Hand Maid May (Japanese: HAND MAID メイ, Hepburn: Hando Meido Mei) is a Japanese anime television series created by Jūzō Mutsuki and Wonderfarm and produced by NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan, Pioneer Entertainment (USA) LP., and TNK. It is directed by Shinichiro Kimura and Tetsuya Yanagisawa, with Kazuki Matsui handling series composition, Katsuzō Hirata designing the characters and Toshio Masuda composing the music. The anime first aired on Wowow between July 6 and September 22, 2000, running for 10 episodes. An OVA was bundled with a DVD box set released on February 21, 2001. The series centers on the adventures of the main character, Kazuya Saotome, and a robotic Cyberdoll named May. Formerly available from Geneon in the United States, Discotek Media will release the series on Blu-ray Disc in 2024.^[3]

Kazuya Saotome is a nerdy second-year engineering student at Ochanomizu Industrial University (お茶の水工業大学, Ochanomizu Kōgyō Daigaku). His lifelong dream is to build a Doraemon (robot); he is trying to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) robot that happens to look like a toy squid. The story begins when Kazuya's wealthy rival, Kotaro Nanbara, gives him a computer program that supposedly will provide valuable information to help with Kazuya's research and development. However, the program is a virus that Nanbara created in order to infect Kazuya's computer and destroy his work.

While attempting to fix his infected computer, Kazuya accidentally orders a "cyberdoll" from the Cyberdyne Corporation website. As a result, he receives in the mail the titular Hand Maid May. May is a palm-sized robotic doll who is very sensitive and sympathetic to Kazuya's feelings, likes, and needs. The early part of the storyline focuses on Nanbara trying to get May taken away from Kazuya due to his inability to pay for her. Nanbara enlists the help of several other cyberdolls to attempt to take May away from Kazuya, but all of them end up falling for Kazuya and failing to retrieve May.

In the latter part of the anime, May is upgraded to a lifesize version of herself after Kazuya receives a visit from a mysterious visitor who wishes to promote Kazuya's artificial intelligence research. The situation complicates further when Kazuya's human friend Kasumi begins to get jealous of the Cyberdolls flirting with Kazuya; they all compete to see who can go on a date with him. The last segment of the story deals with Kazuya and May having to deal with a virus which is shutting down all of the cyberdolls, and a couple of mysterious visitors who turn out to be related to Kazuya and Nanbara in the future.

Cyberdoll Rena (サイバドール・レナ, Cf-3357L-JPA)

She appears next to Kazuya after a girl that he was drooling over handed back May to him when May fell out of his pocket. She immediately fell in love with his squid-like robot, Ikariya. She appears to be a child that went to the city on her own without her mom and dad, thus Kazuya takes her to the police for them to help her get to her real home after giving her some coffee.

Later, the police bring her to his apartment saying she said he was her guardian. She takes May and Ikariya with her after Kazuya was taken by the police for punishment. Sara and Nanbara tries to take May away from her and she protects May. When Sara and Nanbara were in the streets, she changes the lights to have cars pass by them as they dodge. She has so much fun she keeps doing it until Kazuya stops her and tells her she made people upset with what she did. She yells at him when she didn't understand and ran off crying.

Later she was seen crying in concrete pipe. Ikariya chases May around the stack of pipes before running in and may going past her. Ikariya sprays Rena with ink which makes her sad. She tells Ikariya that it isn't nice to upset people, realizing what she was causing in the streets earlier. Later she ends up staying at Kasumi Tani's place and sending a video message saying she decided to not recover May from Kazuya because May is Ikariya's friend. As for being able to change anything electrical, she has a very powerful yell that is ear splittingly loud.