After having a nice kraft dinner, I proceeded to finish the last few episodes of Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th Season (I don’t even know how to pronounce it). Hence, bring my marathon of the whole Maria-sama (excluding the Specials from the 4th season) to and end. In conclusion, despite the fact that this anime is shoujo anime, I found myself enjoying the series (maybe it is because this anime is shoujo anime, that everyone have a bit more character depth and that they don’t provide as much fanservice as other anime *cough*Saki*cough).
Even though this series have a huge yuri overtune, it wasn’t as bad as Saki, mostly because it is both backed by character depth, has a reason for their dependence for each other, and it is elegant. Obviously I would not fall for yuri that easily, but…they are so elegant. ヽ(´▽`)/
I remembered reading that this anime is very similar to ARIA (one of my favorite anime of all time, OF ALL TIME!), and in some degree it is true. Like ARIA, the pacing of this anime is quite slow, and that it will develop one problem and takes either the whole episode or two to, well, get over the issue, which usually is handled in a anti-climax way. But different from ARIA, Maria-sama seem to take every small issue, and exaggerate it, only to, again, end it with something simple. Though I did say that they like to exaggerate really small issues, the did it in an elegant way, keeping in tone of the anime, making it seems is if it was natural and not forced. In short, its another slow paced slice-of-life kind of anime, but just at lot more elegant.
The main focus of the whole series is around Yumi-chan (voiced by Ueda Kana ヽ(´▽`)/ ). She started off as a normal girl that had a hidden crush on her going-to-be onee-sama, Sachiko, then continued till her second year, where she was lifted to a high position from the student body. Of all the characters in the series, Yumi had the most character development, both her inner personality and the other’s view of her. Without watching development of Yumi, I think I would be quite surprised on how much Yumi actually changed by the end of the 4th season. And this reflects on one of the strengths of this series, the strong character depth and character development.
Maria-sama ga Miteru (first season)
The first season started with a fairly good introduction of the characters and their personality, and of their relationship between each other. It started off with the focus of Yumi and Sachiko, and shaky their sister relationship was. Actually, the first season show spend most of the time discovering how shaky each of the main sister’s relationship was. Though by the last episodes, it displays and promises a more closer future between the characters. Lastly, comedy (mostly by Yumi) was minimal as most, but still useful to keep my interest in watching the show.
Maria-sama ga Miteru ~Haru ~ (second season)
Haru continuous from where the first season left off, but it focuses on Shimako and her smaller sister (imouto, I’m going to use that instead), Noriko, but then ends with the main focus on Yumi, Sachiko and Sachiko’s ‘annoying’ cousin, Touko. Similar to first season, second season felt it was really watching a continuation of the first season (for example, second season opening was just first season’s opening with voices; not that the song is bad, but just…the same), so all the goodness and badness stayed. Again, it was slow, elegant, and character based. While the comedy is still present in this episode, it became quite dark by the end of the second season. Also, when presenting and portraying Touko, the anime made Touko in quite negative light, and because of her importance in the 4th season, this negative light was fitting for her now.
Maria-sama ga Miteru 3rd (third season)
Different from the previous two season, this was released as five OVA’s, which each spans for 50 minutes (meaning about ten 30 minute episodes). With the longer time, the OVA presented 4-5 distant events (only episode two and three is a bit connected). While it still too time to develop the character relationship between Yumi and Sachiko, it seemed to be more of an application of their relationship instead of building them up (to show how close and strong their relationship are). Different from the previous seasons is that because of the application and not the building up of relationships, there was more comedy placed into this season, which I sometimes actually disliked, because took away precious time, time which more character relationships can be developed. And ironically, the stalker that showed up, Kanako had their problem still hanging there by the end of the season, which was disappointing also, because the OVA just left there with several problems hanging the for the 4th season to deal with. Also, not only is Touko annoying, she is pissed at Yumi! щ(ﾟДﾟщ)
Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th (fourth season)
While the fourth season did focused on most of the cast, Yumi and Touko (along with Noriko) took the center of the stage. Sadly, this was not apparent as first as the first few episode started on the wrong foot and quite frankly, was a mess. Not only was the plot messy, at time it seemed to throw the relationships and characteristics that was build from the previous three seasons, rendering it foolish at times, and the catchy opening doesn’t help, as it is in conflict of the over elegant feel that the anime had given off with the previous seasons. Yet, the anime as able to regain footing as it started to focus on Yumi and Touko, and to be honest, it when everything came into fruition. In this part, we see how Yumi was able to maturely handle the situation despite having no confidence in it at first, and of Touko transformation from just an annoying brat and casts Yumi aside, to someone who wants to be close to Yumi, because of Yumi’s kindness. While the closeness of Yumi and Sachiko is beautiful, Yumi and Touko’s new born relationship is just spectacular.
While I do like the second part of the 4th season the most, the first half of the season dragged it down so much that if I had to choose the favorite season out of all four, I think it would have been the first or second season.
[I might add some pictures if I like]
Gokigenyou
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