Autumn 2018 First Impressions – Uzamaid!

Misha is a little girl who lost her mother at an early age, and now lives with her father. Her father employs a maid named Tsubame, who was a former Self-Defense Force official, and is also a lolicon. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Tsubame is a retired member of the JSDF who’s on the lookout for the perfect civilian job. Unfortunately her idea of “perfect” is somewhat unorthodox. She likes cute clothes and little girls who wear them, and wants a job that can combine these two passions. She has a stroke of luck when she notices a job flyer for a local address looking for a maid to cook, clean, and babysit. It’s the same house where Tsubame saw a cute little Russian girl during wintertime. Might she be lucky enough to work for that girl’s family?

Misha is the girl in question. Suffering from the death of her mother and her father’s cluelessness, she’s driven away each and every maid her father has tried to hire. But Tsubame has the guts and the motivation to stick around and do the job right, even as Misha protests her every action. Tsubame does whatever she can to get Misha to spend even a small amount of time together with her, though Misha is so put off by her creepy vibe and actions that she refuses. Will Tsubame have what it takes to survive this job assignment… and will Misha?

Impressions: There was a period of a few years where I naively thought that the most vile tendencies of anime had finally backed off a little bit. I don’t know if it was just my own perception that changed or whether the peculiar tastes of anime otaku flowed in a different direction, but it seemed like some time after the popularity of nasty stuff like Kodomo no Jikan faded out, lolicon and other kinds of squickier anime fanservice faded out for a while. It might be because I’m reviewing anime more consistently again but I’m starting to notice that some content of that type might be trending more towards shock value and violence, including sexual violence of various forms. Perhaps it never really went away in the first place, but I’d developed a very powerful bubble in which to live and certainly made the conscious choice not to notice it.

I try not to read other reviews before I watch the intro episode of a series, but skimming across the premise of this had me thinking it might be a good idea in this case. I actually read through a few previews around the web because beyond being squicked-out, I thought watching this might genuinely be upsetting if I didn’t know what to expect. At some point I was even waffling over whether to ignore the show entirely and save myself the trouble. While it’s not something I typically like to do, I think most of my readers would understand. There’s always a choice to be made between being a completionist or disregarding things that have no merit. Sometimes it makes sense to suck it up and power through the bad stuff; it can definitely be a development opportunity because writing critically about something without flying off the handle is a skill that’s useful beyond anime critique. A review of an upsetting series might be of help to sensitive readers who rely on you to point those things out. Sometimes self-care is more paramount, though; knowing where that limit exists is a skill developed over time with a lot of trial and error. Despite things that have happened to me in my life, more often than not I tend to choose to face upsetting content because despite the fact that it often exhausts me, I’d rather be responsible for warning other people off than ignoring the issue entirely. That’s just me, though.

Having prefaced with all of that, my opinion should be pretty obvious. This is a series, framed as a comedy, in which a grown woman creeps on a pre-pubescent girl. I think it should be fairly clear to most people reading that I don’t find that sort of thing funny, and in fact the entire premise on which the series is based is in extremely poor taste. It would be one thing if Tsubame’s obsession were framed as just a desire for cuteness in her life, devoid of the sexual component. Her overbearing, all-encompassing need to turn Misha into her plaything would still be awful, but would exist on a lesser plane of awfulness. The episode removes any opportunity for plausible deniability when Tsubame flashes back to her high school days – she turns down a romantic confession from a female classmate because the girl has already started menstruating and exhibiting secondary sex characteristics, and she relates this directly to Misha in a tirade about how “a flower is most beautiful just before its petals fall.” Hoo, boy.

Tsubame is obviously terrible and embodies most of the failings of this show, but what I found more viscerally upsetting was Misha’s father – a man who seems either entirely ignorant, or willing to completely overlook the possibility of his daughter’s abuse by the pedophile he’s welcomed into their home. One of the things I’ve heard repeated several times over the past weeks and months in stories of sexual abuse is that many survivors either didn’t think they’d be believed if they came forward, or actually attempted to reach out for help and were disregarded or accused of lying by the adults in their lives. When I look at Misha’s father, I don’t just see a character who’s clueless for the sake of the narrative, I see something much more terrible and sinister – an adult in a position of trust who does not in any way deserve it. How would you feel if you were 10 years old and your father happily ordered sushi while a pedophile tried to break down your door? The implications are frankly upsetting to me.

I don’t hand out very many bottom-tier grades, but I feel that it’s justified in this case. I’ve watched a lot of anime series that weren’t shy about putting their worst foot forward, but in a sense that’s more helpful to me; at least they’re clear about their intentions. This series couches potential sexual abuse in a package of slapstick comedy. It mistakes the tragedy of an unaware, clueless, and in-denial parent for something worthy of a laugh. It attempts to pretty up the package with above-average animation, a cute animal mascot, and a bright color palette. These are insidious little things that I can’t overlook for the sake of an ill-gotten chuckle. I think most anime viewers ought to stay very far away from this title.

Pros: There are some genuinely good animation cuts throughout the episode.

Cons: To reduce it down to a couple of talking points would be a failure of criticism.

Grade: F