Ninja Maid

Don't mess with the Sayocopter.

A maid who works and lives in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She does a maid's duty perfectly: cooking, cleaning, washing, babysitting, knife throwing, etc.

—Sakuya Izayoi's Profile from Immaterial and Missing Power

A maid (French maid uniform often included) who knows kung fu. Many ninja maids intentionally cater to the contrast between the image of a helpless, gentle, obedient maid and an Action Girl in a frilly uniform jumping off the mansion roof and landing her Mary Jane heels squarely in someone's face.

May or may not develop a Bodyguard Crush on her master, be they male or female. If said master is very young or sickly, she might tend to be their Mama Bear as well.

Common in Anime and Manga.

Sub-Trope of Battle Butler. Can be related to Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids and McNinja. A Sister Trope to Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja.

Examples of Ninja Maid include:

Anime and Manga

  • Sayoko Shinozaki from Code Geass, whose true badassitude is revealed mid-second season. There was a semi-serious fan theory in the first season that the main character's maid was secretly a ninja, and the series creators liked the idea enough to make it canon.
    • Technically denied by herself. When Rolo calls her a ninja, she corrects him, and calls herself an SP - a reference to Japan's Police division dedicated to bodyguard duties, itself heavily based on the American Secret Service. Of course, she just happens to have weapons similar to those a ninja would use.
  • An episode of Ghost in the Shell featured a reclusive billionaire (who later turned out to be Dead All Along) with a mansion staffed by gynoid maids with hidden guns that flipped out of their arms. They went down like chumps, though.
  • Fiore from Chrono Crusade doesn't actually know kung fu... but she is a superpowered jewel witch capable of summoning giant crystalline killing machines, so I think she counts.
  • Elenore Baker from Madlax.
  • Rosarita Cisneros aka Roberta from Black Lagoon, who isn't as much a Ninja Maid, as she is a Terminator Maid. She doesn't just know kung fu—she's bloody invincible, not to mention carrying enough weaponry in her maid uniform to depopulate a small country. considering that she used to be the infamous "Bloodhound of Florencia", the most dangerous hitwoman from the FARC...
    • Ditto her younger apprentice and fellow Ninja Maid, Fabiola Iglesias.
  • Wilhelmina from Shakugan no Shana.
  • It's heavily implied that the agency member Mori Sonou from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is one of these. Though technically she only pretends to be a maid as part of her cover.
    • She demonstrates her true badass colors in Haruhi-chan but considering the series' status...
  • Hanaukyo Maid Tai. Pretty literal in the case of Konoe, a Comically Serious ninja maid and Taro's personal bodyguard, and Yashima Sana, Konoe's lieutenant.
  • In an episode of Mahou Sensei Negima the then-villainous Evangeline took control of several of the girls' minds, dressed them up like French maids and then used them to fight Negi, knowing that he wouldn't be able to apply his full power against them. At the time, it seemed like the mind-control had inexplicably given them badass ninja powers, but considering later events, perhaps not...
    • Chachamaru, Evangeline's Robot Girl servant, also knows kung fu.
  • Tsurara and Shizuku from Kamen no Maid Guy. The "ninja" part is very literal for these two.
  • Maria from Hayate the Combat Butler, although outshone by the other Battle Butlers, can more than hold her own in a fight.
    • Maria is usually absent or finds a way to resolve conflict without fighting; it's often implied that she is more capable than Hayate.
      • She also seems opposed to being thought of as a ninja maid.
  • Tachibana from Mahoraba.
  • Fumi Himeno from My-HiME, complete with a scythe as her Element. Too bad she has an Heroic BSOD after being defeated and losing her powers.
  • Any and all Otome in Mai-Otome. Want to know just how much? Originally the show was going to be called Mai-✩MAiD.
  • Media from Pani Poni Dash!; She apparently thinks the maid uniform is just part of being someone's assistant.
  • Luciene and Marianne, Ryoko's maids directly imported from France in The Case Files of Yakushiji Ryoko. The former is a genius hacker, while the latter is a weapons specialist. Both kick copious amounts of ass.
  • Normally the maid in the Ecchi OVA Labyrinth of Flames is a Dojikko Ill Girl... but if you force the contents of her IV into her arm, she briefly turns into the ultimate ninja.
  • Eneus in Macademi Wasshoi. More than that, she's a dog girl ninja maid.
  • In the first episode of Najica Blitz Tactics the heroine must battle an entire house full of machinegun-toting, panty-flashing, lesbian maids.
  • Hazuki Sakurazaka of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, who is capable of Roof Hopping and knocking men out, and if that's not enough, she still have her chainsaw on her repertoire. Her fellow maid Nanami Nanashiro seems to be this way as well, as she is also pretty handy with her hammer. But she is mostly relegated to support actions, in the anime at least.
  • Hungary from Axis Powers Hetalia. She's not a maid all the time, but still often shows up in a maid's outfit... and is very willing to use her spear and/or her frying pan to defend her husband Austria, as Prussia and France learned the hard way.
    • Some people speculate that Belarus might end up hitting this trope as well. Her outfit is similar to a maid one and she's hinted to be a Knife Nut Yandere, so we'll see...
  • Masahiro Shibata's Sarai revolves around mercenaries known as Battle Maids.
  • Lilica from Girls Bravo.
  • Vizen Bercourt from Iono the Fanatics. Not only is she the Head Sobame but she is also officially the most Badass one of them all, e.g. able to scare a Career Killer away just by standing there and smiling politely. Having just smashed said killer into a wall a few seconds earlier with her Dynamic Entry helped.
  • Sylua in Glass Fleet.
  • In the opening episode of Phantom of Inferno, Ein runs around killing people in a French maid outfit.
  • Sandman of Gravion has an enormous medieval castle filled with maids. Some of them pilot Humongous Mecha for him. At least one is a ninja.
  • Mahoromatic, anyone? C'mon, she's a Robot Girl who Depowered herself (which lengthened her remaining lifespan to a year and a half) solely to become a maid for the male protagonist. She had good reason, though: she killed Suguru's father in the war, and that deeply scarred her, thus she chose to be Suguru's maid to make it up to the kid she orphaned.
  • The maid, Mikage in Prétear turns out to be the Big Bad.
  • Maylene from Black Butler seems pretty useless as a maid. On more than one occasion she has mixed up shoe polish for wood polish, among other things. However, she's also an amazingly efficient sniper. She doesn't even use a sniping-scope since she's apparently THAT far-sighted (one of the reasons she probably mixes up cleaning products). She keeps a few racks of rifles on the roof so she doesn't have to waste time re-loading, and she's once seen using said rifles as pistols to take down baddies. But of course, it is only natural that a servant of Phantomhive would be able to do that.
    • Hannah from season 2 is also one of these. Not only she's a maid, but she's actually a demon.
  • Hinata Hyuuga cosplayed in a maid/bunny-version of her outfit in an omake from the Naruto anime. Yes, it IS as good as it sounds.
  • In Banana no Nana we have MaiMai, an actual country of Ninja Maids.
  • Virgo from Fairy Tail. Bonus points, she used to be used as an actual body guard.
  • Many characters from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. For example, in this episode, during a movie, Tsuruya decides to fight a monster from said movie, which turns out to be Mori, and then, Mori proceeds to knock out Tsuruya with a HUGE earthquake kick.
    • In the Christmas episode, Nagato traps the escaping "Santa."[1]
  • Tohru from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid might be one of the strongest examples of this Trope, being a dragon in human (well, human-like) form who can warp reality and destroy cities if she has to.

Comic Books

  • Empowered features Maidman, a strapping male Ninja Maid.

Fan Works

Film

  • In the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie Shao Feng's meek maids, Lian and Park, instantly turn badass when the East Indian Trading Company attacks his lair.

Literature

  • Shizuka, from Tales of the Otori.
  • Ulla from Larklight. "Have a care, sir, I'll have you know I am an agent of the British Secret Service!"
  • Not Kung-fu per se, but Lucie Manette's maid Miss Pross from A Tale of Two Cities is Badass.
  • Lacey, Patience's maid, in Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy.
  • In The Princess Series Talia is one of the top secret agents for Queen Bea. She is highly trained martial artist whose abilities are enhanced by fairy magic. Her cover is that of a simple palace servant.
  • In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sun Quan's sister (never named) is a Badass Princess with an entourage of a hundred fighting ladies-in-waiting, all equally good with spear and bow—an Amazon Brigade of Ninja Maids.

Live Action TV

  • In "Exposed", an episode of the British sci-fi series UFO, Paul Foster makes a threatening move towards Dr. Jackson and finds himself caught in a judo hold by his beautiful Oriental servant. Jackson then coolly remarks: "Yes Mr. Foster, things are not always what they seem."
  • Never read the manga, but in the TV series version of Akihabara@DEEP, Akira is a Maid Cafe waitress by day, professional cage-fighter by night. Once her otaku friends build a website for her, her popularity at the cafe skyrockets.
  • Martha Jones of Doctor Who during her brief stint as a maid during "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood"
  • Luka in Episode 6 of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, in which she goes undercover as a Meido in a fancy mansion. When a Zangyack invades it looking for the episode's MacGuffin, she uses her fighting ability to drive him away.
  • Shae from Game of Thrones. In the books, Shae is more of an innocent ingénue, and while she's still a maid, she has little insight into what's really going on around her. However, the TV series changes this significantly; she's still a handmaiden (and whore), but she's also very adept at lying, has a good eye for what makes people tick (and how to exploit it), and is a bit of a Knife Nut. She goes out of her way to protect Sansa Stark several times while she's in her care, even staring down Sandor Clegane and Ilyn Payne, both trained killers nearly twice her size.

Tabletop Games

  • Maid RPG. They have rules for everything.

Theatre

  • In The Pink Panther, Inspector Clouseau's maid is a trained ninja. They spar regularly.


Video Games

  • Iroha from Samurai Shodown. Particularly noticeable for looking almost exactly like what comes to mind when thinking of the term "Ninja Maid": she wears what is essentially a cross between traditional Japanese garb and the stereotypically skimpy French-maid costume.
  • With the right DLC, you can make one of these in the Soulcalibur IV character creator
  • While fetching the Dragon Tooth Sword in Deus Ex, JC finds it guarded by a maid.That promptly starts emptying clips on him.
  • Castlevania - Ninja Maids are a recurring enemy in the series. They're called Persephone in Portrait of Ruin, and some of them have vacuum cleaners - which cause Charlotte to let out an embarassed yelp if they catch her skirt in Portrait of Ruin. They're also in the Sorrow games, and their vacuums are their soul power. And they can be used to catch the skirts of Student Witches or the Persephones themselves. But those are more of the Kung Fu Maids. The real Ninja Maids appeared in the Castlevania for X68000 (Later ported to Ps1 as Castlevania Chronicles) in the final level, and some of them turned into Zombie Maids after death.
  • Aylith from Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, playable in the Seraphic Gate.Sure, her powers should be no wonder since her true form is actually that of a 30-feet tall hell hound.
  • Melty Blood - Kohaku and Hisui got a maid-upgrade from Normal to Ninja. Kohaku in particular becomes faster than almost any other character in the game, including superhumanly fast vampires, and gets a hidden katana inside her broom.
    • In the Tsukihime manga, Kohaku has a truly impressive all black meido outfit, for accompanying Akiha on less orthodox jobs.
      • This is viewable in the original game, if you "Push yourself to see Arcueid," in the Arcueid route you get a Bad Ending where Kohaku wears this outfit.
  • Touhou Project
    • Sakuya Izayoi of the Scarlet Devil Mansion from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, capable of throwing dozens, if not hundreds, of knives at her foes at an instant. How she manages to carry them all is probably connected to her space-time-manipulation abilities.
    • Youmu Konpaku, gardener of the Netherworld (Hakugyokuro), also a double-sworded half-human half-ghost samurai girl.
    • Yumeko, who was Demoted to Extra. She was the original knife SWORD throwing maid of the series.
    • Mugetsu, who used lasers and... magical bullet arrows.
    • Pretty much half the Stage 5 bosses qualify for this, in one way or another.
  • Noel Kidou Ehrlichkeit from Triangle Heart 3 ～sweet songs forever～ is this plus Robot Girl. Her counterpart in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha doesn't get into a single fight scene, so it's unknown whether she is, too.
  • Shizune from Izuna 2 was sent overseas where she became the maid of the game's Big Bad. After she's reunited with her Ninja Cool Big Sis Shino and joins the player's party, she uses the same ninja tools that everybody else does.
  • Cinnamon's Hyper Mode in Mega Man X Command Mission turns her costume into a maid's uniform.
  • In Adultswim.com's online game Death Vegas, there is an unattractive example in Badass Grandma Lourdes, who carries a plunger that separates into a dagger and what seems to be a cudgel with the plunger head on it. In a subversion, she seems to be some sort of mercenary who turns on Dante when offered a better contract.
  • Lil' Miss Marshmallow from Mother 3. She seems fairly harmless until you try to take the Friend's Yoyo and she goes ballistic on you.
  • Nel's fourth costume in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time is a very skimpy French maid outfit.
  • Ding Feng in Wonderland Online. The description even says that she is a ninja who is a maid to get closer to the enemy.
  • The Legendary Geisha unit from Shogun Total War follows this trope in spirit if not in letter. She's an assassin who masquerades as an "entertainer."
  • Rasberyl of Disgaea 3 has two retainers, a maid and a female Samurai. Rather than being a maid who knows kung fu, she's a ninja who does a maid's work.
  • Cecilia of Vanguard Bandits started as a ninja but became a maid to spy on someone and took a real liking to it.
  • Impa in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is different from the usual version, as she does not look like a maid. She's Zelda's nursemaid and a powerful warrior, so she counts.
  • Shiraha from Oshiete: Re Maid is a variation: she's a highly skilled bodyguard, but her skill at housework leaves a lot to be desired, partly because she's a trigger happy gun nut.
  • Kikkawa Kiku and Kobayakawa Chinu from Sengoku Rance. Although Kobayakawa Chinu is in fact a of the Miko class. She is a user of poisons.
  • Alice from Embric of Wulfhammers Castle, the Duchess's personal maid, isn't a ninja, she took barbarian levels instead. Though, it does result in a lot of broken furniture. And one busted tower.

Visual Novels

"Isn't that more like a ninja than a maid?"

  • Kuon of My Girlfriend is the President is a unique example because despite being a hyper-competent bodyguard to Irina her specialty is not in bladed weaponry, throwing weaponry, or even melee. Rather she specializes in firearms and grenades. Lots and lots of grenades. Though she does tend to be good at sneaking up on people and popping out of nowhere.


Web Original

Web Comic

  • Lampshaded in Castlevina RPG's CVRPG Meets the TMNT arc. Darkmoom seems to have trouble realizing that not all Ninjas are maids.
  • Mecha Maid in the superhero comic Spinnerette combines this trope with Robot Maid since she's a ninja maid in a powered battlesuit. She even cites Mahoromatic as an inspiration.

Western Animation

Other

141. My maid does not know kung fu.

It is a long list of Noodle Incidents...
  • The filk song On Top of the Wall, whose narrator declares that she's "normally a scullery maid" but when the castle in which she works is attacked, she sings, "I'm up on top of the wall looking down on the raiders and the only source of comfort I can find is this large pot of oil, which I've just begun to boil. I've been cooking up on top of the wall."


Real Life

  • Real Ninja were by definition spies and often disguised themselves as peasants. Many ninja weapons are based on modified farm equipment. A Ninja with a job as a domestic servant is no big stretch, although the French maid outfit is pushing it—ninja were never given the opportunity to operate in France. Or possibly the fact we think they weren't operating in France just shows how good they were.
  • While not as awesome as the Assassins Creed's versions, hashshashins (assassins), their real life counterparts often disguised themselves as servants to deliver poisons or backstabs to their targets.
  1. ↑ And Nagato only used a very wide net.
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