Maria Holic of course!Maria†Holic
What is Maria Holic all about? Now now, don't get your hopes too high for some super insane action series that BLOWS EVERYTHING UP, since Maria Holic is a school life comedy, so there's no real story going on, but rather more a setting. The story is simply about Kanako, a normal high school student who just wants to find love (aww cute), but there are some problems :1- She breaks out into hives when she gets touched by a boy
2- She's FREAKING TALL
3- She's a pervert
4- Yeah, she's a lesbian
So, our little Kanako decides to transfer to this Christan girls-only high school, Ame No Kisaki, to find her soul mate, just like her parents did back in the day (no her parents aren't 2 girls, her dad was a teacher and her mom was a student). The day she transfers to her new school, she meets this small cute girl, Mariya Shindou, and is immediately infatuated with her, love at first sight as we say, but to her horror and bad luck, she finds out that Mariya is a sadistic guy that cross-dresses for personal reasons (IT'S A TRAP). Funny thing, is that she is still turned on by Mariya even though she knows it's a boy and gets constant nosebleed, so many that she's most of the time in a sick bed at the nursery.
...Yep... That's the story of Maria Holic. Pretty interesting if you ask me. WELL ENOUGH FOR ME TO WATCH IT.Here's the main cast by the way
Matsurika Shinouji (Maid) Mariya Shindou (Trap) Kanako Miyamae (Yuri pervert)Maria Holic was produced by Shaft, quite a nice studio if you ask me, they're recognized for their use of colors, paints and unique animation style, which is a plus for Maria Holic, I'll talk about this later. We all know the reasons why this series sounds awesome : there's yuri, a maid and a trap. I mean come on, if that's not enough to get your attention, then I don't what will. Anyway, let's get this train rolling now.
Review time!Animation : 8/10The animation studio was Shaft, and Shaft is quite the unique on it's animation styles, I could post some screen shots, but that would mean for me posting every second of every episodes. The use of sudden contrast colors, video effects and paintings is a nice plus, but all and all, the characters drawings themselves were rather...bland... Nonetheless the animations were quite a feast on the eyes. The opening animation was quite something too, here's a link for the openingMaria†Holic Opening - HanajiCharacters : 7.5/10Hmmmm.... Characters... Well Mariya is certainly not our first cross-dresser in the industry, Matsurika on the other hand is a special maid, she freely insults her master just for fun, and shows no respect for either Kanako, constantly calling her Pig or Eiffel Tower, or Mariya, calling him names like cross-dressing freak and such names. Even though she acts like that, I'm pretty sure she is fond of both of them. The rest of the cast/class is just your typical high school student, you have the group leader, the hyper-active one, etc... BUT, as we all think the one wearing glasses would be the smart one right? Well you got that right, the one wearing glasses simply sucks at school. Ah, stupid myths. Since this is a comedy anime, there's no such thing as character development or whicever, maybe one time or two, but really, nothing happens much.
glasses girl : Nanami Kiri Hyper-Active one that has access to Hammer-space : Sachi MomoiStory : 8/10What do you want me to say about an nonexistent story? Each episode consist of an unrelated story to each other, pretty much like every comedy series out there, consisting of weird puns, jokes and the rest. Well since there's no "real" story you can just pick up any episodes and watch it. Well there are some stuff from each episodes that finally come back, but that's not important. For example the thing in Kanako's bag usually resurfaces here and here but nothing else. It's your typical 12 episodes long comedy series.
The Thing O_o ...is hungry...Sounds : 8/10Strangely there's always no astonishing stuff in the sound department, but the cast was quite funny to hear, especially Kanako's long monologues, or maybe Matsurika's mundane voice when casually insulting someone. Voice acting was great. Background music, so-so. I did like the opening song and ending song though.
link to ending song : Maria†Holic Ending - Kimi ni Mune KyunOverall : 8.5/10All and all, Maria Holic was an enjoyable series. Made me laugh some times (loved Kanako's song on the cosplay angel :link: Kanako's Cosplay Angel song) All the characters were pretty fun to watch, so if you're into maids, yuri, traps or any of these, you should give Maria holic, or if you just want to kill some time and get a good laugh, Maria Holic is for you. Of course, you're probably thinking that for 12 episodes we're just going to see some weird pervert nosebleed after some fan-service shots, well yeah you are, but every episode is something new, so you can't predict what they're going to put. I hope you enjoy Maria Holic as much as I did.The Good :
- Great setting idea
- Nice visual effects
- good laugh there and thereThe Bad :
- The jokes tend to get repetitive after a while
And with that, the Maria Holic crew bids you farewell
