He Is My Master - TV Tropes (2024)

He Is My Master - TV Tropes (1)

He Is My Master is a 5 volume manga created by former husband and wife team, writer Mattsuu and artist Asu Tsubaki. The manga ran in Monthly Shonen Gangan from 2002 to 2007, and it received an anime adaptation by Studio Gainax in 2005.

Izumi and Mitsuki have run away from home and are looking for work. Where to go? They happen to stumble upon the house of 14-year old billionaire Yoshitaka Nakabayashi, who's looking for maids. Yoshitaka lets the girls stay and relax, but leaves them maid outfits to change into when they get out. Shortly before they leave, Izumi breaks a very expensive pot, and so she and her sister are roped in working to pay off their debt. Throw in a perverted alligator, a third maid from Yoshitaka's school (also a lesbian), and it all takes off from there.

Not to be confused with They Are My Noble Masters.

This anime provides examples of:

  • Air-Vent Passageway: Used when they are trying to rescue Mitsuki in the fourth episode, but it is so loud the Mitsuki-chan Defense Squad hears them coming immediately.
  • Always in Class One: Izumi and Yoshitaka are shown to be in class 2-A. Being in the same class is convenient for Yoshitaka, but isn't for Izumi for the same reason. Anna is also in that class.
  • Amusing Injuries: Yoshitaka is hurt quite a lot for the sake of the comedy. Often deservedly so. This is even taken up to eleven when we can see his face restoring real time after it became unrecognizably deformed all this while talking back to Izumi.
  • And the Adventure Continues: The anime's ending.

    Izumi's debt for the day:

    ¥1,052,639

    The End

  • Art Shift: The anime and the manga's art styles are very different. Also, Pochi in the first manga volume is drawn more like a realistic alligator, but becomes the cartoonish blimp he's most known as in the next volume. The characters actually bring this shift up in one chapter, with the explanation being that "Pochi has gotten fat."
  • Author Avatar: Mattsu is portrayed as an alligator, and Asu as a hamster. Due to the fourth wall never having existed for the manga in the first place, they are part of the main cast by the end.
  • Big Fancy House: Complete with a front and back yard the size of several parks put together. Mitsuki was even able to let her defense force build an full scale indoor beach without the other even noticing it.
  • Bowdlerise: The German release ups the girls' ages by three in the dub and the sub.
  • Characterization Marches On: He Is My Master - TV Tropes (2)Word of God points out that in early chapters, Anna is supposed to be the "innocent, naive character", but he decided to change her and make her a Yoshitaka-level pervert.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Pochi the alligator, particularly in the manga. The author's notes in Volume 2 even note that the big difference between him and Yoshitaka is that Pochi actually gives a damn about the girls he pursues; as people, not objects.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Anna, who refuses to share Izumi with anyone, especially men.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: This trope is the main source of the series' humor, not to mention in the most extreme ways possible.
  • Costume Exaggeration: A guest character agrees to have a competition with the show's resident lech. The former excels at designing several costumes with noticeably less Costume Exaggeration than the latter, before the lead girl is convinced there's not enough of a functional difference to bother changing employers. (That and the new employer loves crossdressing, which is a step too far for the girl who gets abused on a daily basis by every other main character.)
  • Creepy Crossdresser: Yoshitaka's cousin Seiichirou. He is nice enough in the anime, but kidnapping Izumi in the last volume of the manga and trying to manipulate her certainly don't earn him a place among the good guys.
  • "Die Hard" on an X: In the mansion itself on the fourth episode, complete with hidden guns bandaged in the back of the protagonist character, and even quoting the title "Die Hard".
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: No one seems to mind all the abuse that Yoshitaka suffers, although the vast majority of the time he deserves it.
  • Ecchi: There is no straight-up sex -implied or explicit-, but there are plenty of fanservicey goings-on, up to and including skirt-slipping, panty shots, and Anna getting bound and blind-folded.
  • Fanservice: The entire point of the series, from the fetishy Meido uniforms to the clear perversion of Anna and Yoshitaka.
  • Go-Go Enslavement: Izumi is forced to wear a Meido outfit while she works off her debt to Yoshitaka.
  • Greed: Yoshitaka seems to show signs of this, even though he already has everything one could want.
  • Half-Arc Season: There are only 12 episodes in the anime, and episodes 7-12 have a slowly advancing plot regarding Izumi's dream to be an idol and Yoshitaka's rival Seiichirou.
  • Happiness in Slavery: The ending of the anime strongly implies that the girls are perfectly happy serving Yoshitaka, despite all the complaints from Izumi before.
  • High-Class Gloves: Working for a rich family, Izumi, Mitsuki and Anna all wear long white gloves with black cuffs at the top as part of their Meido outfits.
  • Instant Fan Club: Mitsuki's Bodyguard Squad. The first day she transfers to Yoshitaka's school, she becomes extremely popular and ends up with numerous upperclass guys vowing to protect her.
  • In the Blood: Izumi and Mitsuki's parents; the father is a lot like Izumi and the mother is a lot like Mitsuki.
  • Indentured Servitude: In the first episode, Izumi breaks a vase worth 5 million yen. She becomes a maid to the vase's owner to pay off her debt to him.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Yoshitaka constantly walks the line between this a straight up Jerkass as he is revealed to have ulterior motives. In the final episode he seems reformed, but it is all eventually revealed to have been a plan to renew Izumi's contract. However, some internal dialogue, which he would have had no reason to fake since the other characters couldn't hear him, suggested that he may have been serious about wanting to marry Izumi. So, He Is My Master - TV Tropes (3)it's up to the viewer to decide which he is. The manga is an aversion because Yoshitaka is irremediable.
  • King of All Cosmos: Mattsu is "the alligator god" whom Izumi regards as a semi-malevolent Jerkass God.
  • Lethal Chef: Anna. Alone the smell can make both humans and alligators faint.
  • Made a Slave: Izumi and Mitsuki.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Mitsuki. Her mother is even WORSE; while Mitsuki is also cute when scheming and has some genuine kind moments, her mother isn't and doesn't.
  • Meido: The whole point of the series is to put two teenage girls (and later three) into He Is My Master - TV Tropes (4)fetish maid outfits. The first enjoys wearing it, the second hates wearing it, and the third enjoys the second one wearing it.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Izumi's large breasts that jiggle and general dislike of the maid uniform mark her as this. This status is enforced by the other main characters.
  • No Ending: The manga. Just when it looks like all is wrapped up, the last panel undoes it completely.
  • No Fourth Wall: In the manga, everyone causally references things outside the story.
  • Pervert Dad: The girls ran away from home in the first place, because they got tired resisting their father's constant sexual advances.

    Father: I love you both just as much as your mother!
    Izumi: Ewww!
    Father: Just as much!

  • Priceless Ming Vase: Izumi's debt starts with her smashing a vase worth 5,000,000 yen. Since she smashes something just about every time she cleans up, and since the house is full of expensive things, you can probably guess which way the debt is going...
  • Psycho Lesbian: Anna. Do NOT get in the way of her and Izumi. Once, when Yoshitaka finds her stash of Izumi pictures, Anna produces a spiked club and attempts to murder him.
  • The Rival: Seiichirou for Yoshitaka and Takami for Izumi (though the latter is subverted in the anime, where Takami is actually just acting the part of Izumi's rival as part of Yoshitaka's plan.
  • Shout-Out: ...to a lot of other Gainax titles. Yoshitaka names his Koi fish after female characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion and GunBuster.
  • A Twinkle in the Sky: Happens to Yoshitaka in episode 04 even though he didn't vanish into thin air.
  • Unwanted Harem: Izumi has a rather mixed collection: Her villainious master Yoshitaka, her fellow maid and resident lesbian Anna, the perverted alligator Pochi, and crossdressing Seiichirou. And no, she doesn't want any of them.
  • Work Off the Debt: The whole premise of the show is having two, and later three, young girls get into debt to a wealthy 14-year-old and have to pay him back by working as his maids.
He Is My Master - TV Tropes (2024)
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