Two summer shows have already started airing, and I’m sorry to spoil you on this, but they’re both isekais. Sigh, here we go again.

All Works Maid

Melody is such an amazing maid that she can run an entire mansion by herself. She’s such an amazing maid that she can make the best tea out of cheap tea leaves. She’s such an amazi-… eh, you get the point. Unfortunately, the more I watched this episode, the more ticked off I got. Y’see, Melody is amazing precisely because she’s been blessed with the powers of a saintess. In any other show, she’d be battling demon lords, saving the world, feeding the poor, liberating slaves, what have you. But in this one, our heroine aspires to be a maid. Specifically, she aspires to serve. Ever since she was a child, she knew what she wanted to do when she grew up. Sure, there’s no shame in being a maid. To quote the great Measurehead from Disco Elysium: “…TO SERVE IS NOBLE, IT TAKES DISCIPLINE. YOUR PETULANT INDIVIDUALISM HAS ONLY CONTRIBUTED TO YOUR–…” Actually, perhaps we don’t need to continue that line of thought.

Melody gets an entire “dead mom” backstory and everything in order to set her on this path. Yes, mom dies early on in the episode, which triggers the awakening of the girl’s saintess powers. Dad isn’t in the picture, but rest assured, he’s actually a count. He’s also desperately looking for our heroine! In other words, Melody, too, is a noble! Gotta have your cake and eat it too, I suppose. The story wants the cozy, humble aesthetic of a working class protagonist, but the author (this is based on a novel series) is seemingly terrified of actually writing someone common. So, of course, she has to have rare saintess magic, and she has to secretly be the daughter of a count. Heaven forbid someone just be good at a trade because they worked hard at it. It completely undercuts any genuine “pride in service” theme when her competence is just a byproduct of her magical DNA. But I digress. We still have more to talk about.

To avoid being found, Melody uses her newfound powers to change her hair and eye color. She then leaves for the royal capital, ’cause gosh darn it, nobody’s going to stop her from becoming a maid. That’s when she meets Luciana. I don’t really know this girl’s backstory or why she’s here in the royal capital alone, but I don’t care. At the end of the day, she’s a count’s daughter, and she can always return to her family. Nevertheless, Melody has found her home. Not content with this setup, the story throws in yet another wrinkle: this is an isekai. During Melody’s mahou meido transformation sequence, she suddenly awakens to memories of her past life — a life where she was a certified genius who found herself bored with everything until, yes, she met a maid. Ah, but then tragedy struck! On her way to England to study the ins and outs of becoming a proper maid, her plane crashed! Pfft, whatever.

The point is, there’s so much that Melody could do, and it wouldn’t even require her to change her desired occupation. I’m not mad that she wants to become a maid. If that’s her dream, fine. Her biggest problem, however, is a failure of the imagination. The reality is that there are maids and servants all around us. We don’t use those labels anymore, but there are noble people who do everything in their power to keep our world functioning. The guys who pick up your garbage in the morning so the streets don’t stink of shit? That’s arguably maid work — garbage maids, if you will. The people who maintain our national parks? Arguably maid work as well. The lunch ladies who make sure our kids have warm meals — also maids! The point is, Melody could do exactly what they do, but on a larger scale. After all, she even admits that she can’t technically run a mansion by herself. Luckily, she can create alter egos to help get the job done! So imagine using her army of clones to beautify the slums so that poor children doesn’t have to live in filth or whatever. With her magic, she could revolutionize the industry. She can do anything; she just has to use her imagination. Unfortunately, in Melody’s mind, maid work is narrowly defined as serving the upper class. Maid work is apparently spiffing up a mansion so that a count’s daughter can live in luxury. Maid work is apparently brewing the best cup of tea out of cheap tea leaves so her master can entertain a bunch of other hoity toity noble girls. It’s fucking stupid, and she’s a class traitor.

From Overshadowed to Overpowered

On paper, this show seems innocent enough. We start off with four mages battling a demon lord or whatever. Decades later, one of them has become a wizened mage. Unfortunately, when he looks back on his life, he despairs over the fact that he couldn’t truly master his craft. The truth is, Ephtal never actually had an aptitude for it. Nevertheless, he trained long and hard. He trained until he could stand shoulder to shoulder with other talented mages, help save the world, and become anointed as the Lightning Emperor. That’s quite an achievement for the so-called “talentless,” right? I would be proud of myself in his shoes. Nevertheless, Ephtal wasn’t satisfied. He always felt overshadowed by his peers (hence the title of the show). As a result, he died with regrets. Naturally, this is anime, so he gets a do-over: he awakens as a 4-year-old boy with all the same magical prowess as his past life. As the credits roll, he immediately zaps a dragon that was headed for town. Like I said, it all seems very innocent on paper even if it leans a little too hard on the power fantasy.

The devil, however, is always in the details. When he died, he was quickly greeted by a goddess who looked like one of those sin eaters from FFXIV: Shadowbringers. First, this ain’t Ephtal’s first rodeo; he’s actually on his third life. In other words, this is an isekai. Just had to squeeze that in when it totally wasn’t necessary, huh? Plus, it quickly cheapens his life story. When he was reborn the first time, the goddess had given him the “Indomitable” skill. So did he truly work hard to become the Lightning Emperor? Or did he have cheat codes from the start? The goddess argued that he achieved everything through his “strength of will,” but surely the “Indomitable” thing helped a lot! But fine, isekai shows and their stupid skills are a dime a dozen these days. On their own, they’re hardly offensive. Just tragically generic and boring.

So what’s my actual problem with the show? Well, in his second life, Ephtal had taken in a demon child and raised her up. Named her Merlin and everything. Unlike him, she had great magical aptitude, but she was always impatient. She desperately wanted to level up so that she could take over his teaching duties. This way, he could rest and live out his golden years gracefully. Look, you can already tell what Merlin’s existence implies. Ephtal, now a young boy, will eventually bump into Merlin at some point in the story. Bro, bro, bro — I’m already dreading it. Is Merlin going to be a love interest? Is the child he literally took in and raise as his own daughter going to be a fucking love interest to his reincarnated self? Ugh.