Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Maid War Chronicle, vol. 1

Presented by Ran
Published in the US by Del Rey


Slugline: At some point perverts stop being cute.

The Prince of Arbansol is about to go through his coronation and become king. Cacao, one of his six personal maids is hoping that will encourage Alex, the prince, to show some maturity because currently he is a major pervert who enjoys ordering his maids around way too much. Cacao is the only one of the maids who pushes back, having grown up in a circus and being a featured attraction there gave her self-confidence with the only reason for she currently being a maid is to save enough money to start her own business. But she is forced to flee with her fellow maids and the prince when the kingdom of Nowarle invades. Prince Alex claims that all he needs to retake his kingdom are beautiful women around him, well beautiful women armed with legendary magical weapons that usually are wielded by the realm's knights. Prince Alex's way around that little restriction is by creating an order of maid knights and immediately inducting all of his maids. Cacao gets a claymore sword and being the only one of the maids that has half a clue and any fighting experience, works to keep her fellow maids and Prince Alex alive.

This manga feels very old school, with a traditional pervert with a heart of gold and a whole array of characters named after food items. Those elements have been merged with the modern manga tradition of fan service via the use of maid uniforms whose skirts magically shorten when convenient. This is a light story, even by the normal standards that piece of fluff stories are measured by. The fight scenes are set up nicely and the fan service seemed mild, even with the gratuitous nudity. Or it could just be that I've been numbed by reading so much fan service. Still, the prince, despite the attempts to make him a funny and harmless pervert still makes my skin crawl and requires a major personality transplant to become tolerable.



Maid War Chronicle, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

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