Kaichou wa Maid-sama!: Footmen Olympics!!

I normally don’t give my episodic reviews a title but this occasion calls for it – Kaichou wa Maid-sama finally has a direction! Yeah, I know what you’re thinking – “you have to be kidding me! They finally had an episode pertaining to the main plot, and it’s a double header as well! And this time, it’s not just Misaki having a problem and Usui randomly fixing it in the end (well, sort of)! There’s actually more fun, more humor, and more tension as Usui shows sign of his human nature with pain in the middle of episode nineteen! (By the way, this covers both episodes eighteen and nineteen).

Situation (this post will be done differently as to celebrate the occasion) – Miyabigaoka’s vice president wants to buy Café Latte and build a butler café over it. Being the incredible douches they are, they basically blackmail Manager-san, Misaki-san, and all the other girls that their café will be shut down unless they can achieve some results in the upcoming footman competition. What up! Already you can tell Misaki and Usui will enter together and own (I mean, Misaki learned to play volleyball in a few hours). From this point, I thought we were in for another cliché boring episode.

Event one (Running back and forth along a course) – … or so you’d thought the two unbeatable people would go together but clearly Usui is nowhere to be seen as Misaki and Subara (the green-haired megane) sign up to the footman competition together. The big day comes and our two ladies have transformed themselves into footmen… male footmen. It is stated that women aren’t allowed to be footmen, but does anyone else smell that spoiler? Misaki carries Subaru through the whole first event and finish, but run into two mysterious people wearing cat heads.

Event two (Changing… quickly) – It was obviously Usui and Aoi, but seeing as Aoi is too young and Subaru gave that girlish shriek that nearly ruined everything, those two are eliminated and once again, Misaki and Usui are teamed up together! But one pair is out and only one remains! And what’s up with the evil grins that are coming up? By the way, I purposely skipped that kitchen work they did because it’s pointless.  Misaki knows what to do and she does it like a beast.

Event three (Setting up table) – Leave it to Usui to know everything… for the first time in a while, it seems that Misaki is essentially presented as… well… useless. You can’t really blame her not knowing all the fancy old-England things since she’s technically in a financial crunch at home, but I’m glad that Usui is with her so that they can score maximum points. He seems to know which type of dessert goes where for maximum pleasure – as expected from the ultimate ladies man.

Event four (Serving) – While Misaki has to do that whole thing falling off the serving stage, Usui ends up being injured trying to save her. It’s obvious that he’s in pain yet he wants to go on as if nothing happened since he is trying to save Café Latte. What I don’t understand is why Misaki doesn’t realize that although he’s in pain, he doesn’t want to be stopped from what he’s doing. Furthermore, she ruins it by doing everything for Usui and this ends up with him playing the violin. Apart from causing him more pain, Misaki basically was the stupid one the whole time and I was surprised since it’s the first time we seen Misaki really like this.

After a while, she gets pissed off and gives a whole speech about why she loves her café and the people in it – this causes the vice-president to think about what he’s been doing all along but Toru recognizes the threat and Café Latte is saved… for now. While everyone is being happy about the café being saved, Misaki is out doing a little errand.  Yep, the errand includes helping out Usui at his home. Aside from being extremely vulnerable (what, she was), she basically played around with Usui and his emotions. You can’t blame him for having an empty house since he’s so mysterious, but you can blame Misaki for not knowing how to cook (I guess her sister Suzu does really take care of everything). I stand by the fact that Misaki is not super-human in my views anymore – but perfect for Usui nonetheless.