I understand why anime takes place in high school a lot, because its intended audience is high schoolers.
What is it with maids? And specifically the “French maid” type? Here in the US, maids are not like that at all. It’s usually a Mexican lady in a minivan who comes by once a month or something. Additionally, they’re not super common.
In anime, they usually seem to be a cross between live in maid and nanny. That wouldn’t be too weird if it weren’t so popular a trope. Is that common in Japan? I’m not the biggest consumer of Japanese media, but I can’t recall IRL maids besides the maid cafes.
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I understand why anime takes place in high school a lot, because its intended audience is high schoolers.
That doesn’t match my understanding of why so much anime is depicted in high school. While, yes there is a lot of anime targeted at high schoolers, as it was explained to me is that high school is the last time in Japanese culture where your future is undefined on a path. As soon as you leave high school you’re into one specific education, vocation, or career path where deviation after choosing your path is rare or not social acceptable. High school period is the last place in Japanese culture where everyone is mostly equal and unbound by expections. Many of the stories follow the nature of change or growth. So this requires the point in character’s lives where you can tell it.
Other story tropes used to transport older characters back to this time include:
- body swap to a younger body or de-aging where social rules allow a person to change again
- isekai, where the character is transported to another world (where the same rules of defined path don’t apply)
- reincarnation, where the adult protagonist is reborn into the body of a child or teenager, again to place them in a point in society where change or freedom of choice of path is allowed
Some of the above is just my speculation. Other portions is what I’ve learned from others. If this is wrong and other people here know definitively, please correct me. I don’t want to be spreading wrong information.
Japan loves France. Idk if that actually means anything on this topic but it used to be common for Japanese people to get horribly disillusioned by Paris while on vacation. Paris Syndrome
I think the French maid is kind of a sexual fetish (not sure why it’s specifically the French maid lol) so the guys like it. Plus it’s a cute outfit (look up lolita fashion) so the girls like it.
Live-in maids are pretty common in parts of Asia.
Years ago I looked at a newly built apartment building and it had a small bed, toilet, sink in a small closet/room for the maid. Weird and creepy.
I mean, have you seen those outfits? They’re hot AF.
I do find it weird that in anime, maids do it all. They do normal maid stuff, they are super intelligence agents, they are inventors, and bodyguards and pilots and drivers… They’re also sometimes dragons or kitsune.
I have to assume it’s merely a Japanese trope within these fictions. One I saw recently explained that Japan just took one look at Western maids from Europe and became enamored with the idea and why there are maid themed cafes and such. But again, that was in an anime so it could just be a joke.
It’s not all that different than, say, Batman’s Alfred. The Super-Butler is also definitely a trope I’ve seen in a few places.
The super-butler is a far more storied and sensible trope, though. Jeeves (of Jeeves and Wooster) being the earliest example I know. Butlers and manservants were expected to take care of household management as well as their oft-incapacitated employers.
would it be about control? a fantasy about having access to a modernised version of a slave who is bound to do the protagonist’s oft-perverted bidding with reduced rights of their own?
They’re cute and they serve you and they’re socially plausible. Say no more.
