MAZE★The Megaburst Space (MAZE Bakunetsu Jikū) is a series of light novels written by Satoru Akahori, which were published from 1993 to 1998 for 13 volumes. The 1996 anime adaptations were done by J.C. Staff.
Mei Ikaruga is a mild-mannered Japanese college student who one day wakes up in a lost forest with no idea how she got there or anything else except that her name is Maze. She promptly meets the princess Mill, being pursued by a band of savage humanoids, then by knights who can summon demiarmors to fight in. At this point she finds that in this world she is a powerful "luminator" who can pilot Mill's own demiarmor. Mill's kingdom of Bartonia has just been overrun by an evil force, the Jaina Holy Group led by the Creator, and Maze decides to protect Mill and fight back. They will need allies for this grand undertaking.
Then the sun goes down, and Maze abruptly turns into a male Handsome Lech. The life of the dual-gendered protagonist has just gotten a lot more complicated.
Maze Megaburst Space provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: This is a work by Satoru Akahori, and the show itself pretty much is a parody of the mecha and fantasy genres.
- Alternate Character Reading: Akira can also be read as "Mei". Hence Mei and Akira become "The two Meis" and from there become "Maze"
- BFS: Aster's weapon of choice is a huge sword.
- Big Bad: The Creator is the head of the Jaina Holy Group and the one who killed Princess Mill's family, conquered her kingdom of Bartonia, and seeks to kidnap Mill. He/she is thus the main enemy of Maze, and a Sex Shifter just like them.
- Body Swap: The after effects of a potion to seal Maze's magic also screws up the transformation and temporarily results in Male Maze's personality controlling the female form and vice versa.
- Blood Knight: Male Maze. Nothing extreme but the guy loves to fight, especially at the beginning.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Just the smell can get Rapier drunk.
- Cast from Hit Points: Since Phantom Light power can't be used normally in Maze's homeworld, Gorgeous delves into more and more subversive arts that take a serious toll on his body.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Mill, she won't let Maze get close to anyone else.
- Deadly Upgrade: The original Namchi was bad enough, but a few episodes later it shows up badder than ever. It also seems to take a great toll out on its pilot, Gorgeous.
- Deus ex Machina: The sun always seems to set in time for Man Maze to take over and curb stomp whoever had been previously beating around Woman Maze. Of course, the reverse can also happen, leading to the next example...
- Diabolus ex Machina: In a reversal of the previous example, the Sun rises during Maze's first encounter with Gorgeous, just as Man Maze was about to finish off his Undeader, Gord. Woman Maze manages to keep it together, however.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Gorgeous' fusions with Namchi, among other things, would most likely have killed him, if Man Maze didn't do it first.
- Gender-Blender Name: Randy the fairy is a girl, despite her name being masculine.
- Genre Mashup: The series is a mix of Trapped in Another World, Super Robot, Harem Genre, and Ecchi.
- Handsome Lech: Male Maze. He's a bishounen who will gladly grope any girl in sight.
- Harem Genre: Female Maze has a bisexual one: Mill, Solude, Aster, Gold, Saber, Randy, Ranchiki (sorta). And Akira.
- Heel–Face Turn: Sir Thanus, after Bartonian tries to make him into a scapegoat for their early losses. He and his troops begin to essentially curb stomp the Bartonian empire's forces from there.
- Henchmen Race: Most of the mooks are "demihumans", who seem unable to do much more than fighting and have no individual features.
- Hotter and Sexier: The short OVA manages to leave Randy and Mill mostly-naked for the majority of the show.
- Humongous Mecha: Called "Demiarmors", they are summoned instantly by their wielders.
- If It's You, It's Okay:
- Mill doesn't care if Maze is in male or female form. She's good either way,note and cheerfully hits on Maze in either form.
- Ranchiki is more interested in Male Maze but claims to be willing to settle for Female Maze since both are still Maze.
- Interspecies Romance: Fairies and humans, required as the former is a One-Gender Race.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: On certain days fairies transform into human women, and are supposed to mate before they transform back. (Randy becomes notably flirty when she transforms.)
- King Incognito: Gold is really King Farmount.
- Larynx Dissonance: One episode has the Female Maze transform into the Male Maze's body, but stay as the Female Maze mentally, and the next does it in reverse. In both situations the voice work is hilariously bad for the gender, but this may have been intentional.
- Lost Technology: Dulgar and the other Rom Armor were created in the past of Mill's world. The reason why Rom Armor is so valuable is because it is found by excavating ancient ruins of the futuristic society and no one knows how to make it anymore.
- Love Dodecahedron: Mostly centered around Maze. Solude, Aster, and Male Maze love Woman!Maze, while King Gold likes flirting with her. Rapier (episode 26 reveals that she lost her virginity to him and they have wild sex every night) and Ranchiki love Man!Maze. Mill loves both versions. Meanwhile, Woman!Maze doesn't really have romantic feels towards anyone except maybe Mill and Man!Maze...maybe and Man!Maze is eager to be with Mill, Solude, Rapier, and Woman!Maze...maybe. Man!Maze does not reciprocate Ranchiki's affections.
- Naughty Tentacles: Dulger's summoning sequence creates long ropes of some sort that wind around Mill and Maze. Stops happening about halfway through the series.
- Nighttime Transformation: Male Maze only comes out at night.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Even though Male Maze raped Princess Mix, she thought he was a sweet, loving man, and falls in love with him afterwards.
- One-Gender Race: Fairies are all female.
- Out of Focus: Aster pretty much exists out of focus. From his first appearance onward, his entire thing is to cut things up with his BFS and act perverted. It's at it's worst midway through the series, where you could remove him and Solude without changing things very much. Solude herself is only saved by a Day in the Limelight or two.
- Pronoun Trouble: Though not exactly a pronoun, Mill refers to Maze as Oneenii-sama, conglomerating very respectful words for "big sister (oneesama)" and "big brother (oniisama)". The dub makes it "Big Sister-Brother".
- Punny Name: After Mei gained a second personality, she is thereafter called "Maze" (i.e. two Meis instead of one).
- Shout-Out:
- Maze's arrival matches that of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, right down to the house landing on bad guys.
- Mill's mecha has a single front-facing horn, like EVA-01 in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- The OVA has Mill saying "Ukyuu!" in the title sequence in an obvious parody of MGM's Vanity Plate.
- Sex Shifter: Maze's body is female during the day, male at night, and each form has a separate personality. The same goes for the Creator. It turns out Maze's halves were originally siblings, Mei and Akira, who became merged together.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: The Eye Catch for every episode shows Mill turning in to an older version of herself. This aged up version never appears in the series itself.
- Skinship Grope: Female Maze gets groped many times, whether accidentally or for whatever reason.
- Transformation Sequence: Even more sexualised than most, it sees tentacles winding around two women's bodies and going under their clothes.
- Trapped in Another World: For half of the series Maze is stuck in another world, then she gets home and her friends follow her.
- Verbal Tic: Mill's "Ukyuu!"
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: Maze's shirt provides a common place for Randy to hang out.
- Unwanted Harem: Everyone wants one or both of the Maze; male Maze wants everyone.
- The Worf Effect: Aster and Solude generally get beaten around within the first minute of any Monster of the Week attack.
