マリア様がみてる S1

Starts terribly, but slowly gets better

I have to say, this story (in both book and anime form) makes a terrible first impression. However, it starts to really improve about halfway through, and in the end I was glad I watched it. Update: Having watched the entire show now, the story really grows so much, to the point that it's become a favorite series of mine!

Setting: Initially, the whole setting, environment, characters, etc, all seem quite petty, unpleasant, cliquey, etc. You get introduced to far too many similar characters all in the first episode, making it initially confusing. Given the setting (all girls Catholic school), there is very little to initially visually distinguish the characters, so much like reading manga, you have to pay quite close attention. On top of that, they're all calling each other by a different French title (the name of a particular rose), so you have names, faces, and titles to potentially mix up. Regarding the setting, the religious element is almost irrelevant (depending on the specific character or scenario), except that it creates the all-girls, strict, private school environment. There are occasional symbolic uses of it (making or breaking vows in front of a マリア様 statue, rosary as a symbol of a sisterly relationship, incorporation of Ave Maria or similar songs in an episode, etc). It's a respectful enough depiction of a Catholic school in Japan though と思う.

Story: The show slowly gets better as things go on, but halfway through S1 I found myself still ambivalent about most of the characters. Somewhat out of necessity, the initial arc is solidly, and tensely, focused on Yumi and Sachiko (the leads), leaving little room for other characters to develop. However once you're past the initial unpleasant arc, and more solidly acquainted with the characters, you get to see more of their individual relationships with each other, and different sides to them, and that's where. Some only shine for a brief moment, others turn out to be different than your first impression of them. There's often a lot of melancholy beneath the surface - things that didn't or couldn't come to be - but also there's some very beautiful love and support for each other to be found. I particularly enjoyed the 1st year characters, who were all very supportive with each other (besides the wannabe paparazzi girl). Still, it's a lot of characters to juggle in just 13 episodes, so some of these roses don't quite fully bloom yet. But I guess that's what successive seasons are for!

Adaptation: it seems decent, but is clearly skipping things (which given the already moderate pacing, may not be a bad thing). The animation has a somewhat dreary quality to it (seemingly typical of Sudio DEEN's works back then), which actually fits the setting and atmosphere well, imo. Accordingly, the music fits well, and is often put to great use to build tension, and keep you guessing - but it's not particularly memorable. The cast is excellent, though for me, having Ueda Kana as the lead was pretty distracting (I can’t not picture Tohsaka Rin from Fate/Stay Night, and they’re very different characters). That's a me problem though... Anyway, I haven't finished the first light novel yet, but if I do, I'll update this

Language: The hardest part of this show for me was definitely the extremely formal 尊敬語 (honorific language) and 謙譲語(humble language), along with all the French titles. If you haven't run into other stories with very formal, posh, aristocratic, etc, settings, this article has some great tables and examples. The other challenge for me was that from ep 6 onwards, I was audio-only, b/c I didn't do my full research to find the JP subs for S1. I think I would have been able to enjoy it more with the subs, as my audio comprehension still needs work.

Conclusion: Despite the terrible first impression, I'm glad I watched the show in the end. I've watched through S3 now, and it's incredible. The light novels are great as well!! Part of what got me interested in this was having previously watched 私の百合はお仕事です! S1 | L25 1 (aka わたゆり), which clearly owes its existence to this, but has a much more modern, and fantasized take on this kind of setting (a concept Class-S cafe, with this sort of setting and sisterhood theme), with very vibrant and diverse characters. So if you enjoyed this, you may want to check it out too!