The Spring 2016 Anime Preview Guide

Shonen Maid

He may one of the most responsible elementary schoolers out there, but just like any other kid, Chihiro Komiya wasn't ready to live a life without his mother. When she passes away suddenly due to heart failure, poor Chihiro has nowhere to go. She was cut off from her own family to give birth to him as a single mother, leaving her son's fate completely up in the air once she's gone. Fortunately, a neurotic oddball named Madoka Taketori shows up on Chihiro's doorstep one day (okay, he shows up near Chihiro's house quivering in fear from an enthusiastic puppy) and declares that he's the boy's long-lost uncle! Like his sister, he was living an isolated life, but unlike his sister, he has an enormous mansion to call home. Chihiro refuses to be indebted to anyone and turns the stranger down, until they arrive at a bizarre compromise. If Chihiro cleans Madoka's (filthy) estate for him as his servant, he won't be indebted to him for the living space at all! Chihiro is fine with this arrangement for now, but he's not so crazy about Madoka's love of lacy uniforms... Shōnen Maid is based on a manga and can be found streaming on Funimation, Fridays at 8:30 PM EST.

Jacob Hope Chapman

Rating: 3

There's nothing morally suspect whatsoever about Shōnen Maid. No, really! I mean, it's just about an elementary school boy who's forced to live with his eccentric funny uncle and clean his house to earn his keep while wearing a frilly maid outfit--

Alright, this is basically Plausible Deniability The Animation. We get so few anime aimed at the fringe shotacon audience that it's hard to recognize their hallmarks compared to the lolicon stuff, and after the surprise appearance of Super Lovers, that rarely-used part of my critical eye is on full alert for Shōnen Maid. Am I thinking too hard about this? Am I the one perverting a perfectly innocent and heartwarming story just because it involves a little boy in an apron?

Well, yes and no. If you can push Super Lovers out of your mind and try to approach Shōnen Maid with an open mind, it really doesn't read creepy or exploitative like the premise suggests. It has all the hallmarks of a "dysfunctional adult finds himself in custody of a precocious child and they improve each other's lives enough to eventually expand the family around them" story. There's a reason the key art shows Chihiro standing alongside two other kids his age instead of his adoptive uncle. So think less Bunny Drop the manga and more Bunny Drop the anime, if you catch my drift.

On top of that, despite its fleeting moments of sugary comedy, most of the episode is spent on the sincere and somber (but not too dark) emotions of loneliness and inadequacy that both Chihiro and Madoka feel for very different reasons, giving the episode a welcome depth of character that lets us all unclench and go "awwww" instead of "aggggh." While it certainly doesn't have the writing quality of My Love Story!!, it does achieve a similar tone, all the more reinforced by a mellow opening theme from TRUSTRICK. There's a good-natured sweetness pervading the show that feels unfair to condemn, despite the episode's rare moments of dubious intent. (Chihiro doesn't wear that maid outfit or fluffy cat costume of his own volition, after all.)

I have absolutely no doubt that there's deeply upsetting doujinshi (and maybe even official merchandise in the future) of Shōnen Maid out there, and it was at least probably created with fujoshi gaze in mind, even if it was only moe in intent instead of sexual. But whatever. You can enjoy Black Butler just fine without veering into shotacon territory, and this show is even tamer than that, so in spite of its title, I think you can approach Shōnen Maid with a clean conscience.