Manga / Maid-Sama!

No, they're not a couple... They're a superhuman tag team...

Misaki Ayuzawa is the first female Student Council President of Seika High School, a former all-boys school which, despite recently having turned coed, remains a den of masculine crudeness — stinking sports equipment, litter, sloppy hygiene, and racy magazines... not exactly a welcoming atmosphere for its nascent female student body. Misaki is determined to change all that, and, having won the presidency through a shockingly slim margin, she proceeds to rule (read: terrorize) the male majority with an iron fist.

Takumi Usui is the most popular boy in Seika High and, like Misaki, is a model student to boot — intelligent, strong, and popular with boys and girls alike — but he frustrates Misaki to no end by making any girl who comes to confess to him cry with his flat rejections. Misaki can't stand such men, let alone all men in general ever since her father walked out on her, her younger sister, and their mother with a huge debt to boot.

Misaki and Takumi's lives, however, would truly cross for the first time the moment the latter discovers Misaki's best-kept secret: she works part-time in a maid costume at a Cosplay Café called Maid Latte in order to support her family. Despite this discovery, which Misaki fears will dash any respect left for her at school, Takumi does nothing... except become a frequent customer at the café, much to Misaki's confusion and chagrin. Is he planning to blackmail her? Is he just a jerk? Or, did the unthinkable happen — he fell in love with her?

Whatever the cause, hijinks will ensue.

Kaichou wa Maid-sama! ("The Student Council President is a Maid!") — Maid-Sama! for the US release — is a Shoujo Manga written and illustrated by Hiro Fujiwara, which ran in LaLa from 2005 to 2013. An anime adaptation first aired in the Spring 2010 anime season, and is now available in the US by Section 23 Films. What's more, an OVA titled Kaichou wa Maid-sama! LaLa Special was released with an issue of LaLa. It features character introductions and a voice swapping comedy. The last DVD/BD of the anime also contained a short OVA featuring an extra story.

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This manga provides examples of:

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Well, most of said power radiates from the President.
• Accidental Misnaming: The reason why Kanou lost the student council president election by one vote. People either kept misspelling his name or just put down "that guy with the glasses (No, not that one)," leading to said ballots being discounted.
• The Ace: Usui is:
  • "Really really really ridiculously good-looking".
  • Always has free time.
  • Highly intelligent.
  • Prone to appearing out of nowhere to tease Misaki or bail her out of a tight spot.
  • A Supreme Chef.
  • Very good at chess.
  • A talented violinist.
  • The star player of every sports club in the school. Not that he is a member of any of them.
  • Capable of leaping off the school's roof without serious injury.
    • Is he even human? Probably not. Misaki hangs a lampshade, taking to calling him a "perverted space alien." He eventually comes to reference this a lot himself.
  • Misaki herself counts, as, in most fields, she's second only to Usui. In her case, she's a genius of hard work, rather than an instant genius like Usui.
  • Later on in the series, Usui's relatives are also shown to be aces in their own rights, most notably, Gerard and Yuu.
• Action Girl: Misaki is not only strong, she's also more than willing to use it. Especially when it comes to solving problems and saving others.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Some minor characters among the Maid Latte staff and the Seika student council have some adjustments made to their hair colors in the anime. Additionally, Kou, the bassist of the band UxMishi, gets teal hair.
• Alertness Blink: All the time. Once by a cat!
• All Just a Dream: In the anime, the entirety of the Momotaro spoof side-story is engineered by Usui with a recording and a set of headphones.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: The story ends with Usui killing off the three idiots. And they all lived happily ever after.
  • Emergency Food Supply Animal: The three idiots (as Momotaro's monkey, pheasant, and dog partners) are always being told that if worse comes to worse, they will be used as food.
  • Honest Axe: Suzuna appears in this role.
  • Storybook Episode: Mashing together several fables in the process. All of which are lampshaded multiple times by Usui or Misaki.
  • Hammerspace: Usui pulls out a freaking rocket launcher from out of his cape. The Three Idiots could only exclaim, "That's impossible!"
  • The manga does this in the form of omake chapters... more than once. (Usui only arranges it for the Momotaro one.)
• All Men Are Perverts: Seika High is like this, considering that the school was just a few months into operating as co-ed when the story began. This fact became one of the reasons for Misaki's insistence in participating in the sports festival's obstacle course, as the prize for that would have been a kiss from her best friend Sakura.
• Amazon Chaser: Misaki is a magnet for these. Many of the guys who fall for her (such as Usui and Tora Igarashi) do so because of her strength and determination.
• Animal Motifs: A Doberman for Usui◊, while Shinitani's is a Shiba Inu. Wonder what animal best represents Misaki...
• Art Evolution: The first two or so volumes show a good deal of this before stabilizing into the style which is maintained through the rest of the series and in the mangaka's subsequent works.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The name of UxMishi's drummer, Yuuji William Adam (ゆぅぢ), seems likely to be a stage-name he chose himself (though the probability of him being half-Japanese, half-something else is not impossible).
• Babies Ever After: Usui and Misaki have a boy and a girl in a bonus chapter illustrating the epilogue. In addition, Suzuna is also revealed to be pregnant with Hinata's child, Sakura is pregnant with hers and Kuuga's second child, and Igarashi has a son.
• Bastard Angst: Usui Takumi, the product of an illicit affair between a British woman (Patricia) and a random Japanese man she met on her travels. Later it's revealed that the Walker family had lied because her actual partner was her valet/butler, Yuu Hirose (Patricia was too sickly to travel nor did she try). As a result, he has a strained relationship with his biological family and avoids bringing them up as much as possible. That said, his biological family is shown to be far more angsty about the whole situation than the man himself. Their relationship gets a lot less strained by the time the story ends.
• Battle Aura: Misaki usually accompanied with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
• Beach Episode: Complete with a beach volleyball tournament and an aborted onsen visit.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Usui and Misaki, although they aren't nearly as bad about it as many other manga/anime couples, going from completely belligerent to very nearly a confirmed couple about thirty-two chapters in. And while, they became an Official Couple as of chapter 57, there's still an element of this which seems to be integral to their relationship regardless.
• Bifauxnen: The employees from Misa's café sometimes have "girls only" day, were the employees dress like guys. "Misaki-kun" is very popular.
  • Misaki pulls the Sweet Polly Oliver act on her own at one point in order to help her fellow maid/friend Erika avoid a bad situation with an overly-devoted customer. Basically, she gets made over Visual Kei-style into "Bisanki-kun" and has to enter a dessert eating contest. Everyone at Maid Latte ends up figuring out it's her by the end of it. Hilarity Ensues in the process, since not only is the Idiot Trio and Hinata Shintani competing in the contest, but Usui is the chef behind it all, and intentionally heaps on the sweets to tease Misaki.
• Big Damn Kiss: This happens several times between Usui and Misaki. Following chapter four's Forceful Kiss, it first reappears in chapter 32; after that they gradually get more frequent.
• Big Damn Heroes: Usui at times, most notably when Misaki was nearly raped by Igarashi, although she was holding him off a bit.
  • In the anime, he also gets to come to the rescue when Misaki is ambushed at Maid Latte after closing by a pair of stalkers; he kicks a stun gun out of one guy's hand while Misaki handles the other one. It's subverted in the manga, however: he tries, but Misaki curbstomps both of them before he manages to do more than break in a window, so he only gets to help with the cleanup.
• Big Eater: Hinata Shintani. He used to be an overweight, lazy kid in his younger years; he slimmed down while living in the country, but he still packs it away like nobody's business. He claims the reason he never gains any weight from it anymore is from all of the vegetables he ate while living with his grandparents.
• Bland-Name Product: Misaki's laptop sports a logo which is a pear version of the Apple Computer logo.
• Butt-Monkey: Yukimura. It's harder to name times when the guy isn't being teased, tossed around, or made to cross-dress.
  • The Idiot Trio. Even by the author herself, as shown in the sidebar sections of the manga. It's lampshaded a lot.
• But Not Too Foreign: Usui is revealed to be this. Being the illegitimate child of an Englishwoman accounts for his blonde hair and green eyes. His birth name is revealed to have been "Takumi Walker," but due to the scandal that would ensue if the situation were found out, his grandfather had him adopted into his late-wife's family, the Usui household. Specifically, the English Walker family has some Japanese lineage: Patricia Walker was half English, half Japanese; her English-born son, Gerard Walker, is a quarter Japanese, while her Japanese-born son, Usui Takumi, is a quarter English. Accordingly, in the Distant Finale, Misaki and Usui's children are an eighth English (Gerard's wife's background is not mentioned, so his son's percentage of Japanese heritage cannot be confirmed, but is probably an eighth).
  • Maria Miyazono, the woman who becomes Seika High's English teacher. No explanation is given beyond her being a relative of Usui's. That said, it probably has something to do with her relationship to the Walker or Usui families.
• Cat Girl: One of the the boss's ideas for making her café even more Moe.
• Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Aoi to Usui, not that it works. Misaki to Usui in the final episode.
• Character Development: Quite aplenty among the cast. This is most prominent for Misaki and Usui (along with a healthy does of Couple Growth), but other characters also get screen-time for this (e.g. Kanou, Kuuga, Aoi, Ruri, and Gerard).
• Chickification: Subverted early on: It looks like Misaki is going to need Usui to rescue her from assault after a couple of guys catch her alone in the café after hours. Misaki breaks out of her restraints in a fit of rage and curbstomps them before Usui can do more than kick in a window.
  • Usui gets a little more to do in the anime version of the scene, kicking the stun-gun out of one of the guy's hands while Misaki is busy beating the other one to a pulp. In the scene from the manga, however, she handles everything herself.
• Chick Magnet: Usui, who frequently rejects confessions and also has to deal with strangers taking random photos of him and stealing his things. Additionally, Usui is unanimously considered attractive, at least physically. Misaki is something of a Distaff Counterpart herself, with at least nine people (Takumi Usui, the Idiot Trio, Tora Igarashi ^note  The Student Council President of Miyabi Gaoka Academy , Kuuga Sakurai ^note  The lead vocalist of UxMishi , Hinata Shintani, Maria Miyazono (a confirmed lesbian), and Aoi Hyoudou) interested in her. One of the main differences is that Misaki's admirers are mostly named characters (with people in general not seeing her appeal until much later in the series), while Usui's are basically every random female who appears (so very few of them are named).
  • Out of universe as well. The majority of the Periphery Demographic seem to have fallen in love with her to some degree or another, due to being one of the more properly-developed characters of the Tsundere archetype.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Usui teases Misaki endlessly about the fact that they're attracted to each other but he doesn't actually do anything naughty to her beyond kissing her, even when it's heavily implied that he's in a position to do so. In fact, he is chivalrous to the point that in chapter 48, Misaki is not only completely unworried about leaving Sakura alone with him, she's baffled at Kuuga's suggestion that she should be worried, in spite of her usual opinions about men.
  • Possibly subverted when Misaki is very clearly willing, as in chapters 61-62 and the end of chapter 79. They're interrupted both times, leaving this open for interpretation. And his proposal to her in chapter 81 complicates things further, considering its phrasing.
• Colour Coded Eyes: Usui's a fairly aloof and mysterious guy with green eyes, reaching nearly superhuman level feats. In the anime, he's even got a cat with eyes the same colour (it's a slightly different shade).
• Cosplay Café: Misaki works at a maid cafe, which she tries to keep under wraps from everyone at school. While the cafe is usually maid-themed, they also have cosplaying events with other themes (e.g. little sister day and witch-maid day).
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Basically any time Usui gets involved in any kind of competition. Even if he has a broken arm. Misaki also delivers a few curbstomps herself (see above).
• Curtains Match the Window: Quite a few characters with the exception of Usui and, most of the time at least, Misaki.
• Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Misaki, big time. Thus her rice balls. It usually isn't so much that she uses too much strength as it is her not realizing how absurdly strong she is relative to a typical adult male in his prime.
  • Hilariously played with in the first Sports' Festival arc: Misaki was "exercising" by substituting her usual waiting tray with a material that apparently weighed several tons. Satsuki was more than shocked to discover this when she tried to help Misaki out by taking the tray and finding it so heavy that she dropped it and it weighed enough that damaged the floor.
• Does Not Like Men: Initially Misaki thinks that most guys are irresponsible scum, although the majority of the male students are depicted as mostly harmless. She improves.
  • She gets a Spear Counterpart in Soutarou Kanou who initially hates girls because of a similar but gender flipped reason as Misaki — his mother abandoned his family when he was younger. ^note  Although the reason isn't quite exactly the same as the mother left because Kanou's dad was a violent, chauvinist brute. But she didn't take him with her, so it still follows.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The male protagonist being a handsome lech who turns out to be a not-too-foreign illegitimate child, who was disowned by a grandparent, and is in love with a strong-willed, indifferent-to-romance heroine? Why does that sound familiar?
• Dragged by the Collar: Misaki constantly beats up and drags away the Comic Trio whenever they're being silly.
• Dragged into Drag: Poor Yukimura never got a break after the surprise kiss from Usui: to elaborate, he got forced into a female school uniform by Usui (in order to corner Kanou); then the rest of his female schoolmates forced him into a dress during the school's open house event; then he got shoed into a geisha costume during their Kyoto field trip by his male classmates; and then he got pulled into wearing the Maid Latte uniform after the graduation ceremony. He wasn't exactly pleased by any on this, usually bursting into tears, not that it helped his case a bit.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Misaki towards Usui.
• Even the Girls Want Her: According to some of the students, Misaki has a "prince-like" character when compared to the male students of the school, making her rather attractive to some, or especially attractive when she looks the part. Lesbians and bisexuals are similarly attracted. On the flip-side, many male characters see her as an ideal male, resulting in the "Ayuzawa Club" and a few incidents from Yukimura.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Usui in the anime adaptation, who's also the trope's current poster boy. Can't blame them; even straight guys in Real Life want to kiss him!
  • The manga has some suggestions towards this as well, with Hinata walking up to a wet, half-naked Usui, sizing him up, and cheerfully concluding that he probably would be completely hot for Usui if he actually swung that way◊.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The title roughly translates to "The [Student-Council] President is a Maid!", which is pretty much the premise of the manga.
• Eyes Always Shut: Maki, the vice-president of Miyabigaoka and Igarashi's right-hand man, and Gerard Walker's father, Edward.
• Fairytale Motifs: Maid Latte translates to Milkmaid in the Momotaro spoof.
• Fan Disservice: Meido doesn't necessarily equates to Moe: Usui in Meido uniform, or worse, the Idiot Trio.
• First Kiss: Props to Usui for not wasting time and planting one on Misaki in the fourth chapter (the anime's sixth episode).
• Food Porn: Usui is an exceptionally good cook. You will be drooling by the end of chapters in which he cooks. There's also anything cooked by Suzuna or by Sakuya.
• Forceful Kiss: Usui gives one to Misaki in chapter four. Later, Igarashi gives one to Misaki in the end of Chapter 80. In full view of Usui.
  • In chapter five, Yukimura is the victim of this, courtesy of Usui, for Misaki's sake, of course.
• Freudian Excuse: Misaki's dislike for men stems from her father's abandonment of her family. Kanou's dislike of female stems from the opposite situation.
  • This trope also applies to Gerard Walker's reasons for hating his illegitimate younger brother.
• The Gadfly: Usui really likes pushing Misaki's buttons. Sometimes it's just because he likes her violent, emotional side, and other times it's just because it's funny. He does this to a lesser extent with other people he's fond of.
  • Later in the series, there's Gerard Walker, who practically trolls his valet/butler, Cedric Morris ("Nin-nin," indeed). They come by it honestly: they both got it from their mother, Patricia Walker.
• Gender Flip: The omake "The Student Council President is a Butler!" gender-flips all of the characters and has "Mikai" working at a Butler Cafe. Ironically, Mikai's complaints about women are almost a word-for-word copy of the initial girl-hating issues of Misaki's Spear Counterpart, Kanou.
• Generation Xerox: This is shown to be case for Usui's family.
  • Cedric Morris and his father, Gilbert Morris, are practically identical apart from age.
  • In the Distant Finale this is shown to be the case for several progeny of characters earlier in the series: specifically, Tora's son, Sakura and Kuuga's daughter, and, later on, Sara and Rui, Usui and Misaki's daughter and son.
  • On a darker note, chapter 75 revealed that Patricia Walker's illness was the same illness which her mother died of, and it's hinted that Gerard also suffers from it.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Misaki, especially when she's in "Demon Prez" mode, or when she's irritated with Usui's antics.
• Go-Getter Girl: Misaki, of course.
• Godiva Hair: I'm sure some people didn't mind this◊ Dream Sequence.
• Gratuitous English: Usui speaks fluent English. He doesn't use it much, but does break it out at their class's school festival café, and it's apparently cool enough that everyone in the room (and even the hallway outside) is instantly charmed. English manga scanlations Keep It Foreign by having him speaking French, with the same effect. That said, this trope is actually subverted, since Usui is part English and was born there.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Usui towards Misaki's closeness to Hinata (though it's only out of their childhood friend status). A blatant obvious example is Aoi, who isn't very pleased when he realizes Misaki and Usui seem to have had a Relationship Upgrade in chapter 38.
• Hammerspace: Lampshaded when Suzuna apparently pulls a cherry pie out of nowhere and gives it to Hinata◊.
  Hinata's classmates: Hinata, what's going on? Is she a magician?
  Hinata: Geez, I'm not sure myself...
• Handsome Lech: Though Usui only flirts with Misaki, the way he goes about it comes across this way.
• Inter-Class Romance: the entire story is revealed to be this after Usui's backstory is revealed.
  • In Usui's backstory, it's revealed that he's the product of one of these. His mother was a wealthy heiress and his father turns out to be her butler.
• Ironic Juxtaposition: Angry face + Love Bubbles.
• Irony: Apparently a motif of the manga, particularly involving around Misaki in one way or another.
• Imagine Spot: Misa's Imagine Spots are directly correlated to the magnitude of her confusion.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In spite of Aoi's crush on Misaki, he likes it when Misaki is "lovey-dovey" with Usui because it makes her cuter, and Aoi likes it when Misaki looks cute.
  • Maria Miyazono also helps Misaki and Usui get some time alone in chapter 58, purely for the sake of making Misaki happy.
  • Hinata later pulls this too. After Usui goes to Britain and gets kind of taken hostage by the Walkers, Hinata encourages Misaki to go to Britain herself and bring him back.
  • In chapter 75, the flashbacks show Yuu Hirose, Usui's biological father, maintaining this attitude until Patricia revealed that she in love with him, but was dying and wanted to spend a little time with him before she died.
• Jerkass:
  • Tora Igarashi and Koganei Hirofumi from Miyabigaoka Academy definitely counts; though the former does develop into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in later chapters, while the latter just gets worse.
  • Also Kuuga from UxMishi, but Love Redeems for the latter later on. When he gets sick and is cared for by Sakura, he reciprocates her feelings genuinely this time around.
  • Later on, Gerard fills in this role, for the purpose of preventing Usui and Misaki's relationship from progressing, however, by the end of the series he has changed his tune.
• Keet: Hinata, full-stop. He's cuter than a giant puppy made of puppies. ^note  A puppy made of puppies is a terrifying concept though! He should honestly be the poster boy for the trope in general.
• Lampshade Hanging: Naturally, many episodes focus on this. Especially since some of the Maid Latte cosplay requires heavily playing into tropes.
• Last-Name Basis: The only people to even refer to Usui by his first name are Hinata and later on, Gerard Walker, making it very easy to forget he even has one.
• Lethal Chef: Misaki can't even make rice balls correctly. Usui insists on eating her cooking anyhow. The irony of her complete lack of cooking skills when her father is a chef is later taken note of.
  • This is subverted in the additional extras: by the time she gets married, she's lived on her own for a while and actively worked at it, solving this problem.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "You're like the main character in some sort of romantic anime." (Aside Glance)
• Lost in Translation: In episode 17 of the anime: "Your enemies aren't your only opponents!"
• Love Confession: Usui actually gives one very early in the series ^note chapter 4 to be precise, but since it's not reciprocated (yet) it causes nothing but intense awkwardness on Misaki's part. He pretends it was a joke so he can recover their previous relationship. Unfortunately, Yukimura didn't think it was funny at all.
  • This is later followed up by an Anguished Declaration of Love in chapter thirty-two, by Misaki to Usui with all but the words themselves. He does the same in response, only he does say the words.
  • In a much later chapter, Misaki makes a valiant effort to confess to Usui, but he stops her because one of his brother's mooks is eavesdropping from the hallway.
  • Aoi makes the quickest confession in the world to Misaki in chapter 55. And he just moves on with the conversation without even batting an eye.
    • And FINALLY they both confess in chapter 57! Misaki even manages to name Usui as her boyfriend in chapter 58, at least to the staff of Maid Latte. She insists on hiding their new status from anyone at Seika High for a while.
    • As of chapter 63, pretty much all of Seika High knows about the couple, after Misaki announces her feelings to Usui in front of everyone because no one believed that they were dating.
  • In the flashback concerning Patricia's affair, she is shown to have hid her feelings for years until she found out that she was dying of the same illness which had taken her mother before her. She then gave Yuu a Dying Declaration of Love, which ultimately lead to Usui's birth. She also left another one as the final passage in her diary for everyone she loved regardless of the type of love involved.
• Love Hurts: Hinata left the countryside to find the childhood friend he was in love with. Unfortunately, Misaki has already fallen for Usui, and pretty much everyone but her can tell. Hinata admits he tried to prepare for this possibility, but it still really hurts.
  • This is also shown to have been the case for Patricia and Yuu, in chapter 75, especially since the two had been split up by Patricia's father and she was dying of the same illness which had also taken her own mother.
• Luminescent Blush: Misaki, very often in the presence of Usui. If Usui is around, she will display this within the next few panels, guaranteed.
  • Usui will sometimes get this in reaction to Misaki.
  • This crops up a fair bit in other characters, mostly in reaction to others' actions or to delusions. It also show up when any character has a crush or straight-up romantic involvement with another character, irrespective of their sex.
• Made of Iron: Usui against trees at high velocity. And leaping off the school's roof left him without any serious injuries. This is lampshaded a fair bit.
  • Misaki's rice balls have a mild case of this.
• Medium Awareness: In both the manga and anime, characters have a somewhat partial awareness of things like thought bubbles, visual representations, and the like. For example, when Usui and Hinata are looking at each other, with visible / audible symbolism of two rival dogs growling threateningly:
  "Is it just my imagination, or are there are dogs in here?"
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: As a non-romantic example ( except on Aoi's part), Aoi (a feminine boy) and Misaki (a masculine girl).
• Meido: It's in the friggin' title.
• Moe Couplet: Kanou and Yukimura. Misaki and Usui also counts as a more romantic variant since they both spark hilarious reactions in each other they don't normally express with other people.
• Mood Whiplash: In the anime: The first seven episodes are light and comedic, and portray Misaki as pretty much The Ace, except to Marty Stu Usui. Then in episode eight, she is easily incapacitated and nearly raped by Igarashi. The next episode is an over-the-top spoof of Japanese mythology.
  • This trope does show up a few times in the manga, but not in that way nor to that extent.
• Mr. Fanservice: Usui serves as both an In-Universe and outside-universe example.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Usui's way of cooking when it first appears is just too epic for words.
• Mysterious Protector: Usui has some shades of this, somehow managing to appear whenever Misaki needs help.
• Not So Stoic: Usui proves to be in some ways rather more childish than your standard inscrutable bishounen love interest.
• Not What It Looks Like: This happens more than once and is acknowledged as such.
  • Notably, in chapter 53, when first Kanou and then Usui are trying the help Yukimura get a spider out of his clothes and are seen by the "foreign ninja" (i.e. Cedric) at just the right moments such that it looks like they are in a sexual relationship with Yukimura (with Yukimura as the uke, of course).
  • There's also the time at the conclusion of an omake in volume 12: Aoi walks in on the café employees "acting out" various scenarios of Usui and Misaki's relationship for Satsuki's benefit, and it looks like the women are making moves on each other instead.
• Official Couple: While it's fairly obvious that the primary lead characters (Misaki and Usui) were eventually gonna end up together, and with Sakura already confirmed to have been with Kuuga as early as Chapter 62, the final chapter added the following pairings into the mix: Hinata and Suzuna, Erika and Kurotatsu, and Aoi and Honoka (the latter two, much to Misaki's surprise). A supplementary chapter also supports the notion that Tora eventually married his fiancé Chiyo. And he married early, which is both stated to be the case and evinced by his son being five years old in the Distant Finale, meaning that his son was born when he was only twenty-three.
• Offscreen Romance: Kurotatsu and Erika are dating in the Distant Finale, despite barely interacting during the rest of the series.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Misaki tried to disguise herself and enter the all-you-can-eat contest at Maid Latte in order to help Erika; and everyone who knew her basically recognized her immediately. Even Hinata got suspicious by the end of it.
• Pet the Dog: Tora's handling of things during Maki's quiet Heroic BSoD may not be enough to completely redeem him, but it does demonstrate that he's capable of being something other than a Rich Jerkass... at least once in a while. He has more moments later, depicting him as less of a Jerkass.
  • Come the later chapters after their introduction, Usui's classmates at Miyabigaoka (save for Koganei, who at the moment was suffering offscreen from a slow case of Sanity Slippage) extend their assistance to Misaki, in order to prepare her for her trip to Britain. Well, it was still an order of sorts from Tora, but it's the thought that counts.
• Phenotype Stereotype: As with many Japanese works, Westerners, especially Brits, are assumed to be blond and blue-eyed. Only this expectation is actually played with in Maid-sama!: Usui's hair colour does not cue anyone in to his heritage, and while many people with English ancestry are blonds (if not also having blue eyes), Gerard Walker has blue eyes and black hair, while his (presumably) English father has black hair (his eye colour is unknown).
• Pretty Boy: Most of the important younger male cast.
  • Usui, especially when he makes the effort (otherwise its just not drawn, but is represented to still be the case, given other people's reactions to him), and his half brother Gerard Walker, who looks like an older and more polished version of him. One could also make a case for Tora Igarashi and Kuuga.
  • Soutarou Kanou, too, if he had any confidence in himself, could likely pull this off. Also: a number of fangirls consider The Idiot Trio to be this, on the rare occasions when they're drawn normally.
  • Aoi, when he's in male clothing.
• The Reveal: Usui's actual background gets this treatment. In chapter 46, Usui told Misaki that he's an illegitimate child of a British woman who traveled a lot and a Japanese man whom the former met on her travels, and that his mother died in childbirth. In chapters 74 and 75, this is revealed to have been a lie on the part of Usui's family: his biological father, Hirose Yuu, was actually a footman, valet, or butler serving his mother, and the two had in fact met in England, much to Usui's surprise.
  • There are also a few internal examples: Usui and Misaki's relationship (more than once) and Usui's actual status (again, more than once).
• Smart People Play Chess: Usui, during their first trip to Miyabigaoka; for his opponent, it's more of a subversion.
• Shared Family Quirks: Most relatives seem to have at least a little of this, with a lot of Like Parent, Like Child mixed in.
  • Usui apparently has at least two in relation to his biological mother, Patricia Walker: the whole standing-above-others-while-teasing-them (especially those they're fond of) and the stoicism, especially when troubled. His elder brother, Gerard, has the same quirks. According to Gerard, Usui's unpredictability comes from the same source. It's also revealed that the way he is The Ace up to eleven at everything he actually tries his hand at is similar to his biological father, Yuu Hirose.
  • Gerard Walker shares his mother's lack of physical health, way of showing affection, pathetically bad ability at non-specialties (especially household tasks), devotion to the Walker family, and skill at supporting said family. More subtly, he shares his father's lack of self-confidence in some ways.
  • Cedric Morris is exactly like his father, Gilbert Morris, to an absurd extent.
  • In the Ayuzawa family, Suzuna's calmness and Misaki's loyalty are clearly from their mother, and both girls share their mother's rational outlook. Similarly, Suzuna's love of cooking comes from her father, which is also the source of Misaki's expressiveness (but not the form of said expressiveness), and both girls have their father's determination (yet again, the form differs).
  • The progeny of various characters, as shown in the Distant Finale and the extra epilogue chapters. This is especially true of Usui and Misaki's children, Sara and Rui, in basically any aspect you can think of.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: In her day-to-day clothes, Misaki is pretty damn cute. When she's actually dolled up (usually for work, and thus usually in the maid costume) she's a knockout.
  • Suzuna and Yi Hua Li are also good examples. Suzuna is usually plain but cute, but she looks gorgeous and cute when make up and such is applied. Yi Hua Li is very proud of taking this up to eleven, since she was originally ugly but her financé's efforts resulted in her becoming a model.
• Shipper on Deck: Mainly Satsuki, who constantly fangirls over even the smallest hint of sexual tension between Misaki and Usui, leading to nosebleeds, moe flowers and tears of joy. A few other characters do this in far more low key way, notably Minako and Suzuna (the later goes so far as to refer to Usui as Misaki's husband long before that's actually the case).
• Ship Tease: The series has a lot of it. Particular mention goes to:
  • Suzuna and Hinata. First the manga showed a He Is All Grown Up moment from Suzuna's point of view, and since then Suzuna keeps finding reasons to give stuff she's cooked to Hinata. In the Distant Finale, they're revealed to have gotten married three years before Usui and Misaki's wedding (which occurs ten years after they graduate high school).
  • Also, Aoi's crush on Misaki was blatantly obvious, given his Tsundere tendencies. This also changes in the Distant Finale, where he shows a toned down version towards his present girlfriend, Honoka. Re-reading the series shows that Honoka showed a lot of concern for Aoi long before then, resulting in a retro-active version.
• Sibling Triangle: Hinata is in love with Misaki, while Suzuna has a crush on him. It isn't a straight example, since Misaki does not return Hinata's feelings or compete with Suzuna for him.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Usui and Hinata are both Misaki-sexual. Later subverted for Hinata in the Distant Finale, where Hinata is Happily Married to Suzuna.
  • Misaki also proves to be Usui-sexual, having zero understanding of romantic anything without relating it to him.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Usui's parents. His mother was a wealthy heiress in an Arranged Marriage. His father was her butler. They were never able to consummate their love because of their different social statuses. When she became terminally ill, however, she decided to give into her feelings for him to experience the love she always wanted to have with him before she died.
• Strong Family Resemblance: This is almost always the case for relatives in the series. While Satsuki and Aoi show this a little, later examples are pervasive and usually relate to spoilers.
  • In the Ayuzawa family, Suzuna looks like her mother, while Misaki looks like a female version of her father.
  • Basically everyone related to Usui Takumi: the brothers both look like their mother, despite having different fathers and Usui's strong resemblance to his father resulting in Gerard looking like a blue-eyed version of the man.
  • Cedric Morris looks like his father's much younger clone. This is also true of Tora's son in the Distant Finale.
• Student Council President: Or is that a bit too obvious?
• Tareme Eyes: Misaki, but only when she's not angry. Her sister Suzuna has them on default.
• Those Three Guys: The Three Idiots or The Idiot Trio. And yes, that's what the author calls them. They are also referred to that way In-Universe eventually.
  • Misaki has her own set of Those Two Girls, her friends Sakura and Shizuko. Kanou and Yukimura become this as well in later chapters.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Shizuko isn't exactly a tomboy, but she fits the role in her relationship with Sakura (the resident girly girl), being much more plain, prosaic, and uninterested in things like bands and dating.
  • Hypersensitiveness: Like the above example, Kanou isn't really your stereotypical macho man, but fits the role in his relationship with Yukimura, being much taller and more brooding.
• Tsundere:
  • Misaki is very much a discipline sub-class, thanks to her status as Student Council President; although there are traces of the tragic past sub-class in her as well (her justification for being abrasive against men due to her father leaving their family). Heavily lampshaded by the owner of Maid Latte in one chapter. She starts off as distinctly Type A (violent approach), but has mellowed a bit into a Type B over the course of the series.
  • Also, Aoi. He's comes off as quite the spoiled brat, but he'll insist on making cute clothes for Misaki and is perceptive of her feelings for Usui.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between Misaki and Usui, of course. No longer as of chapter 57, mostly.
  • Flashbacks show Usui's parents to have had this for quite some time... until Patricia realized that she was dying of the same illness which had taken her mother, it isn't actually shown, but obviously, it was resolved.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Aoi, Satsuki's 14 year old nephew really enjoys dressing like a girl.
• Wine Is Classy: Tora indulges in this at times, as well as Usui's elder brother Gerard.

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