I’d like to say that anime has an inordinate fascination with the master-servant relationship, but watch enough period pieces and you will know that it isn’t an extraordinary obsession at all. Still, in any media, a good master-servant relationship is hard to pull off. Worst case, it ends up cringe-worthy and weird with one part of the pair overly simpering to the whims of the more dominate. Still, even then, there are fans of that worst case scenario. If master and servant shenanigans are for you, then give these anime recommendations a try.
Best Master-Servant Anime
Kamisama Kiss
While master-servant anime tends to emphasis a certain amount of, well, servitude, this series becomes a rather charming rom-com between those of two strong wills. A homeless girl happens to be made a land god of a shrine, which also comes with its own grumpy fox familiar that serves the land god there. He is unhappy with the change at first, but you know how romantic comedies go.
Black Butler
This series is perhaps the most notorious master-servant anime. It combines shounen action with surprisingly seinen backstory. Of course, the anime only touches on that shocking tidbit. Regardless, it follows a young noble who solves various problems with his very talented butler. However, this butler is a demon who, upon helping his master complete his vengeance, will get to consume his soul.
Hellsing Ultimate
If you prefer your servants and masters embroiled in vicious action, you will find that there is a distinct lack of choice. Hellsing Ultimate is really the best option. However, the master-servant relationship isn’t technically at the forefront of the show. Alucard is a famously vicious vampire who has fallen under the servitude of Integra Hellsing and her Hellsing Organization. Now he fights his own kind and does whatever Integra’s bidding be. He does the heavy lifting and Integra manages from the office.
Servamp
It’s right there in the title. This is a master-servant anime where humans can become the master of a one of eight vampires who are in a constant battle for supremacy. The series is about a boy who forms a contact with the Sloth Servamp accidentally and gets pulled into the troublesome battle. An interesting element to this show is if master and servamp are separated, the human will eventually die.
The Duke of Death and His Maid
This series might masquerade as a master and servant show, but as a teasing-type romance, the master is often the servant. While the maid loves and serves her master, the roles are certainly reversed when she gets in the mood to tease him. However, as the Duke can’t touch anything without killing it, the series also has an air of melancholy to it.
Shadows House
This unique anime follows a large noble family of sooty shadow people who all live in what seems like an infinitely large house. As they have no face other than the shadowy void, they are given living dolls to act as their face. They are supposed to personify the person they serve, and as such, many members of the family are quite harsh with them when they act as autonomous people.
The Familiar of Zero
The Familiar of Zero is focused on a female mage who is kind of terrible at magic accidentally summoning what seems like an average boy. As with many a summoner-summonee relationship, Louise treats her unexpectedly powerful summon more like a slave since she has a serious tsundere streak to her.
Vermeil in Gold
Who is really the master in this series? A young mage is having problems summoning a familiar, so he gives a book that fell on him a try and summons a demon. She possess great power, but needs to recharge her energy through kisses. In public, she lets him seem like he is in control so as to not be discovered as a demon, but in private, well, we all know who is really in charge.
Hayate the Combat Butler
It is probably a bit old school now, but Hayate the Combat Butler was a fun little action rom-com. It follows a boy abandoned by his parents with a substantial debt. He tries to kidnap a girl to hold for random, but she confuses it for a love confession and he ends up saving her from real kidnappers. This lands him a job as her battle butler bodyguard. While this is a great deal for his debt, he is a man with the world’s worst luck and is constantly battling against circumstances that are coming for his lady’s life.
Unbreakable Machine-Doll
Anime definitely needs more shows about puppeteers fighting each other with their puppets, but this show is less fun since their puppets act like people. Still, for a show about not living automatons given life by magic, it is strange to give them personalities. It does, however, flesh out the master-servant dynamic of the show.
Dragonar Academy
This series is yet another series about summoning gone wrong – or right? Regardless, it follows a dragon rider at an academy for dragon riding, but unlike his classmates, his dragon has not appeared. That is, right up until one does, but it isn’t a dragon, it is a bossy beautiful girl who declares that she is now his master.
High School DxD
After a pervert gets killed on his first date when she turned out to be a fallen angel, it is a devil that revives him. Of course, when someone gives you your life back, they rarely do so for free. Now he serves as her (rather useless) servant. However, as his usefulness as a servant goes up in this notorious ecchi show, so too does the regard of his master. The series moves away from master-servant as it moves closer to lovers.
Blood+
While Blood+ keeps the relationship under its hat for a bit, it turns out that the much older Haji was bought as a boy for the ageless vampire Saya to be her companion. As such, even after she loses her memories, he still seeks to serve her, more so out of feelings rather than duty.
Blade Dance of the Elementalers
Blade Dance takes the master-servant a step further by making the servants be weapons who are occasionally women. Of course, that’s less dubious when you consider that all elementalists before the main character were women. While many of the wielders have kind relationships with their weapons, there are those who use them as tools.
Inu X Boku SS
This series details the new relationship between a wealthy girl who decides she wants to live on her own and the secret service agent that she is forced to live with. Soushi, that secret service agent, gives the many clingy servants on this list a run for their money. He is fiercely loyal, yet still incredibly submissive to the whims of his lady who is often annoyed by him.
Emma
There are a lot of master-servant relationships in anime, but very few traditional, non-action ones. Emma details a familiar situation about the love between a maid and a gentleman of higher standing. She doesn’t work for him as a servant, but the difference between social classes makes the relationship of the same caliber.
Heaven’s Lost Property
This master-servant show, as an ecchi show, is definitely one for male audiences. It is about a being that falls from an anomaly in the sky and begins to call the teenage pervert she lands on master. While the show has a plot of discovering this anomaly’s purpose, it is very much just an ecchi comedy. It has solid jokes and jiggle for the target audience.
The Maid I Hired Recently is Mysterious
In a very Duke of Death and His Maid sort of affair, this show also follows a young noble boy living in a large, secluded mansion with just his maid. However, while she is caring and perfect, he finds that entirely too suspicious of her. That is where most of the comedy and what little plot in the show go towards.
The Fate / Stay Series
While not as immediately obvious as in, for example, Black Butler, The Fate Series is also a master-servant show. It is a battle royale between people who can summon servants of historical/mythological fame that they use to fight for them with magnificent powers. Of course, the various series detail a number of relationships. Some of them are traditional master-servant roles while others are more akin to partnerships.
Do you have more anime recommendations that depict the sultry master and servant relationship? Let fans know in the comments section below.
