Meido - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Maid; Maid Of Moe

Everybody ought to have a maid,

Everybody ought to have a serving-girl,

A loyal and unswerving girl,

To putter around the house.

— A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

"A maid is a 'mythical being' that all of us have heard about, but have never seen."

— ZUN.

In anime, the housekeeper is a young, attractive woman with a ribbon or bow in her hair, and wears a French maid outfit of variable taste. In seinen, the main difference is how much shorter and more outlandish the skirt will be.

Humorous maids are usually very (violently) dedicated to their jobs and (willfully) oblivious to whomever they look after. Others will have crushes on their bosses, who they usually call goshujin-sama or ojou-sama.

Sometimes a female character will inexplicably wear an outfit which vaguely resembles a maid outfit. The chance of this increases dramatically if she is shown doing any housework. Also, more and more often, the maid is also a Robot Girl.

If the meido in question happens to be an Action Girl as well, she gets instantly promoted to Ninja Maid.

Maids are a quick and semi-plausible excuse to introduce a character into a household, domestic experience notwithstanding.

Meido are of particular interest, insofar as they and nurses are among the very few Moe Moe items that attract both Japanese and Westerners.

Compare to French Maid, the (occasionally) Hotter And Sexier origin of this trope. See also Maid RPG, which is a game built around the concept of this type of Maid.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Parodied in Haré+Guu with Bell, Weda's creepy lesbian maid.
Pani Poni Dash's Media is a prime example of this, seen wearing an maid outfit in just about every one of her appearances during the series.
One of the Happy Lesson teachers usually wears a maid-like outfit at home, and naturally does much of the domestic chores.
Speaking of creepy lesbian maids, Kannazuki No Miko's resident maid had a crush on Chikane.
The lead girls in Magikano and FLCL posing as maids clearly have no experience doing; it's an excuse for free room and board.
Kamen No Maid Guy subverts, parodies and basically dials the concept of "maid" up to 11. As the title says, Kogarashi is a Maid Guy — a crossdressing Heroic Sociopath. The series also includes Shizuku and Tsurara, who are Ninja Maids.
- The more straight version of this trope, Fubiki, who only subverts this in two ways: first, she has a tendency to beat Kogarashi with a giant spiked club when he misbehaves; second, she sometimes goes overboard with her maid duties, even becoming embarrassed when the other cast members catch her in normal clothes.
After a (relatively) humorous breakdown, Motoko in Love Hina tries her hand at being domestic, including full maid regalia. Considering her unusual size, it's a bit confusing where she got the outfit.
- In the manga she stole it from Kitsune, in the anime Haruka apparently had a maid outfit lying around.
Ken Akamatsu then went on to make the girls of his next series Mahou Sensei Negima wear maid outfits for sometimes no reason at all; primarily with the, as is common, Robot Girl Chachamaru (the rest of the cast once broke into her wardrobe).
- For Chachamaru there's justification, she is Evangeline's servant. The other girls, well the excuse was that thay'd just taken a bath and wanted clean clothes (they were in Evangeline's resort at the time).
- During the Tournament Arc, Setsuna and Asuna get pressganged into wearing maid outfits to appeal to the crowd, mainly because they don't really have any pulls (like "last years champion", etc.)
  - Then later, while half the cast was Trapped In Another World, she dressed up several of the remaining classmates because she was bored. Evangeline seems to just have a thing for the Maid/Gothloli look.
  - Then some of the girls who were in the magic world ended up sold into slavery, complete with maid outfits.
Victorian Romance Emma is a rather straight take on the idea, down to Emma's mundane outfit (for Victorian England, anyway).
Mai-Otome was originally going to be called "Mai-Maid" (based on Fumi's role in Mai-HiME). The series actually has a meido proper in royal court servant Aoi.
Very nearly the entire cast of Hanaukyo Maid Tai are maids.
Hand Maid May is a Robot Girl maid called a Cyberdoll.
There's an entire army of Catgirl maids in UFO Princess Valkyrie
Chobits has a character who also has a cadre of Robot Girl Persocom maids.
Mahoromatic features a Robot Girl battle android who has one year remaining to live, and choses to spend it as the maid of her late Commander's son.
Roberta of Black Lagoon is currently employed as a maid but occasionally has need of her other skillset as an ex-Cuban-trained assassin par excellance. Her equipment is of both worlds and includes such interesting combination items as a shotgun-umbrella, incendiary grenade-bustle, and an armored portmanteau with integrated machinegun. However, she's not a very good maid.
- Fabiola Iglesias is an actual housemaid working for the same family, serving directly under Roberta. A younger, more comic-relief character, she is still very good with blades and martial arts, although she admits her gun skills need work. While Fabiola also mentions that she is the only one of the Lovelace maids being trained by Roberta for combat, Revy still wonders if the entire Lovelace Plantation was a Bad Ass maid force that could storm the Iranian embassy if they wanted to. (All portents point to "Yes.")
Taeko in Ai Yori Aoshi.
Minto in Tokyo Mew Mew has her own squad of more traditional maids.
Mia Clementis in Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na.
Ayanokouji Yaito of Rockman.EXE has, in the anime, a personal army of twenty-odd maids in full French maid regalia, all attractive and with varying hairstyles. In any later episode featuring her, the viewer is usually treated to a montage of various maids about the town doing whatever task she's set them.
Kasumi from Ranma 1/2 wears a maid-like apron at all times, and is generally sweet, domestic, and clueless.
- Akane once disguised herself as a French maid (with bonnet and everything) to infiltrate the house of Picolet Chardin, who had taken female Ranma to make her his bride. Then Soun disguised himself the same way.
- Female Ranma also disguised herself as a French maid in order to thwart Ryoga, who was trying to entertain both Akari and Akane (separately) at his home.
Mikuru, the Moe-blob from Suzumiya Haruhi, is picked by Haruhi as the SOS Brigade's maid.
- In the episode "Live Alive", Tsuruya-san and a couple of other school girls are dressed as maids and serve noodles and tap water for the Arts Festival.
Wilhelmina in Shakugan No Shana ~de arimasu (even though she's terrible at cooking).
In Gravion, the entire staff of Klein Sandman's castle other than his Battle Butler is composed of maids. Servant maids, Guard maids, commando maids, hacker maids, mechanic maids, and even one member of the central Super Robot team. Who of course turns out to be a Robot Maid
Fiore from Chrono Crusade fits this trope to a T.
The Lamperouge household's maid Sayoko from Code Geass does housework, looks after the Ill Girl and occasionally battles cyborg assassins with ninja martial arts. She's got her Fan Nickname of "the Sayocopter" for a reason.
Sent up in Lucky Star, where Patty wishes she had a Meido to do her chores so she could spend more time watching anime...that's specifically a Meido, not a housekeeper. There's a difference!
Maika in Toaru Majutsu No Index. Academy City, where the story takes place, has maid schools.
The whole point of He Is My Master is to put two teenage girls (and later three) into fetish maid outfits◊. At first reluctant, they end up warming to the idea, and by the end of the series actually enjoy it.
- The first enjoys wearing it, the second hates wearing it, and the third enjoys the second one wearing it.
Fruits Basket has the, er, lively character Mine who dresses in costume out of pure enjoyment-and insists that every other girl she meets does the same
Hayate The Combat Butler. Maria. This. Perverse Sexual Lust. A guy sitting at his computer editing this page right now. Need I say more? Also, sadly, Hayate is shown wearing a maid dress thanks to a curse.
- Sadly?
- The Maid Episode
- Saki also fills this quotient for Wataru (though without the respectful title). Chiharu is a secret maid.
- Isumi and Nagi wear try to project the impression on an occasion. Since they're both Ojous, they fail at varying degrees.
- Izumi pretends to be one with the short skirt uniform at her father's insistance. All the other maids (and psudo-maids) use the long skirt variation.
Pai in G On Riders wears maid outfit after her Heel Face Turn and causes some utterly funny scenes forgetting to change and going to school.
Fumi Himeno in Mai-HiME fits this trope to a T, in addition to being a Ninja Maid. Mai Otome is built on this trope, with an on-camera lecture devoted entirely to "the correct way to greet your master".
Amu Hinamori (Shugo Chara) has a maid, Amulet Clover, as one of her three primary charanari.
Himeko wears a maid outfit during the school festival in Sket Dance, since her class is doing, unsurprisingly, a maid cafe. The costume makes a reappearance in a later chapter, in which Himeko agrees to do anything Bossun says as an apology for breaking his hand. This includes dressing up as a maid, calling him 'master' and hand feeding him. Of course, Hilarity Ensues.
Shannon from Umineko No Naku Koro Ni. Not quite a Ninja Maid — she's a defensive Barrier Warrior, closer to a Staff Chick. Kanon is a male example and straight-up Battle Butler.
- Maid costumes are one of the many strange "punishment games" Mion inflicts on the other club members in Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. Dr. Irie gets a little too excited about seeing Satoko in one.
In Pokemon Special, Latias disguises herself as a maid to help out Emerald in the Battle Pyramid. Later on she disguises herself as a news reporter, then a nurse.

Music

Neil Young's song "A Man Needs a Maid" is pretty self explanatory. The lyrics, which include "I was thinking that maybe I'd get a maid/Find a place nearby for her to stay./ Just someone to keep my house clean,/Fix my meals and go away," pretty much define this trope.

Tabletop Games

The Japanese Tabletop Game Maid RPG needs to be mentioned... Or So I Heard.

Video Games

Mother 3 has Ms. Marshmallow, a robotic maid who takes care of Porky Minch's toy room in Thunder Tower.
Hisui of Tsukihime has a crush on Shiki, more or less obvious depending on what path is chosen. She is also hugely dedicated and caring towards him. There's also Kohaku, who is seemingly very devoted to her job, and has a scary obsession with...guess who...Shiki!
- They become Ninja Maids in Melty Blood. Supposedly because of the Reality Warper effect of the Big Bad.
  - In keeping with this trope, in the goofier parts of the game Kohaku has built multiple Robot Girl versions of Hisui. Mech-Hisui also makes an appearance in Battle Moon Wars, a fan-made Nasuverse crossover game.
Samantha of Killer7 is both an example, and an aversion, due to a Split Personality. One is a typical maid, and the other is...less than ideal.
Noel in Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever is also a Robot Girl. She appears in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha with a sister, another maid.
Nene in Touka Gettan. There's a bunch of other Meido shown, but none of them are named.
One random NPC in The World Ends With You in more-or-less Present Day Shibuya, Japan wonders to himself if a girl he saw dressed up as a Maid was working at a Cosplay bar. This lead to him wondering if there are any maids who dress that way to actually clean houses.
Lynette from Soul Calibur III is dressed like this, but sells clothing at various stores instead of cleaning houses.
Sakuya Izayoi from Touhou Project, as the head maid of a vampire's mansion, leads a small army of (pretty incompetent) fairy maids. She can also stop time and is very, very good with the knives. I heard that she used to hunt demons and vampires before that.
- Reimu Hakurei in the PC-98 games also had a robot maid, although since it is a PC-98 game, we have no idea what happened to the nuclear-powered maid who only showed herself in one scene.
  - Then there's two other maids, also from the PC-98 games, that no one seems to remember ...
- Konpaku Youmu is formally a gardener of Hakugyokurou, but she's also its only staff. She cooks, cleans, babysits (her mistress Yuyuko is something of a Cloudcuckoolander), does household shopping, acts as security ...
Daniella in Haunting Ground is an Ax Crazy homonculus maid.
Iroha from Samurai Shodown.
Persephone is a rather infamous Cute Monster Girl appearing in the DS Castlevanias. Described in the bestiary as "a demonic maid in the employ of an earthly baron", Persephone resembles a traditionally-uniformed, frilly-capped little lady that will politely bow down before you and then will attacke you with some kung fu moves.
In Super Paper Mario, the first time the player sees Mimi (outside of the first scene in Castle Bleck, where she only appears in the forms of other characters), she is dressed in a french maid outfit and claiming to be working as a maid for Merlee. Once the Final Boss is defeated and most of Count Bleck's minions did Heel Face Turns, Mimi can be found in the mansion again, this time as a legitimate maid.
A sidequest in Tales Of Symphonia has Colette acting as a maid at Meltokio Castle, complete with the archetypal outfit.
- Maid outfits are often used as an alternate costume in the Tales Series. Tear and Judith get maid costumes to use. The latter woman can sweep the enemy to death if she has this costume and equips the reccurring Joke Item Deck Brush
This is an outfit in Animal Crossing City Folk, which this editor uses to scare his friends.
Fiona from Arcana Heart goes into battle wearing a maid costume.
Phantasy Star Universe has the Amorel gear (left-most picture on the bottom row◊), a set of parts for female CASTs (I don't know if there's an equivalent set of clothes for female Humans/Newman/Beasts). Given the fact that a CAST is a robot...
Lunar Knights gives us Carmilla. Frilly headpiece and everything.
In Persona 3 the Main Character's ever-original classmates decide to do a café for their School Festival. Yukari dreads it from the depths of her spirit because it means wearing a maid uniform; Junpei and the rest of the male schoolmates look forward to this cherished event. Alas, a typhoon rips through Iwatodai and the School Festival is canceled, to the endless grief of said schoolmates (and the Main Character is also asked if he mourns the loss.)
- In the Persona 3 FES release, the surveillance camera skits show Yukari in her dorm room; she had indeed procured an authentic maid uniform, not a costume, and gripes loudly about how everyone wanted to see her in it. Eventually, she gives in to curiosity and wears it, and pantomimes serving a costumer. When Fuuka catches her, Yukari cheerfully ropes her into the game and dresses her in a spare uniform.
- There's also a series of "Maid Uniform" costumes for the female members of the party to wear during the Dark Hour, as rewards for Elizabeth's requests. Aigis will find it odd if you ask her to wear one, but Yukari and Mitsuru will chew you out considerably for it. And of course, you can get all three of them in the party at the same time, wearing those outfits.
In Sister Princess, the family is taken care of by "oyaji", who is actually a fetching young lady. She acts as the butler, the chauffeur, the cook...basically, any off-screen job involved in the upkeep of Promise Island. (In the animated adaptation, "oyaji" is now a middle aged man in similar roles.)

Webcomics

Volume 1 of Van Von Hunter features a psychopathic Cockney maid named Miriam who cleans floors with a knife.
Yuki Sonada, in Mega Tokyo, dresses up as this to follow Piro into a meido cafe, disguising herself as one of the staff.
- It's implied that she steals the clothes right off someone's back, too.

Other