Tenchou has the maids making paper roses in their down time; anything to try to make the half-million yen needed to pay off their sweets money or the café will be shuttered. In other words, it’s just another day at the Oinky Doink.
After being as kind as she can in complimenting invitation cards printed with a bare minimum of ink, Nagomi’s acquaintance Nerura (one of the few genuinely nice people in Akiba … at least so far) Suggests she attract business with an event.
When Nagomi learns that Ranko’s birthday is coming up in two days, she asks Tenchou and the other maids if they’ll help her do an event … and they suddenly turn into mean assholes who don’t care about Ranko at all, and let a tearful Nagomi do what she likes.
Following Nerura’s advice to reach out to a fellow Creatureland outfit, Nagomi and Ranko visit Maid Sheep, and are warmly welcomed by its idol, Kaoruko (voiced by Ogura Yui, who can really turn up the syrup when she wants to). She’s friendly, at least, until she learns it’s Ranko’s birthday.
That’s a problem, because it’s also Kaoruko’s party, and these pig maids are stepping on her currently-in-progress birthday event. After enduring some heckling from both Kaoruko (delivered with all the requisite sweetness of a maid on duty) and the customers there, Ranko and Nagomi take their leave.
On the walk home Nagomi confides in Ranko how she’s just not sure she’s cut out for this whole maid thing, especially with their co-workers being so mean, and of course the fact that maids are expected to fight and even kill when called upon. Ranko looks back to when she was new to the game and violence was just starting to become a thing in the maid world. Just because she’s good at violence doesn’t mean she ever liked or wanted to do it.
But when her madame was killed, she accepted her fate as avenging angel, and so it is in the present, when they’re surrounded by Sheep maids. Fellow Creatureland maids aren’t supposed to fight, but Ranko and Nagomi pissed Kaoruko off, so she starts a fight. Ranko holds her own, of course, but Kaoruko takes Nagomi hostage, and Ranko has to stand down.
That’s what brings us to what was hinted at in the now-famous Outrageous Akiba Maid War Stinger: Nagomi and Ranko tied up and weighed down and drowning in a giant barrel full of blood with a damn lamb to keep them company. Turns out Kaoruko doesn’t want any other maids in Akiba to share her birthday, so she’s been killing them all off. Ranko’s next … it doesn’t seem to matter to her that it’s not Nagomi’s birthday.
Never mind that the flowing red liquid turns out to be tomato juice; Nagomi and Ranko are in serious trouble, so it’s a good thing Okachimachi (AKA the Panda) saw what went down. When we cut back to Tenchou and the other maids, we learn that they were only pretending to be mean in order to distract Ranko from the fact they were arranging a surprise party for her birthday. Not only did I sigh in relief, I smiled with joy at learning this!
Ranko and Nagomi believe this might be it for them, so they exchange apologies and thanks for the time they’ve spent together. At first Nagomi feels like her path to maiddom has led to nothing but tragedy and sorrow, but as the tomato juice rises she gets more wistful about her time, and doesn’t regret that time with Ranko and the others.
But as nice as their fellow maids turn out to be, they did subside on nothing but stir-fried bean sprouts for weeks to afford a fancy custom cake for Ranko, so when she and Nagomi are late, they are pissed (especially Tenchou, who has to dress as a maid for the first time, and folks … I’m in love). Okachimachi arrives, shows them the dueling event invites, which (eventually) lead Yumechi, Shiipon, and Zoya to Maid Sheep.
After brandishing pipes, stating their intent, and charging the sheep in a Postcard Memory, we cut to a drowning Nogami hallucinating about living in Tomato Land before her friends bash the barrel open and free her and Ranko. They came through, just as Ranko knew they would. Hell, it’s likely she knew they were just messing with her all along.
When they leave the basement we get to see the carnage that three Oinky Doink maids wrought upon Maid Sheep, but a bruised Kaoruko promises retribution, not by them, but by Creatureland for this assault on an affiliated café. She just can’t keep her mouth shut and take the L, as she unleashes a torrent of insults directed at Ranko…until a bullet to the gut silences her forever.
That bullet is fired by Yumechi, who was not two days ago pretending to be as mean as possible to Ranko to throw her off any possible whiff of a surprise party. But that bullet (and the preceding unseen fracas that couldn’t have just been Zoya) shows us that Yumechi isn’t just fond of her fellow pig maid Ranko, she’s willing to kill to preserve her honor.
The other maids keep acting relatively mean and put-out towards Ranko right up until they enter a strangely dark Oinky-Doink, and then Taichou shows up with the lit (and only partially eaten) birthday cake, and she and everyone else sing “Happy Birthday”. Such a sweet, wholesome end to a day of violence, bloodshed … and tomato juice.
Oh, and Maid Sheep’s record revenues from Kaoruko’s birthday event? Okachimachi snatches them up and presents them to Taichou. Hopefully she won’t gamble them all away, but actually pay off enough of the sweets money to keep the café open at least another week or two! The credits roll as Ranko dances and sings a new number, looking nowhere near her thirty-six years. With friends like hers backing her up, may there be many more!
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