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Title (English) Hand Maid May
Title (Japanese) Hand Maid Mei
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Fantasy Novel

Notes 10 episodes. Also on R2 DVD (with 11 episodes).

Classification -
Synopsis For those who aren't familiar with HMM, it is a comedy about Kazuya, a college student who is a computer major and is trying to develop artificial intelligence programs for robotic toys. He accidentally "orders" a "Cyber Doll" and receives a Barbie sized sentient maid robot. The show then goes through many typical ( almost de rigure ) situations of fembot shows - keeping the hyper naïve May out of trouble, handling the appearance of other hyper dolls, keeping an ambitious friend from stealing May, and so on. One cliché that is avoided is the "first love" cliché, since Kazuya has a very sexy and willing next door neighbor who is a real girl. (Dave Baranyi)
Review I just finished watching the first episode of the new Pioneer/Wowow sci-fi comedy series "Hand Job May", oops, I mean "Hand Maid May". From the previews I had expected this show to be just another "fembot" series - and I was right, but it is a fembot series with a sense of sophomoric humor that somehow endeavors to reach beyond simple panty shots and jiggling female breasts to achieve a sort of "style".
The story is about Kazuya Saotome, a second year college student who is a bit of a computer nerd, both for hardware and software. He has a cute and usually underdressed neighbor named Kasumi Tani who is a first year college student and who has a ladder between her bedroom window and Kazuya's room. Kazuya spends much of his time trying to make robot toys ( such as a robot squid at the beginning of the show ) and otherwise blushing at Kasumi's cleavage or panties. ( As you may have gleaned by now, "Hand Maid May" is not a "girl's show" by any stretch of the imagination. )
Kazuya is given a program from his very strange friend/competitor(?) Koutarou Nanbara which will supposedly speed up Kazuya's computer, but instead, while malfunctioning it somehow links to something called the "Cyberdoll Net" where Kazuya accidentally orders a "Cyber Maid". The doorbell rings an instant later and there is a tall, oddly dressed babe with a box for Kazuya. The babe at the door disappears before getting Kazuya's hanko and Kazuya discovers that the box contains a very life-like and sentient 1/6th scale "cyber maid" named May. May is designed to be like a 17 year old - but a 17 year old Playmate. ( Pioneer is obviously planning ahead to sales in the US and is trying to make the characters somewhat "of age" )
May enters lots of data about Kazuya and is ecstatic that they have the same birthdays. She then shows him the "super powers" that she has - she can act as a TV remote!!! But all this wears down her battery and she collapses just after telling Kazuya that her re-charger is still in the box ( which has fallen out the window ). Kazuya finds the box and the charger, but the charger was damaged, so Kazuya had to repair the alien/advanced technology as best as possible. When he finished he was faced with finding the "socket" on May to plug in the charger, and you can "guess" where the socket is.
The episode ended with Kasumi coming over and getting introduced to the Barbie Doll-sized May.
From the ending of the show ( which looked as if it will become the opening ) and the info on the Wowow web site at:
http://www.wowow.co.jp/lineup/handmaid/index.html and the "official" "Hand Maid" site at: http://www.hand-maid.net/ it appears that May will be joined by other "full scale" hand maids.
BTW - the episode was listed as "1 of 10", which is in itself odd. Overall, the show was more entertaining than I expected - as long as it sticks to comedy and keeps Kazuya "connected" with his "real" neighbor I'll watch it - it's fun enough summer fare.
(Dave Baranyi)

I'm certainly doing a lot of "the end of" posts recently. This one is the end of "Hand Maid May", the recent 10-part Wowow fembot show. To an extent, a 10-part TV series seems more like an OAV, and "Hand Maid May" also "felt" a lot like an OAV. The graphics were nice and bright, the music lively, the girls often in a state of undress and the plot very light.

Overall the series is very light weight fun - there is a bit of "dramatic tension" in the last two episodes, but there is never any doubt that the resolution to the series will be a happy one. ( In this case the resolution was helped out with a bit of "deus ex machina". ) But what makes the series watchable is the energy with which the situations, cliches and all, are presented. This is a fast paced series and would make quite a nice "no stress" evening if you wanted to watch all 10 episodes in a row.
So overall, as long as you aren't expecting something in the "Masterpiece Theater" vein, ( it's much more like the old Sesame Street "Monster Piece Theater" routines ) you may well enjoy this series.
(Dave Baranyi)

Ho hum, another series with cute fembots, one thinks. In fact "Hand Maid May" turns out to be a refreshing variant on the genre. Cute and clueless playmate May is only a foot high, and some of the best scenes exploit May's small size. This show is a bit ruder than some (no prizes at all for guessing where May's charger plugs in). The usual ingredients are turned over with refreshing energy; it's not serious but not completely dumb. Recommended as light entertainment.

Yes, you are reading right - an 11th episode has been added to the 10 episode Wowow/Pioneer fembot comedy series from last year, "Hand Maid May". The 11th episode is included in the final DVD volume from the series, PIBA-1235. Surprising to me, the 11th episode is just as much fun as the other 10 episodes, not something that Pioneer has been done successfully in "bonus" episodes for other series.
This episode takes place after the ending of the original series. All of the regular zanies are hanging around Kazuya's apartment, causing the normal chaos. But as everyone is leaving one morning, May gets a package containing 5 new mini-Mays. They ask her to do a memory dump to them, but something glitches during the transfer and May's personality is transferred as well as her memory to the five mini-Mays. This leaves big May unconscious and leaves the 5 mini-Mays with 5 different aspects of May's personality - aggressive, passive, coy, dumb and compulsive.
Add to this a baby boy who is lost by a distracted neighbor and found by Lena, who decides to take care of the baby, with the help of the 5 mini-Mays. All sorts of gags come out of these situations and everything is resolved comically and happily. One particular bonus of this episode is that Ikariya gets a lot more time and lines. ( You've got to see him pouting in the corner as the girls pay attention to the Baby instead of him, and his reaction when he gets his "first kiss" from no one less than Nanbara! ) There are also lots of panty shots, ecchi jokes and other harmless pieces of fan service, in the "tradition" of the first 10 episodes. Oh yes, there are also more scenes from the "TV Soap" with the Oscar ( from "Rose of Versailles" ) look-alike.
So all-in-all, this is a worthwhile series to watch if you are looking for light, bright fun, and the bonus episode adds nicely to the overall enjoyment of the series. (Dave Baranyi)

I liked this show because it well presented the form of 'idealized fake family' which many lonely otaku people are longing for (g). No pressures of real parents or family. No effort should be made to get nice girlfriends. And daily life was such cheerful like spending in the clubhouse after school. Pioneer and its staffers are well aware what male otaku people are wishing for.
For the seiyu tip, Yamamoto Maria did May and Takahashi Mikako did Kasumi. They did pretty good jobs. The theme music is also cheerful and fun.
CALCI

Credits
Episodes 11
Release Jap:DVD, US:VHS, US:DVD
TV Showing See the whole series for free? This series may be syndicated to regional cable, satellite or terrestial TV stations. For Europe click here.
Date 2000 July 26 - 2000 September 27
Production Pioneer
Broadcaster WOWOW
Animation
References & Help Look up the latest data on this title at:
Richard Llewellyn's Animated Divots, or
Anime News Network (see Encyclopedia section) ,
or in "The Anime Encyclopedia" (Clements & McCarthy, Stone Bridge Press, 2001).
Help & further information.

 

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