Otaku Review

The first episode of ‘Maria Holic’ has a story but get comfortable anyway, this is gonna take awhile.

The Story

In this first episode of ‘Maria Holic’, the audience will be introduced to a number of characters and situations. Within the first few moments of the series, the heroine of the series makes her appearance, a second year high school student named Kanako Miyamae. Entering the same private all girls high school where her parents met (and no, no one bothers to mention the creepy teacher student relationship), she wants to meet her own yuri lifetime companion.

Upon entering the grounds, Miyamae will meet a number of new people and be put into the worst of all situations. First she’ll meet a maid named Matsurika and the one she serves, the granddaughter of the ex-chairman Maria. After entering the dorms she’ll meet the cat eared dorm leader who doesn’t really have a name besides ‘god’ and her first roommate Ryouken.

In the final act of the episode though, the conflict of the series is waiting. Taking her up on her offer of getting a tour of the school, Miyamae will learn Maria’s big secret and be forced to accept a situation that she never could have foreseen before arriving.

Good and the Bad

Instantly as the episode opens, audiences are going to be completely blown away by the animation. Unlike anything that I’ve seen lately, almost the entire series looks like it was done in oil paintings. The backgrounds all have a very soft feel to them and the palette of colors has a slightly darker tone to it.

The writing in this first episode is the second thing that goes absolutely nothing like one would expect. The pacing of this first episode is very slow. Though it’s only twenty minutes long, the episode easily feels like an hour as the dialogue is almost always delivered in very slow and even tones. The only time that it’s not delivered in slow and dry ways are when Miyamae starts trying to insert the comedy into the series.

I use the word tries because while entertaining and funny, ‘‘Maria Holic” just puts way too much effort into their jokes. With the series presenting such a slow pace and peaceful atmosphere, the series than tries to use mostly over the top deliveries and floating SD animations of the main character as her thoughts are projected as voice overs. Very quickly I found this to be just a very weak combination as all of the jokes felt forced. Luckily enough of the humor gets through to keep the series entertaining but this is definitely a series that needs to stop trying to be funny and just let it happen naturally.

There are some instances of this luckily so at least audiences know that the series is capable of doing this. The best example of the series when it is naturally funny is the introduction of the dorm leader. She is a very odd character that instantly piques your curiosity if for no other reason than her very dry sense of humor. The delivery of her lines as she states why someone should not ask about her cat ears is easily one of the best in the episode.

The best scene of the episode however comes after the parade of character introductions has concluded. After Maria’s secret is exposed, she will instantly orchestrate a brilliant set up. This is a scene that clearly illustrates playing to strength because it is thanks to that very slow dialogue delivery that the scene works so well. The dialogue here is delivered so smoothly and so easily that the audience will not even realize what’s happening until it’s already happened.

Music

Just like the animation presents a certain peaceful feeling, the music helps this along every step of the way. From the beginning string themes to the piano themes later, the background music in this series are almost always going to be strong classical pieces. Always projecting a gentle, calming and tranquil feeling, ‘Maria Holic’ refuses to do anything else. What’s annoying about this however is that when you have gentle and calming classical music playing against Miyamae’s over the top reaction jokes, we once again find that weak connection that makes the jokes not work.

Going back to the introduction of the dorm leader though, we find a very interesting flute/accordion piece that projects another dry folksy image. The slow pacing of the song really helped get the dry delivery across by making sure the audience could take in every single word.

Cast

Maria Holic is filled with such a stellar cast and yet it’s hard to really pick anyone out with so much flat dialogue delivery. Asami Sanada’s (Miyamae) constant yelling and voice overs can be annoying after awhile especially but even Marina Inoue (Matsurika) came across as less than convincing. Yu Kobayashi (Maria) is particularly interesting in her role pulling off the duality very well.

Once again, the standout performance of the episode though belongs to Miyuki Sawashiro in the role of the dorm leader. This role is so unlike many of her other roles but Sawashiro really sells the character well and manages to get the audience’s attention quickly.

Overall

I think that I’ve gotten the point across that this series is nothing like anyone likely expected. It’s slow and over the top but when this episode works, it really works. While I think the terribly slow pacing is going to turn off a lot of viewers, there is more than enough here to keep those who get through to come back for more. The fun is just beginning with ‘Maria Holic’ and for once it’s actually kind of hard to imagine where it’s going to go from here but it’s going to be fun finding out… though hopefully they learn to tell it without yelling once in awhile.

Final Grade: B

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