I wanted to like Maid-sama, and indeed I did for something like seventy-five percent of the series. Misa and Usui play off each other well, the supporting characters are funny, and even the art, though not aged particularly well in my opinion, has a certain charm with its hand painted backgrounds and almost pastel palette. We get some genuinely fun arcs early on and, as a fan of tsundere, it's extremely fun to see Misa slowly star to open up to Usui over the course of the show.

That said, it really feels like the studio found out two thirds of the way through production that they were only getting one season, forcing them to attempt to cram far too much into the final stretch of episodes after somewhat padding out the first three quarters of the show.

The first twenty episodes of the show, while decently paced, occasionally has enjoyable plot progress interrupted with filler episodes (Which although enjoyable in their own right, are detrimental to the overall pacing of the show). The issue suddenly becomes reversed in episode twenty-one,

Spoiler, click to view

when Misa's childhood friend, Hinata, is introduced as a love rival to Usui

When there's a mere six episodes to go, with the ending already pretty obvious, it really just felt like unnecessary drama with absolutely no stakes.

Spoiler, click to view

At this point Misa has feelings for Usui, but hasn't admitted to them, and Usui clearly has feelings for Misa. We've seen them grown closer and closer. The audience is invested in this relationship, and we're smart enough to know that the childhood friend doesn't stand a chance. On top of this, it is extremely clear that Misa harbors absolutely no romantic feelings for Hinata whatsoever

Problematically, this storyline dominates the latter portion of the show, with it being the primary focus of 5/6 of the final episodes.

The result is an exercise in frustration. Rather than seeing the main couple realize their feelings for one another, we are given a storyline that we, as viewers, know is going nowhere, leaving a single episode for the romance to be resolved. The show does manage to have an enjoyable final episode

Spoiler, click to view

with Misa and Usui spending a festival together before admitting their feelings

It's adorable, it's everything you've been missing over the preceding 5 episodes, and then it just ends very suddenly, leaving you wondering how much better it could have been if they hadn't devoted so much time to a storyline that went absolutely nowhere.

In summation, I enjoyed this show and it began as a solid 70-75 out of 100 for me, but with the final stretch of episodes being as agonizing as they were for me, that plummeted to a likely 60/100. It was only the last episode being as sweet on the whole as it was that managed to drag my rating up to a 65/100.