Maria+Holic Finale - some comments
- From: "Dave Baranyi" <a_nospam.b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:32:22 -0400
So "Maria+Holic" has finished. The Folks at Shaft obviously had fun making
this series; the question remains, how much fun did the fans have with it?
Well, I can only speak for one fan - me - so here are my thoughts on the
series.
"M+H" was fundamentally a satire of traditional shoujo "girl's high school"
anime dramas. Tall and statuesque Kanako is thrilled beyond her wildest
dreams to be accepted as a second year transfer student into an exclusive
Christian all girls high school, partly because her mother attended that
school, but also because Kanako is a raging lesbian who lusts after almost
any girl she sees.
What we have here in the personality of Kanako is essentially Ataru
Moroboshi from "Urusei Yatsura" embedded into the body of a female. But
Kanako also has Ataru's notorious bad luck, and thus Kanako's plans
continuously come to nought, particularly thanks to the workings of Mariya,
the scheming grandson of the owner of the girl's school, who happens to be
attending the all girl's school in drag thanks to a bizarre competition that
he is in with his twin sister.
This situation leads to a number of repetitive jokes, mainly revolving
around Kanako getting immense nose bleeds whenever she is aroused by the
presence, or even the thought, of the girls around her. And that arousal
occurs very frequently. There are also a number of repetitive visual jokes
in which various bizarre and essentially unexplained figures appear and
disappear during different scenes. And there are repetitive jokes
surrounding the cat-eared Dorm Leader.
As with any comedy, and in particular satire, the effectiveness of the jokes
not only involves the writing, but also the attitude and expectations of the
audience. So while I found some things funny, there were many jokes in the
series that did nothing for me. However, I suspect that hard core fans of
Girl's High School anime dramas might find the series much funnier than I
did.
The things that worked for me in the series were:
- The opening and closing animations
- The wonderfully unapologetic malevolence of Mariya
The things that didn't work for me in the series were:
- Kanako
- The Dorm Leader
- The supporting friends
Things that I thought that the series "owed" the audience, but which we didn't
get:
- A look at Kanako's boobs
- A look at Matsurika's boobs, outside of the opening credits
In any event, I don't regret spending six hours watching "Maria+Holic", but
I won't spend any money on it since I have no interest in watching it again.
Never-the-less, I expect the series to be a reasonable commercial success.
Dave Baranyi
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