Maidcore is an Untapped Goldmine

Maidcore.

MAIDCORE.

It's amazing, really.

Maidcore is music thing, but it's not a genre, so I guess it could be called more of a gimmick? I don't like to use that word for something I like, since I tend to use it negatively (oops) but I guess it is. See, here's how it works.

Back in 2004, someone, an anonymous user, on Futaba Channel-- 2 chan-- in Japan had an idea for a cute maid. A maid that's lazy, and doesn't actually do her job with any enthusiasm. So, an artist saw this, and created the first Nijiura Maid-- Madoi-san. Her name is a play on "Maido," the Japanese pronunciation of Maid. This lead to future characters having names that reflect their "gimmick" or personality. Hikki-san, the Hikkikomori maid, gets her name from that word.

People loved this idea so much that they started to create and post their own Maid internet personalities as well! Most people that created the Maids, though, were anonymous users who preferred not to be associated with the maids or didn't get any credit as people began to post more and more fanarts of the maids if they were popular. If they were not popular, then they were pretty easily lost seeing as Futaba Channel isn't really a good place to keep track of what every person was doing.

In a simpler sense, imagine if someone commented on someone else's SpaceHey blog, "Hey, a maid that's lazy would be cute!" and the blog owner drew the maid and proceeded to become completely inactive or even delete their account.

This became part of the allure of Nijiura Maids, so any newer maids were purposefully un-owned by anybody. If you ever find a maid with a creator name still attached, then that's news to me!

And now we go to Russia about 10 years later in 2014-- I think, the times are iffy.

A man makes music for himself to listen to on his drive to work, then he decides to put it up on the internet. He looks around because he claims he's unoriginal and doesn't like to come up with new ideas, so he finds a drawing of Yakui-san (the dr*g add!cted maid...) on the internet. He thinks she looks cool, slaps her on his music, and bang!

Nijiura music takes off, now gaining the title of, "Maidcore."

***A little note, I refer to all the maids as "Name-san" because that's their title, but if you want to find them yourself, you would search "Name the Maid."***

Not all Maids get fan music, but there are a lot that do get it. Unfortunately, since it started in Russia, it is more popular there and most of the creators are more active on "VK," which is pretty much a Russian mix of Instagram and YouTube. Larger Maidcore artists tend to have Bandcamp, Spotify, or Apple Music, but they are most active on Soundcloud (outside of VK, of course.)

Some more popular Maidcore artists you've probably heard of, weather you knew it or don't, are Chikoi-san (the tiny maid), Yakui-san (the medicine/ dr*g add!cted Maid), or Yowai-san (the Fragile Maid).

There's no specific type of Music that Maidcore artists make, but they usually make rock-like guitar instrumental with breakcore or video game soundtrack esque elements. But, like I said, they all vary. The only one I have heard actually sing is Ozoi-san (the Scary maid) and Yabai-san (the harpy maid.) I can only be so cure about Yabai-san, though, seeing as they're "voice" was only featured in one song with heavy remixing over it. And, it's a man's voice, so you can only be so sure (but, most of the maids actually are men, so...?) The only Maid I've seen that's actually a woman is Ozoi-san.

The biggest part of the allure of Maidcore music is the emotion the music stirs up in the listener. The maids are really good at evoking some kind of feeling with their music, from the hard-hitting heavy guitars to the light and happy upbeat remixes. The fact that most of the music is lyric-less adds to this affect. I'll make a separate blog post about my favorite songs, Maids, and why!

Some of my favorite Maids are Kaitai-san (the chainsaw maid), Ozoi-san (the scary made), and Yabai-san (the harpy maid.)

Maids can be literally anything and made by literally anyone, which leads to a bit of problems or controversy--

(But it also leads to some pretty funny maids, like Hayai-san, the sonic maid, or maids based off of random creatures and such like 4m or Yabai-san. Even Ozoi-san is based on a monster from a horror manga!) 

--I'm not a huge Yakui fan seeing as I don't like how her image romanticizes dr*g add!ction, and there's two other maids I also dislike because of their image as well.

Shitai-san (the d3ad maid.) She is a literal c0rpse one of the other maids found. Yakui gives her medicine to keep her from r0tting and the other maids hold her up, move her around, or strings control her. This would be pretty funny if she wasn't the most s3xualized of the maids, which I find pretty nasty.

Dorei-san (the sl@ve maid.) Take a guess. The only black maid is a sl@ve. Great, no thank you. The person who made her was obviously a r@cist, but the person who writes her music seems to be a little less... terrible. The artist said he hated her for a bit, because of this r@cist joke, but something about her started to grow on them. So, they started to write her music and changed her story. Their Dorei-san k!lled their "master" and ran away, but she struggles to find meaning beyond existing for other people's sake. Even then, though, I feel like the image of Dorei-san is forever tarnished. Because of this mess, people just don't include her in their works. I wouldn't, either.

These are the only three Maids I dislike, and trust me when I say there are a ton of them, so don't hate the whole thing just because some people were... weirdos, to say the least. Nijiura maids are so "old" the content of them is a bit outdated, but I feel like, if they get popular again, we can make the new Nijiura fandom amazing and content filled! Maybe even Merch filled? Fangame filled?! I'm going crazy...

(There was a fighting game for them, but it's so outdated no one can actually play it anymore...)

Some resources to see more about Nijiura maids are searches on YouTube, along with...

This Tublr Blog dedicated to trying to gather more information on the maids. It's gone on an indefinite hiatus, though, so no more posts, there. It's still a good place to see almost all the maids and find some cool facts about them! Maybe someone else can continue the legacy.

r/Nijiura maids on Reddit. I don't go there because I don't have a Reddit, because that place is strange/j, but they seem to have some content things going on there.

Of course, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music have some songs there.

And I have a Pinterest Board dedicated to all the maids (Just... not the ones I don't like, haha!) So you can definitely find some content (sadly, usually random reposts) on there.

Also, before you go on your maid hunt, ALL OF THE MAIDS ARE GROWN WOMEN! If you see people thirsting for them, you kinda just have to deal, lol. Most maids don't have confirmed ages, except for Hayai-san (the sonic maid) who is 15. Everyone leaves her be, though, thank goodness.

Maidcore and Nijiura maids need a whole resurrection. They're so awesome, and we really are sleeping on them.

I tend to have strange, niche interests, so thanks for stopping by and reading all this! Ask questions or give some intel. Please, I love Maidcore and Nijiura Maids!