Nagomi Wahira has always admired the cute girls who work in maid cafes, and as such, she has decided to move to Akihabara to become a maid!
While she gets a job at the Ton Tokoton maid cafe, she discovers that after one normal day with her more mature and also newly employed co-worker Ranko Mannen that things are not what they seem.
She and Ranko are sent to run an errand to a rival maid cafe, and it ends up as a complete blood bath as they get caught up in the violent maid wars of Akihabara.
As a fan of the campiness of Sega’s Yakuza game franchise and not so much the actual yakuza-based storylines, I love everything about this series because it is just that. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Akiba Maid War, then head on down below.
Anime Like Akiba Maid War
For Fans of Maids Being Unmaidly
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
Miss Kobayashi is a programmer that lives alone in her apartment. However, one day a giant green dragons ends up on her doorstep and transforms into a women in a maid outfit.
Apparently, Kobayashi had gotten drunk one night and ended up saving this dragon. Now, dragon Tooru intends to repay her debt through housework.
Both series take maids and make them do unexpected and often comical things.
While Akiba Maid War is an intense comedy, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid dabbles in many genres, including comedy, but is often more of a wholesome slice of life show.
UzaMaid!
After losing her mother, Misha lives with with her father. In order to care for his daughter, he hires Kamoi, formerly of the JSDF, who will now work as a housekeeper.
So begins Kamoi’s bid for Misha’s affections.
Both series focus on military-type people as maids. However, while they are both comedy series, UzaMaid has questionable content that may put some off.
It is a girl’s love series that focuses on her adult lolicon, ex-military maid being overly affectionate with the young girl she guards. The lolicon aspect may ruin the comedy for some.
Kamen no Maid Guy
Fujiwara Naeka is a high school student who discovers that she is one of two surviving heirs to a wealthy tycoon that is set to inherit his fortune in a few months when she turns 18.
As such, a beautiful maid Fubiki and a burly maid named Kogarashi have been assigned to keep Naeka and her brother safe from those that seek to harm them in order to steal the fortune she is set to inherit.
While Kamen no Maid Guy is older, and it shows in the animation sometimes, both series are are about maids as combatants.
Instead of engaging in yakuza-like conflict like in Akiba Maid War, in Kamen no Maid Guy, the maids are bodyguards.
The comedy also comes from very “unmaidly” people like Ranko and Kogarashi.
For Fans of Cute Girls Doing Criminal Things
Princess Principal
After the discovery of a mineral called Cavorite, it led to the rapid creation of advanced military technology and plunged the world into conflict.
Now London is separated into two nations by a wall that divides the city. While neither the Kingdom or the Commonwealth of Albion are outwardly hostile, they continuously destabilize each other through espionage.
At the prestigious Queen’s Mayfaire School, a series of girls are enrolled that are actually Commonwealth spies who do covert work for their nation.
Both series feature cute girls in outfits that pretend to be perfectly normal by day, and have sinister night activities. Princess Principal follows spies that act as school girls.
The large difference in these series is the tone. Princess Principal is actually rather serious compared to Akiba Maid War’s comedy.
Back Street Girls
After disobeying their boss and messing up a job, three yakuza men are given a choice – commit suicide or go to Thailand and have a sex change to become female idols.
They make the choice to go to Thailand and after grueling idol training, make their debut.
Unfortunately for them, they are a hit!
Both series take cute things and inject a whole lot of yakuza into them.
Back Street Girls is similarly as comical as Akiba Maid War, but it definitely didn’t receive as large of a budget. This leaves the series looking a little jank more often than you might want.
Lycoris Recoil
In order to cut down on crime and terrorism, an organization called Direct Attack was formed. They take orphaned girls and turn them into agents that protect the country in the Lycoris program.
Takina is one gifted agent, but after a hostage situation leads to insubordination, she is transferred out of the main unit to a lower key branch of Lycoris ran out of a cafe.
Despite being paired with a famed, but more easy-going Lycoris prodigy Chisato while there, Takina is determined to get back into DA, but her new partner is determined to prove that there is more to life than just taking lives.
Both series are ultimately shows about combatants disguised as something more cute. In Akiba Maid War, they are yakuza-like maids whereas in Lycoris Recoil, they are counter-terrorism agents disguised as school girls.
However, while Akiba Maid War is more comically violent and light on plot, Lycoris Recoil has moments of silliness, but ultimately chases a serious plot.
For Fans of Bait-and-Switch Content Twists
Zombieland Saga
For Sakura Minamoto, she started her day off normally, right up until she skipped outside and got hit by a speeding truck.
She died, of course, but 10 years later, she wakes up as… a zombie.
However, her story is just beginning as a man wants her and several other undead girls from throughout Japan’s history to become a regional idol group to save Saga from becoming an obscure prefecture.
Both series put a small amount of effort into making you think they weren’t comedies.
Akiba Maid War showed that perhaps it would be a murder mystery whereas Zombieland Saga tried to get you to believe it was a zombie horror show.
Then it twists things.
In Zombieland Saga, those zombies were made into an idol group and it maintains a sort of sudden intensity to comedy like Akiba Maid War does.
School Live
Yuki Takeya is in love with school life. She loves it so much that she joined the School Living Club with three other girls, their supervising teacher, and the club dog Taroumaru. This club makes the most of living at school.
However, Yuki’s blissful school life is all a delusion.
The real purpose of the School Living Club is to prevent Yuki’s fragile reality from shattering. In reality, these girls are surviving the zombie apocalypse by barricading themselves within the school.
Both series are about cute anime girls, but all is not as it seems.
Whereas Akiba Maid War is about maids that act like yakuza at night, School Live is about girls living through a zombie apocalypse at their school, but they feed into one girls’ delusion that she lives a happy school life to not break her psyche.
While School Live does have some light moments, it is definitely a horror series.
Blend S
Maika is a person with naturally bad luck, although much of that comes from her mean-looking eyes. These eyes have since prevented her from gaining part-time employment in order to fund her dreams of studying abroad.
However, one day she meets a man named Dino who runs a very special café. Inside, the waitresses all adopt very specific personas for the customers, and Dino wants Maika to be his sadistic-type girl.
However, despite having the eyes for it, Maika isn’t a sadist.
While these anime series are comedies that follow the workers of a cafe, Blend S isn’t a maid cafe.
What they really share is that the workers of that cafe are not the personas they put on for the customers. That is where much of the comedy comes from.
For Fans of Yakuza Attitudes Outside of Yakuza Families
Gokusen
Kumiko Yamaguchi is smart, energetic,and starting her dream job as a teacher at Shirokiun Academy. Unfortunately, she soon learns that her class in this all-boys school is a cesspool of the worst delinquents in school.
However, young Kumiko has a secret weapon, she is the heir apparent of a yakuza clan and knows how to handle rough men.
Capable of both overpowering these thugs and getting them to listen, she is ready to change the lives of her students.
Gokusen is, very obviously, much older and never much of a looker back in the day due to its art style and low budget.
Despite that, it features the daughter of a yakuza clan chief who decided to become a teacher. Her life being raised around rough types makes her the perfect teacher for a school of delinquents.
While both shows are prone to comedy, Gokusen can focus on its character drama as Kumiko tries to set her students on the right path.
My Bride is a Mermaid
Michishio Nagasumi is living a normal life when he almost drowns on summer vacation. He is rescued by, of all things, a beautiful mermaid.
Unfortunately, she is from a yakuza family that states if a human sees a mermaid, either the human or the mermaid must die.
To save her life, Michishio agrees to marry the mermaid and become part of this crazy family.
Both series are about yakuza types in not the usual yakuza situation.
Akiba Maid War focuses on maids whereas My Bride is a Mermaid features mermaids and other supernatural-esque sea creatures.
However, My Bride is a Mermaid has the family as actual yakuza clan and the comedy comes more from the rom-com between a normal human marrying into it.
The Way of the House Husband
The Immortal Tatsu is an legendary yakuza name, but after taking down a rival gang single-handedly, he disappears.
Now he has reappeared as an apron-wearing, laundry-doing, bento-lunch-making househusband for his office-working wife.
Both of these series have the same approach to comedy. They put people with the attitude of a yakuza in cute situations.
Their out-of-place temperament just works when their doing things like serving customers or shopping for deals at the supermarket.
While The Way of the House Husband lacks the quality of animation, sometimes looking like a series of picture slides, but it makes up for it with quality of comedy.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Akiba Maid War? Let fans know in the comments section below.
