Review: Maria+Holic Episode 1

My Thoughts
As usual, I'll grab first episodes of anime series to see if they're interesting, and with the start of the new year, we're getting the start of the new anime season. The first that I stumbled across is Maria+Holic.

And I've got to admit that I'm truly underwhelmed. The premise here is there's a student at an all-girl's school who, for whatever reason, is a male that's going there dressed as a girl. Enter a new transfer student who discovers the secret and the usual hijinks are supposed to occur.

Frankly, I find the entire setup to be less than thought out. It's one thing to do this scenario if the students in question were junior high kids, but senior? That's pushing my suspension of disbelief just a bit too far.

Of course, if you're just looking at this as a vehicle for the yuri subtext (and by subtext, I mean overt, slap you in the face, yuri) of the main POV character (not the boy, but the transfer student) then you'd probably happy with it.

The artwork is pretty, but it's not on a KyoAni level, and it's nowhere near as good as last year's True Tears. Of course, pretty artwork is often the case for the first episode which gets a bit extra TLC put into it. The amazing thing is when a company keeps the same level of artwork up for every episode.

Anyhow, as said, I was underwhelmed, and it doesn't generate a valid reason for me to suspend my disbelief enough for the hook to work. So, in the end I'm going to have to pass on continueing to watch this one.

Episode Summary
The episode starts out with Kanako Miyame arriving at the girl's school where her parents met. We're then given a whrilwind tour in which all the other girls of the harem are introduced. After all the primary introductions were taken care of, we are then given the prime conflict on which the entire series hinges.

Really, that's all that happens here. Sure, there's a bit of talking, but most of it was them standing around chatting while the background made like this was an ef Memories episode with the bright, abstract patterns behind a siloutte of the focus character. I wasn't that fond of the effect in ef and it's even more annoying here.