After the first few episodes of Maria Holic, a comedy/parody/drama anime, I got rather bored. At least 50% of the humor presented in the anime wasn't really that funny, sure it did make me smile or grin for a few times in some of the scenes but there were only handful of scenes that actually made me laugh.
I was planning to drop the series entirely after first few episodes, but then what made me continue to watch was the number of episodes it had; 12.
So in the end, I then completed the whole series in one sitting. Took me about 4-5 hours to complete the entire series. In those hours, just a couple of scenes were memorable for its funny moments and most of them were pretty much forgettable. Also, watching Miyamae Kanako, the protagonist, nosebleed due to her perverted fantasies was hilarious, but only for few times. After watching it too many times, the humor gets pretty old.
The story? Miyamae Kanako transfers to a all-girls high school in order to find her true love. So she first meets up with the crossdressing boy Mariya Shidou then instantly falls for his charms. In fact, Kanako is actually allergic to men; she gets hives whenever she is touched by men. So? It's one of those anime with lots of random "what the flying fuck?" moments. So if you're looking for anime with good story, well, you can simply forget about it, cause this anime dont have any. So you're probably expecting ecchi scenes? There are ecchi scenes but only very little. Romance? Quite a lot. But all of the romance are often just within Kanako's perverted fantasies. So don't expect any "real" romance in this anime. And actually, I was hoping that Kanako was going to "end up" with a girl of her dreams...but she didn't, so that was quite saddening. Again, no romance here.
The visual? "Why do many above-average anime have very good visuals?" That was the first question that came to my head after watching the first couple of episodes. Yes, I have to say that the visuals of Maria Holic is absolutely beautiful. Beautifully drawn artwork and visuals deserves a praise.
But what surpised me was the studio...SHAFT? I thought the studio was well-known for it's continuously changing visuals(the faces of characters usually changes in some of the scenes that they look like someone else). I recalled the anime Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica which was from the same studio, but then that anime had so many "derp" faces. Maria Holic's visuals, in terms of quality (no derp faces detected), are far more superior.
The Sound? Another strong point of the anime is the songs, both the Opening theme(Hanaji) and Ending theme(Kimi ni Mune Kyun) are pretty catchy songs. Especially, the Opening theme(Hanaji). If I had to describe the Opening theme with one word, I would go for "Unique". It felt very weird watching it for the first time but then I wanted to watch it every time in all of the episodes. The background music in the episodes were really good too, some nice guitar riffs presented in some of the scenes.
Conclusion? So is Maria Holic actually watchable? For me, it was ok, but definitely not for everyone. If you're looking for anime with lots of random, nonsensical moments, then Maria Holic is a decent choice. If you're looking for an anime with lots of good humor,well, there are many better options out there.
