Arthur Zetes is the no-nonsense heir to his late father's fortune, a misanthropic highschool student whose emotional growth has been stunted by the near-constant attempts on his life from assassins hired by other family members. They're jealous of his chosen status despite his origins as an illegitimate child. 16-year-old Marie Evans is an expressionless, championship-winning martial arts prodigy hired to masquerade as Arthur's new robot maid and bodyguard. While she begins to fall for her master, and he for his supposedly mechanical servant, it's a shame that she can't reveal the truth of her humanity, because he harbours a deep hatred of liars.

Mechanical Marie is in a tough situation. The manga it's adapted from started as a one-shot, so surely that changes the approach the anime should take, right? Should it go for a faithful, panel-by-panel adaptation, or should it just jump right in? The answer they seem to have settled on is a bit of both, and I'm not fully sold on this decision, mostly because I think it would've been helpful to have the scene where Roy scouts Marie in the first place in terms of grounding the story.

Still, this is a fun episode. The basic concept is that Arthur has become a raging misanthrope because he's been treated so badly by other people, mostly his older brother Maynard, who actively resents Arthur's existence. But Arthur needs a good bodyguard (and apparently a trustworthy maid), so his butler Roy enlists the aid of emotionally challenged teenage martial arts champion Marie. Marie is to pretend she's a robomaid so Arthur will accept her help, but what are they to do when Marie and Arthur begin falling for each other?

Personally, I'm always down for some level of subversion of classic anime setups, and the robot maid is a trope perfect for riffing. Not ten minutes in, they're already piling onto the unnecessarily overcomplicated absurdity of the setup--Marie has to enact the ol' "robot pretending to be human at school" trope on top of everything else, so now she's a human pretending to be a robot pretending to be a human. Come on, I know we can go for four layers deep at some point in this story. Plus, Marie's a shredded martial artist to facilitate her routine. It's a sharp enough setup that's absolutely worth a few sensible chuckles.

The farcical nature of it all does call attention to the shortcomings on the more serious end of it though. I can grasp the basic idea of Marie and Arthur's would-be romance, with his preference for emotionless machines unintentionally leading him to be the first person who showed any understanding or appreciation for the unexpressive Marie. However, this intersects with Marie's developing must-protect inclinations toward Arthur, which are meant to clash with the high-strung, misanthropic persona he puts on in public. I get what they're going for, but needing to speedrun that emotional entry to establish the whole premise by the end of the episode does it no favours. Again, it just barely works in this jokier context, and it would've totally imploded had the show asked the audience to take it one iota more seriously.

It's cute, but it'd all work better if the episode had spent more time showing us Marie and Arthur actually interacting with each other. This one definitely could've actually benefitted from a double-length premiere. Instead the moments they spend together feel perfunctory, with very little going to promote any sort of warmer feelings developing. They're just sort of in the same room and talking occasionally for most of the episode. There are a couple moments where they save each other, such as when Marie chases down a kidnapper and rescues Arthur from a burning building and Arthur stands up for Marie at school, but none of them feel like anything more than plot points. There's no real emotion behind either scene, although in the case of the fire, it's clear that they're trying.

The animation effort doesn't quite back it up in the way an absurdist spectacle like this needs. Character models are already melting at multiple distances during more active action sequences. Additionally, the anime often relies on postcard memory-style stills to replace major sequences. Not bad as a shortcut, but it takes me out of the moment when it's clearly being used as a crutch to prop up a rather weak production. That's not to say the show is devoid of charm. There are some great moments where Marie inadvertently proves what a great fake robot she makes, like cracking the world's creepiest smile or showing off her hard thighs. Roy always looks one step away from freaking out and admitting everything, albeit in a stoic sort of way, and the scene where Arthur and Maynard have an entire conversation in internal monologues is fun.

By the second episode, Mechanical Marie begs one very specific and pertinent question: Is Arthur just kinda stupid? Marie's veneer of mechanicalness is so thin that it's astounding no one seems to be questioning it. Or at least not to her or Arthur's face. She puts on a good show, that trick with the plates and the glasses was impressive, but claiming she runs on AA batteries? Please.

It's all part of the humor, of course, and it mostly works. I love that Arthur never questions that Marie-2 is the "improved" robot maid when she's so clearly inferior in terms of looks, voice and locomotion--how is legs to wheels an upgrade? Oh, sure, she can play music when he's resting his head on her lap, but still. And that scene actually cracked me up, the high-pitched sped-up lullaby is hilarious. But Marie-2 serves a more important role than merely to stretch Arthur's credulity: She exists to show that Arthur has found a person he can trust, and that, deep down, he probably knows Marie's a person.

I'd say Arthur's aunt, Charlotte Rusty, definitely does. Apart from the fact that she wears her cat like a scarf, she seems to be very with it, and she's not about to spill the beans about Arthur's new employee. That's probably the right move, because this is something Arthur needs to work through on his own. If he's still willing to believe that Marie is a machine, that says he hasn't quite accepted that he can trust a human yet, even one he's so attracted to. Her supposedly robotic nature is safe, even though he watches Marie-2 attempt to inflict harm, including on him. So many contradictions, so little time!

This episode solidifies this as a sweet, silly show. I wish it looked better--although the oversized circle superimposed on Marie's head to show her miniscule facial expressions is funny, the episode overall doesn't look great, and I feel those stills in a completely different artstyle (it's not the manga's style, if you're wondering) are a bit overused. There's also been some controversy over whether or not the stills are either AI-generated or touched up with AI, but it's an admittedly flimsy argument that seems to stem entirely from one of them giving Marie two left hands. Right, cause that's not an error a human could make, it's not like we saw a six-fingered Phoenix Wright back in 2016 or anything.

Despite its small issues, Mechanical Marie is delightful, and I don't see that changing any time soon.