Maria†Holic Alive - Episode 10

Being given a gift by Matsurika is such a rare moment that it's one that should probably be treasured for the rest of your life, particularly if your name is Kanako and you're more used to being mercilessly insulted by her.  Thus, our protagonist is more than a little thrilled to receive a rosary as a gift from her friend... except, of course, it turns out to be a cursed rosary from Matsurika's father.

Before she knows it, Kanako is having nightmares about a little girl and simply not getting any sleep at all, while her friends don't believe a word of it - not that they're willing to take on the rosary in question for themselves.  After numerous nights of nightmares (and thus lost sleep for Maria), Father Kanae is called upon to resolve the issue, although his rather dubious efforts to help Kanae get to sleep (I'll never think of a capybara in the same way again) leave Maria with no choice but to simply gift him the cursed rosary herself to move it on to a new recipient.

Having been rid of her curse, Kanako finds herself with a hole in her heart and no way to fill it... a cursed, adorable little girl shaped hole, no less.  Cue a search for other cursed items that might allow her to have "nightmares" more befitting her proclivities, and equally cue Matsurika who offers up items that allow Kanako to dream about tsunderes on aeroplanes and the like in easily the most hilarious series of sketches from this season so far.

When this doesn't fill Kanako's needs, she instead turns to Father Kanae in an attempt to get her cursed rosary back, except he doesn't much fancy losing the adorable little girl in his nightmares either.  With this impasse reached, it's up to the real owner of the rosary to step forward and resolve the issue - no prizes for guessing who that is.  Thus, we close the episode with any such curses resolved, and a chance for Kanako to obsess over the napes of girls necks (which I can kind of understand) as they head out, complete with yukatas, for a festival at the school.

Although its second half wasn't quite as stellar, the first two segments of this week's Maria†Holic Alive wrung laughs aplenty out of me, with some great comic timing and the kind of random humour that just works, reaching the pinnacle of Kanako's airborne dream which absolutely slayed me.  Although this series can't always keep up this level of comedy, I'm certainly going to miss it when it ends in a couple of weeks, particularly given thatv it's been my sole go-to series of note for anime comedy this spring.