Ranked #838

Maria†Holic

*A great entertaining product by SHAFT backed with hilarious out-of-the-blue jokes.*

"I-I don't even understand the letter C in Catholic!" - Miyamae Kanako

If I was asked to describe Maria + Holic in one word, I believe “wordy” will suit this show perfectly. The amount of monologues in the show is tremendous! Plus the “rail gunning” of words shooting back and forth between the characters simply makes the anime difficult to follow without pauses in between (assuming you need to read the subtitles). And the occasional weird reference to various things also contributes to the complexity of the show for an average viewer. These issues may turn some potential viewers away, but if you can get accustom to these minor issues, Maria + Holic is actually a rather unique experience.

The anime itself should be praised for following the manga closely. The entire series covers pretty much the first three volumes of the manga (out of a total of four serialized volumes so far). While certain episodes may seem like fillers, especially if they are not designed to advance the story in any way, these filler-like episodes actually are indeed part of the manga. It should be no surprise that these episodes still manage to be highly entertaining albeit a bit random in most cases.

As a SHAFT product, those who are familiar with the studio should know what to expect. But if you don’t have a clue, here is a general description. Maria + Holic have high quality animation with good looking characters. Background scenes tend to be overly simplistic to contrast with the detailed characters. What this mean is that while the character usually look professionally drawn, the background often seem like the work of an elementary kid. This may be strange for some viewers, but surprisingly the result is quite pleasant to watch.

The OP will most certainly take some time to get used to. It is so … unique. On the other hand, the ED makes use of voice changers and the effect turns out quite enjoyable. Frankly, the BGM in Maria + Holic are nothing unique like the OP or ED making them less memorable after the show is done. However, to counterbalance the “average” BGM, we have a few astonishingly stupendous seiyu that can make us forget the pain of the lack of good BGM. Out of the few bright stars in the anime, Yuu Kobayashi is particularly outstanding. In part due to her singing the OP, also her ability to change between two highly different male and female voices make her one of the biggest asset to the show.

We normally see the male protagonist having perverted thoughts on various female characters in an anime. Maria + Holic is no different except that the protagonist is a girl. And her lust for other girls is stronger than 99.9% of her male counterparts. Here is another good lesson to learn. Never judge anybody by physical appearance alone. Kanako may look like a regular big chest girl in your eyes, but deep down inside she is quite a frightful lady … in a perverted way. It should come as no surprise that she also an openly declared lesbian with a tendency to execute a nosebleed faster than you can say the word nosebleed. The cause of her nosebleed is often due to her encounter with an ecchi scene. In fact, she spurts so much blood that it became a regular routine for the viewers to see her in the school infirmary.

Next we have a very cute looking babe plus an equally sexy voice. She has a good body proportion, excellent grade at school, and is loved by all her classmates. But she is a guy. Yup, you read that correctly. This hot babe is a guy proven and tested, through some grabbing, by our perverted female lead. Maria + Holic is full of interesting characters that will surely put a big happy smile on your face. It is unfortunate that the story has an open ending (since the manga is no where near done either), so fans will just have to be patient for the time being until someday a continuation to the series is announced. read more

Maria Holic is a series which starts out with unexpectedly great promise and expectations only to fall on its face and drown itself in a pool of its own blood (literally).

I can’t say that the initial premise of this show intrigued me at all. Cross-dressing sadists... again? Honestly I just don’t understand the fascination Japan has with boys dressing up and pretending to be girls, and being creepily good at it too. Yet when this show was airing, it had some unexpectantly good word of mouth and early reviews so I thought I would give it a chance. Our protagonist is Kanako, a transfer student to an all-girls Catholic school that her mother went to and met her father. That should’ve have been a warning sign right off the bat but I was distracted by beautiful character designs and lovely artwork. Kanako is "allergic" to men; she breaks out into hives when coming into physical contact with one, so using her logic going to an all-girls school to meet her destined lesbian lover seems like the right plan. On the very first day though she accidently discovers the school idol, Mariya, is actually a man and he immediately begins tormenting her so she will not reveal his secret.

The comedic possibilities are there for an amusing series. However though I was initially impressed with it after a few episodes it soon became quite apparent that the writers for Maria Holic only had about six gags. So we get to see those same gags over, and over, and over, and over, and over. Get the point? The humor becomes repetitive and quickly boring. While the humor is definitely on the dark side it’s just not funny. Unless you think transsexuals, lesbians, and rape threats are uproariously hilarious that is. The story... um what story? That’s right it goes nowhere! Maria Holic has a serious case of ADD as it just meanders around to its ending, or I should say its last episode, since there isn’t one.

As much as the story overall sucked, it doesn’t even compare to the steaming pile of turds that make up the characters. Maria Holic succeeds in being one of the few shows with an entirely unlikeable cast. Kanako is initially amusing and interesting but despite the horrible way she is treated not only by Mariya but almost every other character in the show, she still manages to be completely unsympathetic. Mostly because she devolves into a walking cliché and stereotype. Her lesbian delusions and resulting nosebleeds start off as being very funny but that is basically all there is to her character. She becomes more and more creepy in her perversions and bleeds enough blood to fill the bodies of everyone at school. There is no depth to her at all besides her breast measurements and she remains basically unchanged from beginning to end. If you expected to learn more about why she is allergic to men or for her to mature as a character your watching the wrong show. She doesn’t really care about anyone and fantasizes about anyone with breasts who talks to or even so much as walks near her. To real lesbians I imagine she has to be one of the most offensive characters out there.

Mariya, I suppose would be the next most important character. He/She/It is pretty much unlikeable from the start. That’s not unusual but nothing happens in terms of character growth and development to make you change your mind. He is as sick and twisted as you would expect of someone who is forced to dress up like a girl. So in a sense he is probably the most real and non clichéd character in the series. A real person in his situation is going to be probably extremely emotionally disturbed. Much like Kanako he really doesn’t care about anyone and only thinks about how to torment them or how he can torment Kanako further.

The rest of the cast is just standard uninteresting stereotypes. To top it off there are too many of them as well. A short series doesn’t need this many characters. Especially since over half the episodes are devoted to developing characters that aren’t important to the overall storyline and once we get this information the characters quickly fade into obscurity. What was the point of providing backstory on them in the first place? Most likely because the writers knew they couldn’t fill 12 episodes with nothing but lesbian jokes and nose bleeding fantasies (though they did give that a good try).

Art and animation are the strongest aspect of the series. I really did like all of the character models and the settings were stunning. It’s a shame that such talented artists and animators were wasting on such a piece of crap story. The acting is solid but again they aren’t given much to work with. I did enjoy the OP and particularly the EN theme songs and thought they were pretty cute and original.

Overall Maria Holic is one of the most disappointing titles I have seen to date. Its initial promise is buried under the weight of overused and mean unfunny gags and a storyline that fails to deliver anything of substance. I cannot recommend this series to anyone and suggest you stricken it from your list if you plan on watching it. If, like me, you were unfortunate to see this as well. My condolences.
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