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Apr 09 2011

Categories: episodic review, maria+holic
Tagged: maria+holic

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“Are you ready for your tour? What would you prefer as a wake-me-up? Coffee? Or perhaps black tea? Or perhaps… me?”

Yes.

YES!

YESSSS!

*BANG*

I guess if you’re not familiar with Maria+Holic, here’s a quick primer post and video. I guess if you didn’t like the original season, there’s no reason why you would like this one. However, I would imagine if one is exposed to breakage enough, one would be broken too. So that’s reason enough to be avoid and watch Maria+Holic Alive. If you did enjoy the first season, well, step on in and enter the Gate of Trials!

(Basically, Maria+Holic is the hockey of anime. You either are a hockey fan, or you’re not.)

(Also, being woken up while straddled by a girl wearing tights and pencil skirt is exhilarating. Being woken up while straddled by a trap… exhilarating for different, not as enjoyable, reasons. I’d imagine.)

Well, good news– they finally addressed the troubling plot point of how Kanako’s mother and father met even though Ame no Kiseki is an all-girl’s school. First dorm that straddles both the all-girls and all-boys campuses? Surprisingly easy explanation. Now we just need explanations for how Mugi’s mom and dad met at an all-girls school.

(Also needed: explanation for why Madoka is taking so damn long to finish. I can imagine Shinbo and Shaft in a panic… “Wait, how were we going to end this? Toss Homura into another loop? Have Madoka kill herself? Turn Kyubey into the mascot of TEPCO?”)

Another running subplot of the show? Mariya has awesome nightgowns; Kanako has boring flannel pajamas. Which, of course, makes sense when you realize that traps stereotypically wear awesome nightgowns, and lesbians wear flannel button down shirts to bed.

Fell out of my chair laughing at Deus Ex Machina Matsurika. Has there been another awesome meido since we last saw Matsurika? Has our meido dearth been so bad? Why Japan, why? Why can’t you give us more meido?!

(And, yes, I would love to have a Matsurika summon back ported to Final Fantasy X. Wouldn’t that be awesome? A summon that required money to do work? Oh wait… they already have one in that game. My bad. Mmm… oh my gosh… I have an idea. From the people, me, who brought you Angry Imoutos and Magicka Madoka… presents… Call of Meido: Modern Matsurika. Just a teaser. For now.)

Not only did the OP (which is horrible copy pasta of season one scenes) summarize the first season, but they did yet another summary with the first five minutes of the show. You don’t really need to summarize. I doubt anyone who isn’t already a fan would be picking this one up in mid-stream, and, really, is there that much to summarize? Kanako is a major lesbian, and she rooms with a major trap, Mariya. Done and done. We didn’t need a musical number to explain this.

(Nor did we need the random musical number in A Channel. My gosh, I need to stop myself before I start ranting on the stick figure-inspired designs for that starving man’s Raki Suta.)

(And I really hope they improve the OP/ED. Terrible. Shaft can do much, much better. Then again, it’s going to be tough to top Hanaji.)

Oh Shaft being Shaft… at least their visual style and cues haven’t changed from Maria+Holic 2009… but it just feels amazingly weird that Shaft managed to reign in Shaft being Shaft for Madoka. Just seems so weird. And it seems like Shaft needs some sort of random release, either between this franchise, Zetsubou-sensei, or Becky-sensei, they need a show where they can just fill up with their random visual gags.

Toast collision only works for a typical loser harem male. Kanako, sorry, you got most of that right. But not all.

(I am addicted to this marionberry jam-mu that I found at the local farmer’s market. So delicious. And only $4 for a big jar. I keep going there hoping one day to find a huge glowing jar of jam-mu that’s labeled, “Nanase Farms.” I would buy it. Then you’d never hear from me again.)

“Thus its inhabitants set up various traps in an attempt to ward off intruders.”

The dorm of traps remind me too much of the Kiddy Girl-and episode of the same concept. Also wouldn’t a dorm of trap’s final boss be the master trip her– err– himself?

(When Matsurika was a quick briefing of the traps, it was straight out of Zetsubou-sensei. I think Shaft needed to make this show or else they’d burst. At least I hope it gets it out of their system before Kizumonogatari airs.)

“Everyone had installed trap after trap without abandon. By the time they realized their folly, it was a fortress impermeable to even its residents.”

The dialogue for this show is both intentionally and unintentionally funny.

It’s all about the Benjamins.

And gotta love Kanako’s D: face here. We just have the right amount of Kanako fail, Kanako nosebleeds, and Kanako D: face in this episode. Sadly, we didn’t get enough Mariya trapiness. It’s like watching a Scully-centric episode of The X-Files, sure, it’s got Scully being Scully, but without the proper Mulder deadpanning, it just can’t be a top notch episode.

(If I wrote that ten years ago, I would get angry responses back from the Scully brigade. But… oh what time, a pointless final season, and two crappy movies, did to that franchise.)