Servant x Service (サーバント×サービス) is a 13 episode romantic slice of life comedy that is based on the manga of the same name by Takatsu Karino. The anime originally aired during the Summer of 2013.
Three new hires begin their life working in a local ward office in a fictitious Hokkaido town. They are ready to begin their lives as civil servants no matter what challenges they face. Or are they? The first new hire and primary focus of the story is Yamagami Lucy (...). She is short in stature, bespectacled, plain looking with a noticeably large chest for her stature. Think, the nerd version of a sexy librarian. She isn't exactly looking for a reliable and honorable career as a government employee. Instead she has an ulterior motive that has driven her entire life goal. After her birth her parents struggled to pick a name for her, asking a number of random people in the hospital for suggestions. Still unable to decide on one, the went with all of them. Lucy's full name...or at least as much of it as she has ever mentioned is, Lucy Kimiko Akie Airi Shiori Rinne Yoshino Chihoko Ayano Fumika Chitose Sanae Mikiko Ichika Yukina Reina Eri...and so on. Her goal, track down the civil servant who authorized such a ridiculous and impossible first name to be registered after her birth and give him a piece of her mind. In short, her entire purpose for starting work in the office is for revenge. Beyond that all she wants to do is buy more and more books, preferring to be by herself, following her overly traumatic childhood, directly related to her ridiculous name.
But, there are two other new hires. Hasebe Yutaka and Miyoshi Saya. Hasebe is a third generation civil servant and only working at the ward office because its whats expected of him. Hasebe however doesn't come from a family of serious and astute individuals. Instead all of his relatives are slackers who love nothing more than playing pranks on others. He's entered into this line of work because he believes it will allow him to do as little as possible. He isn't shy about his lack of motivation, continually broadcasting his intentions to dodge tasks at work. On top of his laziness he strives to get contact information from any cute girl he comes across, collecting them like Pokemon cards. He's a flirt, irresponsible and sloppy...yet when he does something he does it quickly and perfectly so the higher ups turn a blind eye to his otherwise unprofessional aspects. The third new hire is the soft spoken and unobtrusive Miyoshi Saya. She applied for the job for no particular reason and struggles to realize what she wants to do with her life. She doesn't like confrontation and frequently inhibits customers to abuse her malleable personality. She is particularly prone at being trapped by repetitive and long winded stories from elderly women who come to the ward office out of boredom.
Rounding out the small cast of eccentrics is the three newbies supervisor, Ichimiya Taishi, who lacks any confidence in his abilities as their senpai. His high school aged sister, Touko, frequently visits the ward office to 'test' her brothers employee's ability at serving the public. In reality, shes dedicated to her brother and has a bit of a complex about him as her primary caregiver for a good portion of her life. Chihaya Megumi is a long time temporary employee of the department who carries herself with a calm stoicism that can easily move into calculated sadism. She has continued to work at the office in a temp position for more flexibility in taking time off of work, to pursue her true passion, cosplay. She is secretly dating Taisha and uses making clothes for his sister as a cover for her frequent presence in their apartment. The final member of the department is the obscure and unhinged section chief, Momoi Kenzo. The late middle aged man has severe shyness and has been able to work remotely for most of his career, interacting with his staff through a robotic bunny rabbit instead.
The course of the series follows the new comers as they grow comfortable with their roles and each other, working around their personality quirks and unprofessional habits. Hasebe quickly becomes fixed on Yamagami, seeing her as a puzzle to solve. Yamagami deflects all of his advances, unaware of her own appeal, considering everything he does as little more than teasing mockery. In reality, Hasebe finds the short coworker as the first woman he's developed romantic desires for, but his skewed personality leads to a less than respectable courtship. Yamagami, too absorbed in her own reality, barely registers many of Hasebe's actions as sexual harassment but quickly rejects his advances at every opportunity. Ichimiya tries to reinforce proper work etiquette in Hasebe but isn't confident enough in his own authority to make any impact. When his secretive affair with Chihaya becomes apparent, his words of caution become even less impactful on the young staffer. But no matter the level of effort he puts into his efforts, Yamagami's own hangups refuse to let her understand his true intentions, so he shrugs his shoulders and continues to see how far he can push his luck with her.
I wanted to revisit this series after all this time due to stumbling upon the complete omnibus release of the manga in English. I felt a need to refresh the story in my mind before I went through the source material, so I could more accurately compare the too products with each other. It also gave me an excuse to rewatch a really lovely and enjoyable adult slice of life series. I regret not coming back to this one for so long as this second watch, binged instead of consumed on a weekly basis, really made the story more appealing. I say story lightly, while there is a marked progression of the characters lives, there really is no over all plot, beyond the continued pursuit of Lucy's affection by Hasebe. The story doesn't register any sort of over arching goal beyond showing the characters become more familiar and comfortable with each other and their surroundings, there is no grand goal, aside from Hasebe bedding Lucy. The manga is a yonkoma, so in general the plot is relegated to small episodic segments that tie together in a larger, vague, narrative.
Initially, in the original run through, I had a problem with the amount of jokes and attention paid to Lucy's unrealistic bust size. The second time through that hasn't changed, but I think I've mellowed out in my objection of it. I'm all for boobs, and busty women have some appeal to me. I didn't really want tepid fanservice in my adult slice of life comedy. This time, while my opinions about what I'm looking for in anime, especially slice of life, hasn't changed, I have taken a relaxed stance on the attention, at least for the first half. Yes, Lucy has massive knockers and its amusing given her short and petite stature, a feature she her self says is unusual. Whats crazy is how little blow back Hasebe gets for his continued attention on her chest. The level of workplace sexual harassment he gets away with seems out of norm even in Japan! But, its a part of the charm of his character and leads to some enjoyable moments in the story. Lucy's boobs can stay in my mind. Though...sometimes it gets a bit much. Though it's not like this is Tawawa on Monday or anything, but its still a bit much. Anyway, even after 11 years, this show was fantastic and I feel under appreciated in the community at large. It's a great, smooth paced slice of life that doesn't deal with high schools or any of the standard themes. While not the only adult, work based slice of life, this one has a really charming quality with lovable characters, even if somewhat unrealistic. Plus, the opening is fantastic!!
The series simulcast on Crunchyroll back in 2013 and is still available in sub only. The manga as well was thankfully commercially released in North America as two omnibus editions. See the review of that here!
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