The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious

“trying its hardest to get canceled”

Let's go back to summer 2022. In a season where Ayanokoji was outplaying every other student on the campus, Reg and Riko were uncovering the secrets the abyss had in store for them. Overlord was making sure its viewers weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. But even amidst this stacked lineup, we had a show named ‘The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious.’ Quite an intriguing title, given how the maids have taken over the anime universe, almost establishing a separate genre of their own over the years.

Now, most of you will remember 2021's fall lineup as well. No? Well, isn't that a surprise? Of course, I'm not asking you to name every other show that the season featured, but a particular show called ‘The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated’! Ring any bells? Konbu Wakame, the mangaka behind both shows in question, was the talk of the town for quite some time, even before ‘The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated!’ went on air.

It's only a given that fans were excited to see what this new yet mysterious maid would bring to the screen. But most of us just didn't give it a go, dropped the show halfway, or just finished and forgot about it, given how the show didn't stand out for the most part. Since today, if you have been looking for someone to discuss this 'lost' title from 2022, look no further than 'The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious'!

A mysterious entrance

A mysterious maid is bound to have a reserved entrance, right? Well, if popping up in a kid's life out of the blue while not stating your motive or the reason for being in that mansion counts as mysterious, then Lilith is one maid shrouded in mystery. Our protagonist is a young boy by the name of Yuuri who lost his parents in a car accident, leaving him alone at the mercy of this cruel world.

His family isn't the wealthiest that we've seen in recent years as well, but still, a mansion and a bunch of butlers and maids on his beck and call are bound to give him some space and start taking those baby steps necessary to take responsibility as the new head of the mansion. But instead of leaning on these chaperones, he ends up firing all of them and deciding to look after everything himself.

If you ask me, that's a bold move for a 10-year-old. Most of us have trouble sleeping alone while being 20+ years old, and look at him! Of course, the boy has to face the aftermath of his decision since, with all these responsibilities hitting him from every direction possible, it's only natural that he needs some time to adapt to his new life.

But then, one day, this mysterious maid named Lilith arrives at his doorstep. Lilith isn't someone Yuuri knows about, and her request to work as a maid in the mansion only raises every red flag. Of course, Yuuri declines, but after some back and forth, his stomach finally gives way, and he ends up letting the maid inside the mansion and in his very own life!

The perfect maid

Suppose a beautiful tan maid requests to work for you for free while only demanding a place to stay. That isn't suspicious enough. In that case, her prowess in everything maid-like will have you questioning her identity and the motive behind everything she does. Anything you can think of, Lilith is as good at it as it gets. It's as if she's been a maid at another mansion for a long time, and that experience has shaped her into this perfect maid that could go head-to-head against Sebastian Michaelis, of course, if the latter doesn't decide to bring his hell version to life.

The ‘teasing’ genre has become a thing over the last few years. It was an added bonus back in the day—just another aspect of these ‘ecchi/harem’ shows that ended up pumping that fanservice element to infinity and beyond. But with the likes of ‘Takagi-san,’ ‘Ayumu’ and ‘The Duke of Death and his Maid,’ it's only natural that we're seeing titles like ‘The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious!’ where the whole premise is based on the fact that the maid is teasing the young boy to get a reaction from him, all the while these interactions lead to something entirely different.

The title has a lot of similarities with ‘The Duke of Death and His Maid.’ Still, instead of the Duke having that curse, we've got Yuuri, the master of making all these different assumptions, and Lilith playing along with them doesn't help with anything either. Are you poisoning my food and scheming against me? The list goes on and on. But what more can you expect? Yuuri is only ten years old, so I don't think it would be unusual for him to become upset by this bombshell maid.

A bland character cast

Don't get me wrong, Lilith has an excellent character design, one that has given birth to many forbidden forms of media, if you know what I'm talking about. Despite the show having subpar animation and it being made precise time and time again that the studio didn't have enough resources to animate this manga in the best way possible thanks to the quality, one thing that the staff makes sure of is that Lilith is ‘looking’ her very best. 

As if her character isn't steaming already, her being subject to all these different interactions with the master of the mansion and all these other characters only lets us have a peek at all the different angles the maid offers.

For the most part, Yuuri is a tsundere kid, to be honest. He's suspicious of his maid and makes sure he voices his opinion about her while the maid laughs it off or plays along to entertain the viewers. The music is good and is above average for the most part, but the animation is subpar at best and ends up being a weak aspect of the anime. Many other characters, including maids and butlers, have their own personas, but nothing really stands out. Yuuri and Lilith are the show's main highlights, and no one can say otherwise.

An illegal romance

This is the part where the title comes into play. Now, the anime and manga industries are known for having titles that could be better sometimes, with the newer ones getting weirder by the second. The title is okay this time around, though. However, if you compare the anime to its most similar counterpart, The Duke of Death and his Maid, Alice and the Duke are about the same age, so the maid teasing our beloved Bocchan, who is flustered about it, and finally falling head over heels for the beautiful girl isn't wrong by any means.

But back to the show in question: Lilith, the maid, is in her late teens or early twenties, while Yuuri is ten years old! That is one legal and one illegal character! Before you say anything like, "Look past that" or "It is just an anime," you should know that is downright bizarre!

Over the episodes that the series features, Yuuri often points out how Lilith is trying to get him all flustered and red, and even in the last few episodes, we see him getting close to Lilith, even expressing his wish to have many, many children as a 10-year-old boy right about the end of the series. The tables have turned this time, and the maid is flustered, but you get what I'm talking about here, right?

Being a show that features a Lilith very similar to Jahy, who stole the show back in 2021, I can't see why fans of Jahy would be sleeping on ‘The Maid I Hired Recently, Is Mysterious.’ The anime makes sure it takes the newly generated teasing genre and breaks every limit there is while delivering an experience that's only good for these ‘gifs’ and memes that Twitter seems to love.

Sure, how the bond develops between the two and how we learn a lot more about their personalities ends up becoming what many viewers love. Despite this, I find the show to be uninteresting to watch, as who wants a child to spend the entire day rambling about a maid who is constantly trying to make him fall in love with her? 

I'd give it a 7/10 all because of Lilith since she's the show's star and the MVP maid who has cemented her name among the best this genre offers. Let us know your thoughts about the series, since we'd love to hear them!

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