Tuesday 21 June 2011

Maria†Holic Alive - Episode 11

As Kanako's long, hellish summer of extra lessons drags through the summer, the monotony of all this additional instruction is broken as she receives a visitor to Ame no Kisake - her younger sister, Miki.

Needless to say Miki couldn't be much more different than Kanako, proving to be a far smarter and more reserved girl than her older sister - she also seems to have more in common with Mariya, proving to be more than a little devious and cruel as she dishes out a copy of Kanako's elementary school graduation essay for Mariya to read and enjoy, causing her sister more than a little mental anguish in the process.


Anyhow, it's this relationship between Miki and Mariya that comes to the fore as the episode progresses, as we learn how the former met the latter long before this visit to Ame no Kisaki, and how this admiration has grown and blossomed into something far greater than just that over the years.  Of course, the realisation that Miki has fallen for Mariya fills Kanako with despair, and thus before she knows it she's blurted out the biggest secret of the bunch - the truth about Kariya's gender; not a smart move when said individual is stood right behind you.  After managed to ruin any chance of brushing her comments off as a joke, it seems that Miki is phased not one jot by the fact that Mariya is a boy, and come the end of the episode she vows to return as a student in the future.

With as much of a focus on plot and character development courtesy of Miki's arrival as Maria†Holic was ever likely to muster, this episode was somewhat limited in its opportunities for humour as a result, only getting one big laugh from me courtesy of Kanako's elementary school dream of being a "copy rider".  That aside, there were a few amusing moments and the episode as a whole was reasonably entertaining, but not really anything that can be termed a "classic" within the series.  With only one episode to go and nothing particularly tying it down in terms of story, hopefully this fun little series manages to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

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