One of the most interesting new releases of the Fall 2022 anime season is the nexus betweenthe moe subculture and tropeas it appears in anime and manga, as well as organized crime. Yes,moeruorganized crime is what is on the menu with this title; however, this interesting combination seems to follow a familiar formula.Akiba Maid Sensou (Akiba Maid War)follows the dirty, grimy and violent Akihabara maid café underworld from the perspective of a total newbie who has no idea what she’s getting into. Something about the premise and structure of the series, including its opening and ending sequences, is reminiscent of the anime adaptation of Rei Hiroe’s action-packed classic,Black Lagoon. The tweet featured below is from a fan of both series who picked up on their similarities and summarized the situation quite succinctly.
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The New Kid
Like the tweet included above, if one watchesAkiba Maid Warand considers Nagomi to be the “Rock of the group”, the other pieces of the comparison seem to just fall into place. However, to do this would first mean creating a valid comparison between the two main characters. Nagomi is caught up in thiswild criminal maid underworldwhen she only really wanted to work as a maid at a cute café and serve customers. The violence and rivalries between maid cafés is not something she knew she was signing up for; which is comparable to Rock’s introduction to the Lagoon Company and Hotel Moscow inBlack Lagoon.
Rock was a regular salaryman delivering a special data disk to a client of the company he worked for not realizing what kind of information was on it. After his ship is attacked by mercenaries, the disk is stolen and Rock’s boss makes the decision to leave him for dead – in fact, there was never any intention for Rock to return alive in the first place. Both characters were merely trying to get somewhere in their respective occupations and ended up falling into a violent world of money and crime, and from a series perspective, both shows happen to focus heavily on this “new kid’s” perspective.
The Company
In both anime, the main character is affiliated with some kind of organized group that performs a number of different operations for a plethora of clients in a criminal underworld.The Tontokoton Caféand the Lagoon Company, while being vastly different in their set-up and operation, are both also tied to bigger, stronger criminal entities. ThroughoutAkiba Maid Sensou, the characters have been striving to make significant earnings so that they can pay their “sweets money” to the Creatureland Group, the conglomerate that owns the various maid cafés in the Akihabara area. InBlack Lagoon, while largely an independent mercenary group, the Lagoon Company is consistently affiliated with Balilaika’s Hotel Moscow, a branch of the Russian mafia. A lot of the Lagoon Company’s missions are direct orders from Balilaika herself.
The Laid-Back
Rock finds himself taken hostage by the Lagoon Company, but that changes when he makes the decision to carry on with them after being abandoned by his former boss. He meets Benny, Revy, Dutch and later comes to meet the head of Hotel Moscow, Balilaika. Benny is an American who stays largely out of the combat situations they end up in, with his responsibilities mostly being navigation and communication as they sail. Benny is rather laid-back and perhaps the easiest member for Rock to talk to since he doesn’t wave guns around and end people’s lives like Dutch or Revy. His character corresponds the most to that of Shiipon,the gyaru-themed maidin Tontokoton café.
The Muscle
In both series, the main faction has an absolute juggernaut of a member who is effectively a one-woman army. InBlack Lagoon, Revy’s incredible talent with firearms and her iconic pistol dual-wield earn her the moniker “Two-Hands”. While abrasive, brash, brutal and absolutely coldblooded in her kills, she still manages to foster an interesting friendship with the weak and cowardly Rock, which parallels with Nagomi’s developing relationship with café Ton Tokoton’s resident arsenal, Ranko Mannen. While Revy and Ranko have completely different personalities, they’re both extremely strong, mysterious, and develop some kind of personal relationship with the new kid.
The Maid
Fans ofBlack Lagoonare of course aware that there is an entire arc dedicated to Roberta Cisneros, also known as “The Bloodhoud”; a Columbian maid working for the Lovelace Family in Venezuela while in hiding. She is a trained killer and perhaps the only character in the entire series who has been able to keep up with Revy in full-blown combat. Of the major similarities betweenAkiba Maid WarandBlack Lagoon, the existence of Roberta as a major antagonist in theBlack Lagoonseries,not to mention her kuudere personality, can almost feel like a predecessor or direct inspiration for Ranko Mannen, who also has her own version of a violent past. While both characters are adept killers, they are both characters who form a huge connection to being maids in their own right.
The Music
Another interesting similarity between both series' opening sequences.Black Lagoonhas a high-tempo, electronic opening theme song “Red Faction”, performed by the Japanese singer Mell. The song is sung completely in English, and begins with a set of grungy guitar riffs that break into an energetic bassline that is followed by a loud and memorable chorus.Akiba Maid Warhas a song performed by the voice actors of the main maids in the series; however, given the series’action and violent themes, the opening is an apt mash-up of maid café cuteness and a progressive beat that carries the high-octane atmosphere in a way that’s oddly reminiscent of theBlack Lagoonopening. The interesting thing about “Maid Daikaiten” by the Tontokoton staff is that the song’s climax is an undoubtedly moe; undoubtedly Akiba, and that carries the show’s inherent contrast very effectively. Both opening sequences are quite unique in their music selection and visuals.
The ending sequences are also interesting to compare because they are both in a sense, a low-tempo contrast to the high-octane opening sequence. There are no lyrics in theBlack Lagoonending theme song, “Don’t Look Behind” by EDISON; it is rather, a progressive instrumental that carries with it, a sense of melancholy. The animation for theBlack Lagoonending features a panning shot of beach sand as Revy walks across, dropping various bits and pieces along the way before eventually taking off her combat boots and leaving them there to be taken by the tide; however, the ending climaxes with a dramatic switch-up with heavy rock replacing the sad violin progression and a shot of Revy’s upper body as she points a shotgun she is holding in one arm at the screen. The atmosphere is definitely a far cry from the show’s antics; andAkiba Maid Warseems to dosomething similar in its ending theme song, which is a dramatic, bluesy rendition of a maid-theme ballad. There are shots of Ranko dramatically walking away from the screen as the sunset hits the waves at the beach, and just like the Black Lagoon ending, Ranko drops her weapon in the sand, and it is covered by the incoming tide. Similarly to theBlack LagoonOP and ED, theAkiba Maid Warsequences also contrast a high-energy opening theme song with a more emotional ending theme song that features a main character from the series walking on the beach with some kind of contemplative music playing in the background.
