Maria Holic

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Minari Endō, the author of ''Dazzle''. The manga was first serialized in the Japanese seinen manga magazine ''Monthly Comic Alive'' on June 27, 2006, and is published by Media Factory. The manga was initially licensed by Tokyopop in North America and picked up by One Peace Books in 2016 after Tokyopop lost the license in 2011. It has also been released digitally by BookWalker, Kadokawa's online digital shopfront. The first anime adaptation animated by Shaft aired in Japan between January and March 2009. A second anime season, ''Maria†Holic: Alive'', premiered on April 8, 2011. Both seasons of the anime series have been licensed by Sentai Filmworks.

Plot

''Maria†Holic'' revolves around a high school girl named Kanako Miyamae, who due to a childhood incident is scared of boys and breaks out in hives if a boy touches her. During her second year of high school, she enrolls in an all-girls school hoping to find a female romantic partner. However, her ideal candidate, Mariya Shidō, turns out to be a sadistic cross-dressing boy.

Characters

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:Kanako is the protagonist of the story. She is a second year high school transfer student to Ame no Kisaki, a Catholic-based all-girls academy. Kanako has an inherent fear of men which began in elementary school when a piece of her recorder and P.E. uniform were stolen. When coming into physical contact with any man, she instantaneously breaks out in hives. This has significantly contributed to her fear of boys. Kanako is almost solely interested in girls in regards to her ideal romantic relationships. She instantly and constantly suffers from nosebleeds—a visible indication of sexual perverseness frequently used in anime and manga. Her reason for transferring to Ame no Kisaki is to look for her one true love. Kanako begins her reflections on her situation with the phrase "Dear mother in heaven." Kanako is also quite tall (standing at 175 cm or 5'9"), making her height (and her weight) emotional weak spots. She also takes constant verbal abuse from Mariya and his maid, Matsurika. She is often called a 'pervert', or 'lesbian', or other nicknames they happen to give her.

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:Mariya is the title character of the story. He is a cross-dressing boy who attends Ame no Kisaki as a girl as a means to win the chairmanship of both the all-male and all-female schools where his late grandmother served as the ex-chairman for both. He deeply respects and loves his grandmother and does not care about actually winning chairmanship. He simply wishes to honor his grandmother's request. He appears to genuinely care about others though this facade is often hidden through some excuse he has crafted for himself. When Kanako first meets Mariya, she is instantly attracted to his playful femininity and kindness. He often teases Kanako by playing with his long blonde hair, speaking in a soft voice, and smiling sweetly. However, Mariya turns out to be quite sadistic in nature and generally adjusts his personality to reflect whatever situation he is in. Mariya's beauty and feminine gestures are so convincing that the entire school, including the faculty, have no idea of his true gender. Mariya is quite short, reaching at most up to the height at the tip of Kanako's nose (160 cm or 5'3"), and shorter than Matsurika. Because of the switching with his sister his original name was Shizu instead.

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:Matsurika is Mariya's maid. She is generally silent but is usually quite rude when she chooses to speak. She delivers the vast majority of her lines with almost no facial expressions. The majority of her insults are directed at Kanako and Mariya. She refers to Kanako by such names as "Ms. Pig," "Eiffel Tower" and "Tokyo Tower" due to Kanako's tall stature. When speaking to Mariya, Matsurika often delivers sharp remarks in regards to his cross-dressing tendencies or sexual perversions. Matsurika also attends classes with Mariya. She also stays hidden from the rest of the students, and follows Mariya's orders when told.

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:Nanami is an aloof and bespectacled student at Ame no Kisaki. Although she appears quite cold and dispassionate on the surface, she is actually a very caring and helpful personality. At the bequest of the teacher, she helps Kanako to overcome her initial troubles at the school, to the extent that she is willing to put her own reputation at stake by pretending to be Kanako's lover; so as to avoid trouble from Ryūken's fans. She eventually becomes very close friends with Sachi.

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:Sachi is a bright and cheerful girl, quickly becoming friends with the newcomer, Kanako. She has orange hair, commonly tied in pigtails. She is good friends with Yuzuru. She seems to have access to hammer space, as she pulls numerous things out from her pockets, even things that would not fit.

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:Yuzuru is a demure and friendly girl who has long been friends with Sachi. She is fairly shy and has some self-esteem issues. Kanako sees Inamori as a more elegant girl and is intrigued by her surprisingly large breasts. She is the best archer in the school's archery club, of which Mariya is also a member.

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:Ryūken is the star of Ame no Kisaki, due to her tall stature, good looks, kindness, and generally tomboyish nature. She is a member of the Drama Club, and has played several male roles. She has a great number of fans and her own fan club. Mariya himself is actually quite jealous of her popularity. She was supposed to be Kanako's roommate at the dormitories only to be run out the first night by Mariya so that Mariya could keep a close eye on Kanako. Ryūken's fans cause mischief for Kanako because they are jealous of her friendship with Ryūken.

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:The Dorm Leader is an unusual young girl with cat ears who looks after Dorm No. 2 which Kanako is assigned to. She is addressed as "Miss Dorm Leader" by all the students. When Kanako met her, and tried to make small talk and ask casual questions the Dorm Leader looped back to the first question to say that she might also be addressed as 'Boss' or 'God'. Kanako took this as a hint to ask no more questions. The students do not dare disobey her for fear of vague, yet frightening threats. She has a pet dog, Yonakuni, who helps her take care of the place. Her rule of the dorm extends to manhandling Father Kanae after repeatedly demanding bribes so that he can see Kanako. She has an idiosyncratic speech pattern which makes her speak in a rather languid fashion and insert wherever grammatically possible the phrase 'desu yo'. Whenever seen in the anime alone with Yonakuni, the Dorm Leader can be seen regularly singing disturbing songs about the act of devouring meat, or other strange subjects.

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:Ayari runs the school's student council. She is Mariya's and Shizu's cousin, and has a standing rivalry with Mariya. She calls him 'Flat Chest', as he calls her 'Fat Ass'. Apparently, the cause of the animosity between Mariya and Ayari happened because of a childhood incident where she had her dress ripped open supposedly by Mariya (and her underwear exposed). Because of that incident, she got called "Panda-Chang" after the mascot character printed on her underwear and all sorts of nicknames related to pandas. She blames Mariya for this incident and therefore holds a grudge on him for that. Ayari and Mariya look much alike and are about the same height.

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:Maki is the vice president of Ame no Hisaki's student council. Father Kanae happens to have a crush on her.

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:Shizu is Mariya's twin sister. She attends an all-boys school which was also run by the ex-chairman. She has a similar hatred/fear of males, and had similar experiences as Kanako, who she affectionately calls 'Kana-chan'. Unlike Mariya, she appears to actually be the kind, innocent girl that Mariya attempts to portray. She is also quick to get her feelings hurt, as well. The agreement for the competition was the loser would be chosen if someone found out from either school; Kanako, thinking Shizu was Mariya, mentioned Mariya's touching her, which revealed to Shizu that Kanako knew Mariya's gender, thus defining Mariya as the loser. Shizu had only gone into the school to switch with Mariya for their schools' physical examinations. However, because Kanako found out Mariya's secret before she began attending the school, it was null, and because Kanako knew Shizu's true gender, ordinarily, Mariya would've been claimed victor. But out of generosity, Mariya chose to overlook it in favor of his twin sister. The only way to distinguish between Shizu and Mariya is by the mole under their eyes; Mariya's is under his left eye, while Shizu's is under her right eye. Because of the switching with her brother her original name was Mariya instead. She is 160.3 cm (equal to 5'3") tall, which makes her marginally taller than Mariya, and happens to be a sore point for him. The two siblings regularly compete, not just in height and weight, but in studies as well.

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:Kanae is the priest of the school Ame no Kisaki. He is the teacher for Modern Japanese and is very popular among the students because of his good looks. He gets a crush on every beautiful girl he sees and is currently "in love" with Mariya, Matsurika, Maki, and Ayari. He seems to be concerned about Kanako because of her strange behavior in his eyes. She is also the only one who failed in the Modern Japanese exams. Because of Mariya making up a story about how Kanako's elder brother died and that he resembles her brother, he desperately wants to help her. He is similar to Kanako because he begins his sentences sometimes with "Skipped, Dear mama in heaven..." and is also prone to having long internal monologues (and generally looking too deeply into the most trivial of matters) and occasionally, fantasies. He also thinks much about what a person could mean when they are saying something. The similarity between Kanako and him is also that they both like beautiful girls. He is half-French.

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:Honoka is a fan of Ryūken Ishima. She is a second-year high school student at Ame no Kisaki. She hates Kanako because she was Ryūken's roommate. Honoka and her friends (who are Ryūken's fans too) had terrorized roommates of Ryūken earlier, which is why nobody wanted to live with her. Honoka has envied Kanako and terrorized her too, such as placing seafood in Kanako's desk or in her pencil case.

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:Kumagai is the homeroom teacher for Kanako, Nanami, Sachi and Yuzuru. She is a graduate of Ame no Kisaki and remembers Kanako's mother Professor Miyamae. She had met Kanako herself when she was very young. She tells Kanako that everyone calls her "Miss Teddybear".

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:Rindō is Matsurika Shinōji's twin brother. However, Rindō and Matsurika have almost no similarities in looks and/or personalities. One of the only things similar is their eye color and how cruel they can be. Rindō is Shizu Shidō's butler and is in a similar situation as Matsurika is in. He is one of the few people in the series who know of Shizu and Mariya Shidō's true genders and identities. He loves to set up traps around the Shidō residence, trying to ensnare Mariya since they were children.

Media

Manga

''Maria†Holic'' is written and illustrated by Minari Endō. It started serialization in Media Factory's seinen manga magazine ''Monthly Comic Alive'' on June 27, 2006. The manga concluded on November 27, 2014. 14 ''tankōbon'' volumes have been released in Japan, with the final volume being released on January 23, 2015. The manga was licensed by Tokyopop, and the first volume was available in September 2009. However, they only managed to publish the first six volumes before they lost the license. Kadokawa has released the entire series digitally in English via their website BookWalker. In 2016, One Peace Books started releasing a 3-in-1 omnibus version as well as individual volumes from volume seven onwards in English.

Drama CDs

A drama CD was released on July 25, 2008 and was produced by Frontier Works. A drama CD was also bundled with the limited edition of volume five of the manga.

Anime

An anime adaptation directed by Akiyuki Shinbo and Yukihiro Miyamoto and produced by Shaft aired in Japan between January 5 and March 23, 2009 on Chiba TV, containing twelve episodes. The first episode of the anime was aired as a special broadcast on Animate TV from December 26, 2008 to January 4, 2009 and on AT-X on December 30, 2008. The anime series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and is being distributed by Section23 Films. The complete collection was released on DVD, February 23, 2010. Sentai Filmworks re-released the first season on DVD and Blu-ray with an English dub (produced at Seraphim Digital) on January 28, 2014. The opening theme is "Hanaji" by Yū Kobayashi, and the ending theme is a cover version of Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1983 single performed by Asami Sanada, Marina Inoue, and Yū Kobayashi, the voice actresses of the main characters.

A second anime season titled ''Maria†Holic: Alive'', under the direction of Akiyuki Shinbo and Tomokazu Tokoro, began airing on April 8, 2011. The first BD/DVD volume for ''Maria†Holic: Alive'', which contains unaired bonus footage, was released on July 27, 2011. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the second season and simulcasted the series on the Anime Network video website. The anime opening themes for ''Maria†Holic: Alive'' are by Tomokazu Sugita (episodes 1 through 4) and by Yū Kobayashi, and the ending theme is a cover version of Linda Yamamoto's song by Ame no Kisaki Gasshōdan. There is also a special ending song for episode 12, sung by Yū Kobayashi, titled and was released on the same single as the other theme songs of the anime.

Reception

Theron Martin of Anime News Network called the anime "pure comedy than a romantic comedy," including a "love-obsessed lesbian" and young man who has to "pass for a female in an all-girl's school." Martin said that it adds in new twists on "stock characters in lesbian girl's school series." While he said that some of the series is funny, at other times it is "outright weird," even as has developed artistry, a strong musical score. He concluded that the series does not have "a meaningful plot" and is more of a "stand-alone sketch comedy than anything."

References

External links

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{{Tomokazu Tokoro

2006 manga
2009 Japanese television series debuts
2009 Japanese television series endings
2011 Japanese television series debuts
2011 Japanese television series endings
Cross-dressing in anime and manga
Cross-dressing in television
Japanese LGBT-related animated television series
Kadokawa Dwango franchises
Media Factory manga
Romantic comedy anime and manga
Seinen manga
Sentai Filmworks
Shaft (company)
School life in anime and manga
Tokyopop titles
TV Tokyo original programming
Yuri (genre) anime and manga
2000s LGBT-related comedy television series
2010s LGBT-related comedy television series
2000s LGBT literature