What is it about women in maid's uniforms that make them so sexy? Is it because a maid is by definition in a subservient role, or is it that whole "uniforms are sexy" thing? Whatever the reason, anime has more than its share of shows with cute girls in tight lacey maid outfits, and most of them are filled with copious amounts of fan service. As one would expect from the title, Hanaukyo Maid Team La Verite falls into that category and is a bit better than the average maid show. (If you want a second opinion, be sure to check out Don Houston's reviews of volumes two and three.) There's an overriding plot which is fairly interesting as well as some humor that works well. Oh yeah, and fan service. Lots and lots of fan service. Now fans of the sub-genre can now pick up the whole 12 episode series in one nice collected set.

Taro Hanaukyo is a middle school student who has just lost his mother and become and orphan. No state sponsored orphanage for him though, he's going to live with his grandfather. The young man has quite a surprise in store however, starting when the private helicopter picks him up. It turns out his grandfather is rich. Filthy rich. Disgustingly, horribly rich. As he lands at the palatial estate he's greeted by the maids; hundreds of them who take care of everything from preparing his meals to security to making sure his bed is warm when he crawls into it at night. Oh yeah, and his grandfather has left the mansion and appointed Taro the head of the family. Now poor Taro, or rich Taro actually, doesn't have a moment to himself because every time he turns around there's another maid trying to please him.

Soon Taro has another problem; he's started to fall in love with the head maid, Mariel. Too add another twist; Taro discovers that Ryuka, a member of a rival clan the Jihioh family, has to marry him if she wants to eventually become the head of her family. Between fending off Ryuka and the maids who want to sleep with him and discovering some secrets about Mariel, Taro has his hands full.

This is actually the second Hanaukyo Maid Team anime. Labeled La Verite, French for 'the truth', by all accounts it is much closer to the original manga. The first time the series was animated it was more of an ecchi show with less plot and a lot more sex. It was never finished becuase the animating company ran into financial difficulties and this uncompleted first series hasn't been released in the US. That's not a worry however since La Verite starts afresh.

This is a good series, not a great one, but one worth watching if you enjoy light anime shows with lots of fan service. (One warning though: It is not for young kids. There is a fair amount of nudity in every episode mainly limited to breasts and nipples.) Unlike many maid shows, humor generally works and there is enough of a story to keep the viewer's interest. While the first four episodes are used to introduce the characters and are pretty episodic, the story kicks in after that and the quality of the show picks up at the same time.

I'm not the biggest fan of maid shows, they often have too much fan service and not nearly enough plot, but this one was fun to watch. With only 12 episodes in the whole series there weren't a lot of filler shows, which helped a lot but even at this short length some of the jokes started wearing thin by the end. The triplet maids who are supposed to warm Taro's bed for him each evening were funny at first, but definitely wore out their welcome by the end of the show.

This twelve episode series comes on three DVDs, each housed in its own standard keepcase. The three cases come in a nicely illustrated, sturdy slipcase. From all appearances, these discs are identical to the earlier single disc release of the series.

Audio:

This set comes with the original Japanese track in stereo as well as an English dub, also in stereo. I alternated audio tracks for the first few episodes, but ended watching it in Japanese which I preferred slightly. Both tracks sounded fine, though neither was very dynamic or energetic. The show is mainly dialog based, so that's not a big problem. The English dub was fun to listen to with the voice actors doing a good job of putting emotion into their roles. There weren't any audio defects worth noting.

Video:

The full screen image looks pretty good overall. The image was sharp with nice strong colors and good contrast. On the digital side, the show also looked great. Aliasing, something that often plagues animation is not a problem with this show, and only some minor posterization marred an otherwise fine looking transfer.

Extras:

This set has a pretty minimal set of extras scattered across the three discs. There is a clean opening and closing as well as some trailers. That's about it.

Enclosed with the discs and in the slipcase are a series of 6 pencil boards illustrated with characters from the series.

Final Thoughts:

Yes, this is a maid show, but it's better than the average boobs and panties maid show. There's a bit of a plot which helps to hold a viewer's interest and the humor is actually funny. For some reason I find most Japanese sex jokes rather dumb. While this show won't win any awards, it's definitely worth watching. Recommended.