While the Summer 2021 anime season presented anime watchers with a nearly ridiculous amount of anime to watch, it was fairly easy to sift out the gems of the season from the rest of the pack. In between those gems and the less popular castoffs, we did manage to get some anime that folks were divided on, occasionally for legitimate reasons. One of those unpolished gems, as we’ll call them, was The Duke of Death and His Maid.
The Duke of Death and His Maid follows the story of a young duke — who’s cursed to kill whoever he touches — and his maid who’s so thirsty for the deadly D that she’s practically dehydrated. The anime did have some promise, even ending up on a recent J-List article of the best sleeper anime of the season. However, the show’s faint promise couldn’t detract from animation studio J.C. Staff’s use of CGI and the problems therein. With the overly saturated CGI standing out garishly against much more solid hand-painted backgrounds, and character movement and interactions often coming off as unnatural to viewers, the show ended up on yet another of J-List’s articles. This time, on how J.C Staff’s use of CGI made this particular anime hard to love.
We here at J-List are just a small drop in a bucket of larger opinion, however. While I feel that the premise of “Can’t touch people so I’ll never find love and die alone” has been done — if you’ll excuse the pun — to death, and often done to much better effect in other media, The Duke of Death and His Maid is getting a second season, for better or worse.
The season two announcement was released by Funimation on Sunday, and the streaming service currently simulcasts the anime with subtitles in English, French, and Portuguese along with an English dub. While a date for the new season hasn’t been announced as of yet, I’m sure those that truly enjoyed the anime will have a lot to look forward to.
But what do you think? Did you enjoy The Duke of Death and His Maid? Well, whether you like your maids extra thirsty, tsundere, or slavishly devoted, J-List has no end to the bounty of maid-related products so you can find the maid that’s right for you.
Source: Funimation
