First Impression: Maria+Holic

I decided not to include Maria+Holic in my LIST OF DOOM because I thought that I wouldn't want to be blogging about two shows in a Catholic school setting. I also thought that the show is a rip-off of Maria-sama ga Miteru. But I was wrong and I found the first episode too entertaining not to make a first impression about it at least.
EPISODE 01: A Mischievous Kiss
OP: HANAJI (Yu Kobayashi)
ED: Kimi ni, Mune Kyun (Yu Kobayashi, Asami Sanada, Marina Inoue) [YouTube]
Second year high school Miyamae Kanako gets hives when touched by a boy. That, plus her generally bad experiences with boys has led her to avoid them like the plague. Now, she's decided to transfer to Ame no Kisaki, an all-girls Catholic school, with the aim of finding her "fated one."

Wait a minute.

Her fated one. In an all-girls school? What?
Yes, my lovelies, our lead character Kanako is a flaming lesbian.

lol, she does not deny it. she just has issues about the name

Incidentally enough, on her first day in school, Kanako (who gets lost in campus trying to locate her dorm) meets not one, not two, but three cute girls. She immediately gets a crush on Ryuuken, her third-year roommate, and is attracted to one of the girls from the Archery Club. But when she meets first-year Shidou Mariya, Kanako falls head over heels.

the flowers are all in Kanako's mind

Although Kanako is not willing to come out of the closet just yet, she's not very good at hiding her feelings, prompting Mariya to suspect the obvious. As if to test her newfound discovery, Mariya places a prank kiss on Kanako's cheek....

and Kanako does not disappoint

...sending Kanako to flowery, sparkly lesbian heaven and, strangely enough, causing her to break into hives. Hmm. Not finished with her yet, Mariya then invites Kanako to a tour of the school. While Kanako giddily imagines starting out as friends with Mariya before moving their relationship to the next level, little does she know that Mariya is hiding a big secret: he's actually the cross-dressing sadistic grandson of the school's ex-chairman.

lol, breast-pads

And despite her best efforts...

lol, she UPROOTED a friggin' tree!

...Kanako is no match to Mariya's scheming mind as he sets into motion the plan of turning her life into living hell.

Step One: Force Kanako the Lesbian in a compromising situation.

Predictably, at the sight of the girl's bra, Kanako gets an instant nosebleed.

Step Two: Act like you have nothing to do with the whole thing.

Kanako has to make a quick decision before the nuns find out and get her expelled on her first day as a transfer student.

Step Three: Take over Kanako's room and force her to become roommates.

Kanako was looking forward to an evening alone with the delectable Ryuuken-sama, only to find this.

Step Four: Keep an eye on her 24 / 7...

For Mariya, that includes not only eyes, but hands as well.

Step Five: And issue threats every hour of every day.

Helping Mariya is his often-silent but extremely rude maid, Matsurika.

she calls her master "shithead"

but that's what she calls Kanako

Clearly, Kanako can't rely on her as an ally.

far from it

I did not expect this show to be this enjoyable. I was laughing the whole time. Not only is the whole premise hilarious, the characters themselves are hilarious.

Flaming lesbian Kanako is the best. Her SD moments and especially that part where she pulled out a freakin' tree, trunk, roots and all, had me bawling over in laughter. The fact that Kanako's gayness is probably just a passing phase, considering her fear of boys and her breaking out into hives whenever they touch her, makes her situation even more funny.

We have this girl who thinks she's a homosexual -- excuse me, I mean yuri -- because she can't stand boys so she decides to go to an all-girls school in order to avoid them, right? Also, to find her "fated one" but who does she find? A beautiful, cross-dressing boy, who apparently isn't a cross-dresser by choice but doesn't care to divulge the real reason why he does so and clearly enjoys baiting the too-easily-baitable Kanako with sultry looks and suggestive lines.

The other characters are funny, too. Matsurika's poker face had me sniggering the whole time and the cat-girl dorm mistress blew me over with her declaration that she prefers to be called either "boss" or "god."

As for Mariya, unsurprisingly, I did not laugh so much at his antics. Maybe because we are looking at him from Kanako's POV so we don't really know what's going on with him. But it is his actions that force Kanako to the extreme so he is a useful character.

I like the character designs. I like the OP and ED themes, sang by the seiyuus themselves. I like the stylistic rendering of the background and the camera work, especially in the first few minutes of the episode. I like the voice acting. Actually, there's nothing I don't like about this show so far so I'll watch out for the coming episodes with hopes of another 30-minutes' worth of entertainment.

MORE INFO:

Maria+Holic OFFICIAL (JPN)
Maria+Holic @ Wikipedia
Maria+Holic @ ANN
WATCH Maria+Holic Trailer @ YouTube