Fortunately she somehow manages to defuse the situation by spouting off how she first saw Misha and fell in love with the little girl.
- Bilingual Bonus: There's Russian here and there around Misha's house and in the opening and ending. For instance, the sign on the "forbidden room" that Misha doesn't let anyone enter says Комната Мамы (Komnata Mamy), which means "Mommy's Room".
- Actually trilingual. The "raz, dwa, tri, ctizi" at the beginning of the opening sounds more Czech that Russian.
- Black Comedy: It's a comedy about a relentless child predator stalking an unwilling young girl, animated in the exact same colorful, sunny style as Doga Kobo's other shows. No attempt is made to make the behavior seem anywhere close to being acceptable, but the absurd levels of it ends up
crossing the line twice. - Bland-Name Product: "LIME" messenger (instead of LINE).
- Bratty Half-Pint: The loss of her mother turned Misha into one. Tsubame gradually helps her overcome this so she can grow up and live a more normal life going to school and hanging out with friends.
- Brutal Honesty: In ep 9 Misha casually asks Mimika if she's gotten fatter.
- Cassandra Truth: Misha tries to convince Yasuhiro that she saw a panda outside the capybara petting area at the hot springs. However, he doesn't believe her, since pandas aren't native to Japan. She then decides to go out and look for it on her own after he takes a nap.
- Caught on Tape: After Misha fires Tsubame and replaces her with Midori at the end of episode 6, she spends half of episode 7 feeling bad about it. Mainly because Midori's cooking is atrocious. Eventually, they find Tsubame standing forlorn by the riverside, looking sad. Misha gathers up her courage and says she wants Tsubame to come back and cook for her...only for Tsubame to whip out a drone camera and reveal that — knowing how bad Midori's cooking is — she planned everything just to get Misha saying that on tape. Misha is furious she ever felt bad for the woman in the first place.
- Cringe Comedy: It's about an intelligent young girl dealing with the personal trauma of losing her mother, while being constantly hounded by a ripped, overbearing lolicon more implacable than The Terminator. The manga's Japanese tagline is literally: "Fighting Hentai Housekeeper Vs. Russian Elementary School Student's Uncomfortable Comedy?"
- Cross Cultural Reference: As explained in Episode 2 of the anime, Misha is named after Misha the Bear Cub, mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games hosted by Moscow and protagonist of his own anime show Koguma no Misha.
- Cuteness Proximity: Tsubame's attitude towards young girls in general. But seeing Misha caused her to leave the military in order to become her maid.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Misha gradually and begrudgingly accepts Tsubame's presence in her life on a pragmatic level — she's an excellent cook and has other useful skills — but it inevitably backfires when Tsubame fails to rein her pedophilia in and Misha has to start berating her again.
- Dog Walks You: In the anime epilogue Midori's German Shepherd literally walks her - she's the one on the leash and the dog is holding it in his mouth. He even growls at her for dawdling.
- Drama Bomb: Episode 12 is devoid of the typical humor of the series with major revelations such as Tsubame losing the eyesight in her one eye from illness, and Misha allows her to enter her mother's studio.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Misha will often begrudgingly thank Tsubame for her help in many situations. However, Tsubame always blows it by saying they should get married, which immediately changes Misha's attitude.
- Establishing Series Moment: Both the anime and the manga open with Tsubame inquiring a job interviewer on if there were any jobs she could have young, white girls wear dresses that she had made.
- First-Name Basis: Misha calls her father by his given name. It's later revealed he isn't actually her biological father, and instead married her mother. Despite this, he does try to take care of her as a real father.
- Girly Bruiser: Tsubame. Ex-JSDF soldier, and lover of things adorable and girly. In the ending credits for the anime, there is a short sequence where she is practicing throwing punches. Her fluid movements and stances suggest she could beat someone up if she had to.
- Hikikomori: Misha is one initially. After her mother passed away, she stopped going to school, and also tried to get anyone hired by her father to quit. When Tsubame shows up, she's not turned off by Misha's attempts to get her to quit, and instead gradually helps her to start living a normal life again.
- Hypocritical Humor: Tsubame often calls out creepy behavior from others that she is more than guilty of herself seemingly without realizing realizing the irony.
- Tsubame signs up for Misha's favorite MMO and tries to catfish her by pretending to be another young girl in a public forum. When she attracts dozens of friend request from (other) pedophiles, she freaks out and reports them all for being disgusting lolicons.
- After the news reports that "Low-Angle Uncle", a man who bombards Yui's Meowstagram account with requests for upskirts, has been arrested, Tsubame has this to say:Tsubame: "You're only supposed to gaze upon and admire young girls. It's blasphemy to bug them annoyingly!"
- When Tsubame finds Midori clinging to the utility pole outside Misha's window, she calls the cops on her. Which is exactly what Tsubame was doing before she applied for the job as maid. Misha angrily points that out, but Tsubame is unmoved.
- Tsubame tells Midori she plans to collect enough hairs from Misha's pillow to make hair for a doll she plans to give Misha as a present. Midori then asks how Tsubame would feel if she gave Tsubame a similar doll. With a grim face, Tsubame says she'd throw it to the ground immediately.
- Implacable Man: Played for Laughs when Tsubame always seems to show up wherever Misha is at, even if the latter tried not to reveal her whereabouts. While she coincidentally ran into Misha hanging out with Mimika at the shopping center, Misha is completely shocked that Tsubame just happened to be at the hot springs inn despite her precautions to avoid giving it away to avoid her. Tsubame found out by following her in her old lady disguise following Misha while she talked to Mimika about it.
- Insistent Terminology: Tsubame isn't "stalking" Misha, she's watching over her. She just so happens to be in disguise as an old lady, with a hidden camera. But she's just watching over her.
- Lampshade Hanging: In episode 6, Misha finds Midori in an alleyway and broaches her plan to hire Midori as a maid. Midori then pulls a maid uniform out of a nearby trash can. Misha, aghast, says she really wants to question why Midori put it in there but she won't because it sounds like a huge pain.
- Lethal Chef: Midori can't cook, and will often either eat military rations, or order fast food for Misha. While Misha doesn't like eating rations, she also realizes she can't keep eating takeout food indefinitely, and starts to slowly yearn for Tsubame's cooking.
- Mama Bear: Misha runs into one in episode 10. Fortunately Tsubame shows up just in time and manages to stare it down until it loses interest in them and leaves.
- Masochist's Meal: A literal example: Midori's cooking is horrible because she gets turned on by others' horrified reactions to it, and having to eat it herself afterwards.
- Men Can't Keep House: Misha's father is incapable of housework, hence his need for a maid.
- Missing Mom: Misha's mother has passed away prior to Tsubame working for her. She is seen in the first episode and in Flash Back moments.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Misha is told by Yasuhiro not to go wandering around the hot springs inn by herself in episode 10. Unfortunately she was determined to find the panda she claims she saw in the woods near the inn. She ends up getting lost, and is nearly attacked by a bear as a result.
- Not What It Looks Like: Midori's first appearance is shown with her seemingly stalking young girls, including Misha. Though she just wanted to ask some questions, the manner in which she said it made her seem like a stalker, which prompted nearby police to chase after her.
- Perverted Sniffing: Tsubame does this in the first episode after Misha worms out of her grip when she was bathing.
- Pixellation: As Midori changes her clothes in the alley in episode 7, the police show up to arrest her. Her pixellated breasts fall off of her half-undone corset.
- Potty Failure: Yui has a slight one in episode 11 after she and Mimika are scared off by various things while having a sleepover in Misha's house and trying to find the bathroom in the dark. Yui briefly mentions she peed on herself a little bit during their various run-ins with creepy things such as Misha's pets, and Midori giving herself a swirly in the bathroom.
- "Psycho" Strings: Whenever Tsubame does something legitimately creepy, a music cord will often play. But it will also often play during a Faux Horrific moments as well.
- Running Gag: Tsubame breaking down doors whenever she thought that Misha was in danger.
- The Scapegoat: Tsubame does this in episode 11 when Yui and Mimika accidentally enters Misha's mother's room, which Misha explicitly stated she didn't want anyone going in. Tsubame immediately claims that she did it so that Misha's anger would be directed at her, instead of her new friends who unknowingly and accidentally entered it a few hours earlier while trying to find the bathroom.
- Shout-Out:
- In episode 4, Tsubame has a Vasquez action figure on her shelf.
- In episode 6, Misha says "I don't want to live on this world anymore."
- Signature Shot: As with director Masahiko Ohta's previous works, he inserts a (technically impressive) pseudo-steadicam scene of the camera racing through a building in the first episode. In this case, it's following Misha as she runs from Tsubame.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Two examples:
- While she professes to have interests in girls that hadn't menstruated yet, Tsubame specifically chooses to serve Misha, much to her chagrin.
- Midori is this towards Tsubame. She fell in love with her when Tsubame first transferred to her unit which specialized in training military dogs, and found herself being ignored by both the dogs and the other soldiers after Tsubame's appearance.
- Spaghetti Kiss: Tsubame imagines doing this with Misha in one of her fantasies.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Misha seems to be able to communicate with her pet hamsters and ferret, who will often do what she asks such as guarding the door from Tsubame. And in episode 10, she somehow manages to get the capybaras to come to her after thinking the command.
- Spoiler Opening: The OP spoils the old-lady-walking-her-dog disguise that Tsubame uses to stalk Misha, which was initially presented as a harmless background character.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Discussed by Tsubame. After she abducts Misha in the middle of the night and takes her into the mountains on a camping trip (with her father's permission), she cheerfully mentions she's hoping Stockholm Syndrome will kick in and allow them to bond. It doesn't work.
- Straight Man and Wise Guy: When Tsubame and Midori are in the same scene, they commonly react to each other's fantasies in this way, swapping comedic roles depending on who's fantasizing at the moment. This also involves a lot of Hypocritical Humor.
- Taking the Heat: Tsubame takes the blame when Misha finds out someone went into her mother's room in episode 11 after finding the door open and footprints inside. She likely did this so Misha wouldn't get upset at her friends and lose them in the process, and seems rather calm despite Misha being much, much angrier and more upset than usual at her.
- Tamer and Chaster: In a good way. Though Japan is more lenient with lolicon art than the United States, the anime's director Masahiko Ohta has never really done explicit fanservice in any of his prior works. For this one, he toned the more questionable parts of the manga way, way down, such as animating Misha's bathing scene strictly from the shoulders-up rather than borderline-explicit full frontal.
- Too Kinky to Torture:
- Tsubame does this often whenever Misha gets mad at her and will often coldly reply for her to die or at least stop being in her life.
- Midori, who was Tsubame's superior officer, seems to love moments where she's either being rejected, or in some cases, doing exhausting work such as shoveling snow in the middle of the night during a snowstorm.
- Training from Hell: Misha during the ending credits in the anime. During many of the exercising scenes, she is visibly exhausted and can barely do any of them, while Tsubame, being a recently separated military veteran, has no problems whatsoever.
- Tsundere:
- Yasuhiro discusses this in his introductory scene. Misha hasn't spoken to him in a while, and he suggests she made up the story of a strange woman peeping at her through the window as an excuse to talk to him. She's not being a tsundere though; unbeknownst to him there really was a strange woman peeping at her through the window.
- Tsubame also thinks Misha is acting like a tsundere, but Misha just flat-out despises her for being a disgusting lolicon, such as when Tsubame mentions knowing Misha isn't wiping herself enough after using the bathroom due to the stains on her panties, and later mentioning how Misha uses more toilet paper now because of that first incident. Continually asking for the young girl's hand in marriage is another reason to hate her.
- Unknown Rival: Yui towards Misha. She hates the attention that Misha gets due to her beauty and cool demeanor at school, and will often challenge her to a competition, such as a dressing contest and a snowball contest. Misha meanwhile finds this to be a hassle.
- Weight Woe: Mimika in episode 9, after Misha asks if she got a little fatter. Mimika explains it was partly due to eating lots of chocolates before her brothers eat it all, and partly because she wasn't moving around as much due to the colder weather.
