Maria†Holic

In search of true love, Kanako Miyamae transfers to Ame no Kisaki Catholic school, inspired by how her parents fell in love with each other there. There is just one difference, though: because men make Kanako break into hives, she has actually come to the all-girls school to find a partner of the same sex.

When she meets the beautiful Mariya Shidou, Kanako believes she has found that special someone; however, there's more to Mariya than meets the eye—it turns out that Kanako's first love is actually a cross-dressing boy. Mariya threatens to expose Kanako's impure intentions unless she keeps his real gender a secret, and to make things worse, he also replaces her original roommate so that he can now keep a close eye on her.

Maria†Holic follows Kanako as she looks for love in all the wrong places and searches for the girl of her dreams—that is, if she can survive being Mariya's roommate!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shidou, Mariya Main

Kobayashi, Yuu Japanese

Shinouji, Matsurika Main

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Miyamae, Kanako Main

Sanada, Asami Japanese

Dorm Mistress Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Kanae, Touichirou Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Shidou, Shizu Supporting

Hirano, Aya Japanese

Inamori, Yuzuru Supporting

Gotou, Saori Japanese

Yonakuni-san Supporting

Matsuki, Miyu Japanese

Ishima, Ryuuken Supporting

Kaida, Yuuko Japanese

Kiri, Nanami Supporting

Kanda, Akemi Japanese

Kubota, Mitsutoshi Producer

Oosawa, Nobuhiro Producer

Minami, Hiromasa Producer

Takahashi, Kazuya Producer

Reviews

May 17, 2025

RabbitsWithGuns0

Recommended

While this anime may not appeal to everyone, fans of humor and parodies will likely find enjoyment in it.

I ended up finding out about Maria Holic thanks to clips I saw on Twitter, which didn't really tell me anything about what this show was really about, but in hindsight it didn't really matter since I ended up finding it a pretty amusing and entertaining parody of the ecchi and shōjo-ai animes, elevating its presentation with ingenious and well-constructed jokes that took advantage of its outrageous and unapologetic plot that often got a laugh out of me.

Part of why Maria Holic is so unique is ... because of its previously mentioned plot: A girl who suffers from androphobia and literally gets hives if she gets touched by a man enters an all-girls high school in search of her true love, as she was inspired by her parents' story of how they met in the same school, but instead she ends up being blackmailed by the granddaughter of the owner of the high school, who ends up being a sadistic crossdresser. The fun part is how it manages to take this idea and run with it in the most absurd and ridiculous situations possible.

And by absurd and ridiculous, I don't mean just random or incongruent; I mean that it uses its already strange and rather taboo nature to facilitate black and subversive humor that for most of its runtime, is pretty well constructed. Yes, the humor itself and the premise may not be for everybody, since it has this immature and rather lewd intention behind it that definitely isn't for everybody, but that doesn't mean that its humor and jokes don't have a pretty good structure that for the right public, can be pretty effective.

Another fact that I liked about the anime is that, despite its absurd nature and rather weak (or even non-existent) story development, it actually has a pretty good character-based narrative. Most of the episodes actually take their characters quite seriously and go to great lengths to explore their personalities and worries as they interact with our protagonist, even going as far as taking up the spotlight and robbing a lot of screen time from Maryia and Kanako. This is good and bad, because it can feel like the whole episode was basically about a side character, but it also helps you feel like the people that surround Kanako are actually there and that each has its own personality and way of being instead of just being a love interest or a simple background character that facilitates the protagonist's fantasies (which, spoilers, are never actually fulfilled, by the way).

I'd also argue that a pretty big part of the show is how it refuses to actually make any kind of statement regarding its themes and plot, simply using taboo or rather niche genres in anime, like androphobia, lesbianism, or even cross-dressing, as normal, a common aspect of its story, instead of this massive thing that needs to be thoroughly explored and justified. And this, I believe, helps the humor, since from the very start, the show itself acknowledges its nature and simply lets itself build all kinds of dumb situations without much pretentiousness, such as when it shows fan service or its shameless constant use of its own gags like Kanako's nosebleeds.

The art style and acting, both in the English dub and in Japanese, are also great and take advantage of their own illustrated medium so that there is something happening on the screen at all times, be it cute and funny inner monologues or fluid and dramatic scenes.

I don't think it's a perfect piece of media by any means, but for what it tries to do, Maria Holic does a pretty good job, and while some of its flaws are to be expected from its somewhat divisive themes and rather intrusive secondary characters' plots, for the most part it's a pretty entertaining time if you find yourself in the public this anime was made for or you simply don't mind any of the previously mentioned. I would give it like a 7.6, and maybe I'm cheating a bit since I should say that I had mixed feelings and that it's not for everybody, but if you're already interested in the show, you might as well see if the humor sticks to you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 28, 2022

spookynya

Mixed Feelings

it is an anime.

maria+holic truly has to be one of the animes released in 2009. the voice acting is fine. The anime has storytelling and the show was animated. The side characters were along with kanako and maria was a guy. The jokes were sentences. This anime really is one of the animes of all time, if not the last two decades. A lot of the time it was just kinda boring or "what is going on??" but it did have some entertaining moments throughout it. It's a fine watch it just feels like it gets less interesting as it goes on.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 14, 2025

Kalinn

Not Recommended

I'll make it short.
This anime and the main character are what stereotypical men imagine that lesbians are.
The main character "Kanako" acts like a pervert middle aged man and bleed tf out of her nose when she's around women in any situation because she's sexually aroused, also she's kind of dominated and controlled by a boy that dresses like a girl.
That's the plot, so maybe if you like ecchi and humor about being a creep around people you'll love this, but personally I found it boring and very repetitive, from episode 1 to 12 there are no notable changes to the plot, humor and story so ... it was kind of hard to digest.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Poll: Maria†Holic Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) sniW - Jan 18, 2009	105 replies	by eblf2013 »» Yesterday, 6:42 PM
	Poll: Maria†Holic Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) sniW - Jan 11, 2009	110 replies	by eblf2013 »» Yesterday, 5:11 PM
	Poll: Maria†Holic Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) DeadIEnd - Dec 26, 2008	251 replies	by eblf2013 »» Yesterday, 4:20 PM
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