©しょたん／小学館／君は冥土様。製作委員会
Picking up after last week, Yuki—masquerading as Hitoyoshi’s cousin—has now joined his class. Her primary goal seems to be achieving normalcy, but there also seems to be an element of her wanting to serve him as a maid, even at school. So when lunchtime rolls around, and it’s a rare Katsuda bread day, chaos was always bound to ensue: on the one hand, you have the student body, among whom this bread has a devoted following of fans willing to rush and crowd around to get it. Then there’s Yuki: a lover of sauce and hater of sauce-induced FOMO (aren’t we all?). Her goal, of course, is clear: obtain this legendary Katsuda bread. Her obstacles: foot traffic courtesy of her fellow hungry students and the fact that her and Hitoyoshi’s classroom is the one farthest from where the bread is.
Are you familiar with an anime called Ben-To? It was a hilarious anime that aired back in 2011, and it’s about people fighting over discounted Ben-To at grocery stores. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. It’s completely absurd, and I love it. I remember watching it while it was airing, and the running joke was that it was an anime about people having shonen anime-esque fights over Lunchables. It was great. And I must say: Of all the anime Ms. Servant could’ve reminded me of, I don’t know if I would’ve readily guessed Ben-To. But that’s what happened this week, and I’m here for it.
Watching Yuki Naruto run and jump roof-to-roof for the Katsuda bread was the episode’s highlight, for sure. Like last week, it’s great when this series really leans into its silliness—I think, at this point, it’s safe to say that moments like these are when it shines its brightest. The concept, the dramatic camera angles, the dynamic (and fantastically animated) movements—the whole thing feels over-the-top and very quintessentially anime. And for a show with a concept as hokey as this one’s in 2024, it fits perfectly.
In case you didn’t pick up on it: I loved the segment about the Katsuda bread. But I didn’t care as much about the segment that followed afterward: the scene where she feeds Hitoyoshi, and we see the series trying to set up some romantic tension between the two. But personally, I just don’t sense much chemistry between the two of them. In fact, the whole thing feels pretty forced. And maybe I’ll change my mind as the series progresses (or more specifically: as Yuki and her life continue their quest for change), but for the time being, I just don’t think this series needs a romantic component to it; at least right now, I think I’d rather watch Yuki continue her normalcy quest, without the weirdness this puts in the dynamic between her and Hitoyoshi. So, this is all to say that I hope this element gets abandoned and it ends up as a weird blip. I don’t necessarily think that’s what’s going to happen, but I can dream.
And then we have the school nurse—who, in true anime fashion, is actually another assassin from Yuki’s past. I get that she’s not actually the school nurse—in fact, she’s almost certainly just there to get Yuki back—but that doesn’t make the scene where she’s flirting with him, and then suddenly she’s on top of him on the bed, any less uncomfortable. She ultimately tries to play it off as if it were a joke, but I don’t think anyone believes that. While I have been hoping that the anime would tell us more details about Yuki’s back story, this isn’t quite what I had in mind. I’d love to be wrong about this, but unfortunately, I’m starting to think that a monkey’s paw curled when I made that wish.
As a closing note, the dub for Ms. Servant debuted, and I gave it a watch. Our protagonists, Yuki and Hitoyoshi, are played by Trina Nishimura and Abi Kumar, respectively. Nishimura is, of course, an industry icon—among plenty of other roles, she’s played Kurisu Makise from Steins;Gate, Kyouka Jirou from My Hero Academia, and of course, Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan (incidentally, she also voiced one of the main characters—Sen Yarizui—from Ben-To). In contrast, with only a small handful of named roles, Kumar is a newcomer to the realm of anime voice acting. So far, there are not a lot of characters in this show, so that means that the two of them will be carrying this dub, and they both seem to be doing a good job. I’d like to pay particular compliments to Kumar; when Hitoyoshi and Yuki meet, Hitoyoshi is trying really hard to stay calm, but on the inside, he’s panicking. Kumar sells this so well that I don’t even need to hang on to the receipt. But this doesn’t mean Nishimura allows herself to fade into the background—in fact, especially during any of the moments involving sauce, she always ends up stealing the scene.
Rating:
You are Ms. Servant is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.