Kaichou wa Maid-Sama – First Impressions

Rundown: Heroine is an overachieving class president with a secret (she works at a maid cafe) and initially no time or interest in love. In addition to school duties, she has to support her family which her father abandoned and left in debt, hence the maid job. She clashes with a popular, attractive guy who finds out about the maid job, but he isn’t the villain she initially suspects.

Lovejoy: Once I got past the gimmicky concept, I found this a good romance in the making (also I haven’t really seen any other maid shows). I like how Misaki is the first female class president in a school that’s still mostly male. She’s like an Obama, and she working towards a more perfect union in her school, where neither gender has the run of the place. Being a talented politician requires acting chops, so it actually seems quite natural that she’d work at a maid cafe. Since working there pays well (probably better than a normal cafe, for instance), it makes practical sense too. With so much on her plate and so much competitive drive, it’s logical for her to interpret a guy’s fairly unorthodox advances as hostile. She sees the guy achieving success with little or no effort while nothing comes easy to her, but that’s just her perspective.