LogFAQs > #898392531

Maria-sama ga Miteru
@Tom_Bombadil



This is a show about characters who attend an all girls school. There is no "and" in that sentence. I just described the entire plot. It largely revolves around the relationships between what are called 'big sisters' and 'little sisters' which is sort of a mentor and student dynamic between an older student and a younger student. This very concept is capable of creating a ton of drama for the characters because for many of them this is one of the most major things going on in their lives. Although it's not really fair to say that -- we see other personal problems and issues come up over the course of time in order to add drama and move character stories and relationships forward.

Interestingly, I learned that this 'big sister and little sister' thing is actually a real thing in sororities in the US. Imagine my surprise the first time I heard one of my friends say something about her 'little sister' and then had to explain to me that she didn't actually have a sister and it was a sorority thing!

Dang I'm on a roll when it comes to actually talking about the series so I'll try to stay on topic a bit more. This series is also probably one of the classically more well known 'girl on girl romance' series that doesn't actually have almost any actual romance between girls. Now there are a few elements to this aspect of the series which make it pretty interesting from an anthropological standpoint. First of all is the fact that you'll probably almost never see people talking about or bringing the show up... even though it used to be heavily discussed in the past. I think I touched on this with my previous write up for Lucky Star but it once again comes down to how the landscape of anime has changed in the last decade or so. It's not just that this show is old, but it's actually obsolete in a lot of ways. The overwhelming number of comedy and drama series now have almost all female or mostly female casts. There's often at least one or more female characters who have sexual undertones between each other, either played for laughs or other reasons. And most of the times these shows have some other kind of plot or premise driving them forward. Basically what I'm saying is this; something that used to make Maria-sama ga Miteru unique is now actually a component of many other shows which offer much more on top of that one aspect. And when you take that away, Maria-sama ga Miteru is basically just a soap opera about young girls who mostly don't have any real problems to deal with at any point in time but who treat their minor day to day issues with an inflated sense of drama.

For the record I enjoy this show somewhat. I think the plots and seasons vary in quality, but there are parts that I enjoyed. I also do think that pretty much everything I just said above is true, though. This is probably not a show I'd recommend to anyone anymore. It does hold a pretty special place for me though as one of the first shows, probably within the first 10 or even 5 anime, that I ever went out of my way to watch of my own volition. I don't know that I'd say it has any value beyond that.
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