Hanaukyo Maid Tai La Verite

Title:Hanaukyo Maid Tai La Verite
Hanaukyo Maid Team La Verite
花右京メイド隊 La Verite
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Original Concept - Morishige
R1 License - Pioneer (Defunct)
WATANABE Akino
This new series starts as a remake of Hanaukyo Maid Tai but soon goes beyond that storywise, so in a way you may also see it as a sequel.

[TV series, 2004, 12 episodes, 23 min; left to right: Yashima, Konoe, Cynthia/Grace, Mariel, Taro, Ikuyo, Ryuuka, and Lemon, Malon & Mellon]
1:29min Series Opening - YouTube Video
Episode Details 
01, 99
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Buy 7 7 8 4 10 8 Xenoknight [series:826#2967]
The dramatic remake of Hanaukyo Maid Tai and then some...

Mariel this time looks like KOS-MOS from the "greatest RPG series ever made" - Xenosaga (hence my name). My God, that alone makes this in instant MASTERPIECE. I'm at a loss for words. This is bound for greatness already and according to some of the other reviews, this really will be a blockbuster title. With the events of Hanaukyo Maid Tai as its foundation and this title going into detail by improving the storyline without removing the ecchi content that made it so funny in the first place while increasing each episode's length to the normal half-hour and upgrading my favorite character Konoe, (huff, huff - long sentence. LOL) how can anyone turn this title down.

How can anyone deny or reject the idea of "breast-activated" flushing toilets for crying out loud!!! LOL

Ep. 5 was really cool because some of the legends show themselves again. Mariel was cosplaying as Chii from the LEGENDARY Chobits! Ikuyo had the main lead dress up as Mahoro from Mahoromatic. (I haven't seen that one in a good while - it brings back good memories and that is why I love anime so much. LOL)

How amazingly typical, the last episode is where I find a hidden stash of the series in english dub! I don't even want to think about it. I'll pretend I didn't find it in order to keep my anger in check. Its just my rotten luck. What a waste of a series. So typical...

Never forget Xenosaga.

Last updated Thursday, October 09 2008. Created Thursday, September 11 2008.
Rent 8 8 7 6 7 0 KBanger1 [series:826#1694]
Imagine being a boy whose lost his parents and is sent to his grandfather's to be cared for. Sounds pretty typical in the real world. Now imagine that same boy ending up being the head of his family (whose wealthier than Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Oprah combined) and tended to by an "army" of maids who will do anything your heart desires. If I were that kid, I certainly know what to do in that situation! In this series, a boy named Taro Hanaukyo becomes the new head of his family and not only inherits an S-load of fortune but also a team of maids whose sole purpose is to serve Taro without question. The premise of the series seems simple enough. During the course of the series, a lot of revelations rise to the surface. One such occurrence is with Mariel, the head maid of the Hanaukyo Maid Team and personal maid to Taro. In the beginning, she starts off as a very sweet and caring person. Later on, she becomes more of a mystery than what her outward appearance leads you to believe. Top it off with a schizo girl, a techno-geek maid, an off the wall heiress out to marry into the family, and three oversexed personal maids and you got yourself a funny series.

The overall animation and art is nothing to brag about. It's not a masterpiece nor is it a disaster. It's just ok. The thing that sets the pace of the series is the blatant ecchi that it shows. Not to say that it's a bad thing. As a matter of fact, that where most of the comedy is. You have this poor kid surrounded by a squad of maids to give him a bath...wait. That's not a bad thing. For this kid, though, he's a well natured kid. When he's brought into this whole mess, it shows how much his life gets turned upside down.

I would say buy it, but, the series is way too short. Plus, there's a lot of subplots that end up being unanswered like whose Taro's grandfather and why did he choose him to be the head of the family, etc. It would be better if you rent it and see for yourself.

Last updated Wednesday, January 31 2007. Created Wednesday, January 31 2007.
Rent 8 9 7 7 8 8 Iceman_Aragorn [series:826#1517]
Not much to add to the below review. This is indeed a FAR better production under the name of Hanaukyo Maids than the original. There is a storyline, or as much as you could expect from a fan-servicy 12 episode comedy.
I was impressed with how much more depth this anime had than its original, and it also had a lot more comedy, even taking time to parody a number of anime genres.
I liked almost every character more in this version too, with the exception of Ikuyo, who came off as.....well, just creepy. The art used to make her seem this way seemed unnecessarily exageratted too, as her personality could have gotten it across just fine.
All in all, a VERY worthwhile reproduction of a cute little anime series.

Last updated Thursday, January 06 2005. Created Thursday, January 06 2005.
Rent 9 9 8 7 7 8 Devil Doll [series:826#752]
[Score: 78% = Rent, my favourite Silly Comedy anime. Other recommended Silly Comedy animes: Kyou no Go no Ni (OVA), Nagasarete Airantou]
  • Drama: Low/Med (you would hardly expect a story but it's actually there, during the second half)
  • Comedy: Med/High (that's what this show is mostly about)
  • Action: Low (sometimes Ikuyo's inventions tend to explode)
  • SciFi: Low/Med (plain old world, normal people - well, one of them isn't that normal)
  • Ecchi: Med/High (nude breasts and more, loli, and lots of teasing for poor Taro, but it gets less in later episodes)
Actually, I am still laughing while I write this review. Had I seen this show two years earlier it wouldn't have been half as funny...

La Verité is telling the Hanaukyo Maid Tai story again from scratch, starting with Taro entering the Hanaukyo mansion. Episodes 1-4 are made of the best parts of the original series (avoiding these stupid school scenes and Taro's being allergic to girls, for example) without any significant new ideas; yet, these ideas are rearranged and presented in a different and more plausible way, using the Ai Yori Aoshi presentation and music style (after all, both are Geneon productions). Episode 5 contains an Ikuyo story that might well be the sequel to the OVA 3 episode; from here the new storyline begins, providing a number of plot ideas many of which happen to remind me of very similar episodes in certain other series. They are borrowing a significant part of their content, but they borrow from the best ones... with time, they let the characters more and more resemble other characters that I know from other series I watched and liked before (heck, what's Lebia Maverick doing in this show?). I'll leave it at this, as not to spoil the show too much for anyone - let's just say the makers of this series have definitely watched both Love Hina and Shin Seiki Evangelion one time too often... ;-)

The ecchi level is even a little higher than in the original series - it can't be helped. But it is still a fun ride for me because the storytelling (for the little story there is) has been nicely done: While the original series was very episodic, silly and chaotic, La Verité at least follows a plan from episode 1 through 12 and surprised me more than once by this.

And the roles of the characters have changed slightly - while Mariel had been the focus of the original series she plays a less dominant (but much more interesting) role in La Verité, whereas Grace and Konoe (my favourite characters here) have developed far beyond the OVA episodes of the original series. And while the role of Taro's 'rival' Ryuuka was nothing but a nuisance in the first series, she and Ikuyo (who had been more interesting in the original series IMHO) are now an established element of the show (like Mayu and Tina in Ai Yori Aoshi).

Of course 12 episodes are too short to answer all questions, but having watched the show once more I am no longer sure this would be desirable. The main story arc is finished in episode 12, just as it is in episode 24 of Ai Yori Aoshi; there are several questions unanswered but we might not need all answers to find this ending satisfiable. So having a second season might as well disappoint the audience - but maybe the Manga provides enough new content for that.


In the meantime I'm reading the Manga, of which three volumes (out of 10+) have been translated, covering exactly the story of this series. So there must be a total of four times that much stuff available to answer the questions this series left open.

Last updated Friday, June 06 2008. Created Tuesday, August 03 2004.

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