Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!
Home sweet home! Every AI needs a server, and every human needs a home. Since both of them are expensive, Satomi Kōtarō is extremely happy when he finds a room for the ultra-cheap price of 5’000 yen.
The reason why room 106 in the Corona Apartments is so cheap? It is said there are ghosts, and nobody endures staying there.
But Kotaro does not believe in ghosts, and anyway his grandma has given him lots of protective amulets. And since he is always working hard after school, Kotaro would probably sleep through a war anyway, Maid-chan thinks.
The Corona Apartments are managed by Kasagi Shizuka, who goes to the same school as Kotaro. Her parents both passed away and she is very protective of the house they have left her.
Since Kotaro is always working to finance his life away from his family, he does not want to join any exhausting school club. In the end he decides to join the knitting club of, because it promises peace and tranquility. Also a nice, calm senpai and hot tea.
The senpai, Sakuraba Harumi, is very happy that Kotaro joins. After all he is the only other member (why is that club not disbanded??) And with time there are other, more personal reasons for her to be happy to be alone with Kotaro too.
Yes, harem genre.
But of course peace cannot last long with a title like “Invaders of the Rokujouma!?”, though the first invader is Kotaro himself.
Why you ask?
Because he rented the room 106, which already has an inhabitant. This inhabitant is not at all amused about Kotaro, and tries to scare him out of the room. But with no luck at all.
Did Maid-chan mention the inhabitant is a young girl ghost?
Higashihongan Sanae is the reason for the “haunted house” rumor, which is, as you can see, not just a rumor. She wants Kotaro gone and fights with a variety of poltergeist attacks. But thanks to the many talismans Kotaro got from his grandma, a ghost is no real opponent for him.
They are still in the middle of their fight, when another young girl appears, Nijino Yurika.
Yurika is a real magical girl, but nobody believes her, not even the ghost girl. Everyone thinks she is just a dedicated cosplayer. Her claim is that room 106 is full of magical power that must be protected from bad magical girls. By her of course. (Since when are there bad magical girls, Maid-chan wonders).
Yurika’s greatest power is to stumble out of problems her clumsiness has brought her in. But Maid-chan has to be fair, her powers are real and she does try her best (and often succeeds) in protecting room 106 and everyone who lives in there.
Everyone?
Shortly after Yurika appears the ground in the room breaks open, and out of the earth comes Kurano Kiriha.
As Maid-chan is sure you can see, Kiriha is decidedly not a loli girl. She is big, graceful and big.
Her tribe, the underground humans, want to use the power of the room 106 to prepare for an invasion of the upper world. Kiriha though belongs to a clan that secretly wants to do the invasion more peacefully than by brute force.
Accordingly she first tries to barter with Kotaro for the room, using every means she has, may it be gold for bribery or the good old “persuasion” with cooking and other worldly delights.
That may be a bit unfair, considering the lacking attack power of her rivals, but that is nothing compared to the next girl that appears (this time through the wall) in room 106.
This girl, Tiamirisu Gure Forutōze, or Theia in short, does not have a lot of physical attack power, but she makes up for that with her technology. It is because she is an alien. And a princess, who has to claim room 106 because a dumb rule says a randomly chosen place has to be taken to earn the right for the throne.
Alien, huh? Even dumber than humans, Maid-chan had not thought that possible before.
Theia and her servant Rūsukania Nai Parudomushīha (Ruth) don’t make a long speech. Since nobody wants to give up the room to the wannabe rightful heir, they will be forced by… force.
Kiriha can barely block the attack, but the room is done for. A smoldering ruin. That happens when you fire high-capacity lasers in a room with lots of burnable content!
Of course all the commotion could not go unnoticed. Finally the landlord shows up, already angry at all that noise. Needless to say, Shizuka is NOT AMUSED!
Maid-chan feels with her. You put so much work into the house, and than a bunch of girls pops up from of the other world, space, underground and magical realms, only to destroy it.
Shizuka’s anger is so mightily righteous that she can force the competing fractions into a contract. Everyone will keep peace until it is decided who will get the room. And the way this is decided is through games. Every point in a game is worth a small part of the room.
Never underestimate your landlord! Maid-chan’s master has said that several times in the past, too. Maid-chan wonders if there was something similar that happened to him in the past?
Idea: Great. Execution: Fail.
Maid-chan loves animes with unusual situations. She also likes it when stereotypes are masterly used. The anime Rokujōma no Shinryakusha!? promises both.
Unfortunately it fails immensely in delivering that.
The first problem might come from the fact that right at the start all main characters are gathered up. There is no tension brought in by newcomers.
Second issue is the solution of the room problem. The room occupancy is thought to be decided by games. But besides the start, both the games and the contract are barely mentioned at all. It feels like someone promised you a breathtaking temple on the next mountain, and when you are finally up there on the peak, you realize the breathtaking only comes from climbing and the temple is a tiny picture.
The third main problem is the character development. While they each get a backstory, they all feel totally unconnected. Those backstories would probably work better as stand-alone novels.
There are more light novels written than anime episodes, and maybe this is the problem. Maid-chan cannot say with certainty, but it feels like the anime makers had to slash too much of “unimportant” stuff and the anime is only the pure, shaking backbone of everything.
Conclusion
A promising situation clouded by the actual result. That is the anime Rokujōma no Shinryakusha!?
Maid-chan wanted to really like this one, but it was just not possible. A few colorful stones don’t make a mosaic, you could say.
Because of the problems Maid-chan has written about, she cannot give more than 6/10 points on the totally objective Maid-chan scale. Such a pity!
See you next time!