Time to start watching some spring 2011 anime series, and I'll start by looking at Maria Holic Alive. In the season premiere, Kanako and friends decide to challenge the (in)famous booby-trapped Dorm Building #1. Well, if you were a girl... Kanako actually has impressive knifing skills. I wonder what other questionable habits does Sachi have. Short summary: Kanako gets the idea of visiting the magnolia tree behind Dorm Building #1 because that's where her parents met. Dorm Building #1 was built near the boundary to a boy's school and to prevent peepers and panty thieves the building has a lot of booby traps. However, the traps became so bad that the building was deemed unsafe to live in and cordoned off. Kanako and friends decide to take the challenge and go through all of the building's traps and games which is all set up by the dorm supervisor. After braving the challenges (mostly shouldered by Kanako), the group finally reach the back courtyard with the beautiful magnolia tree, but it turns out everyone except Kanako knew there was a backdoor to the courtyard. Mariya appears to offer some encouraging words to Kanako but then tells Kanako to exit through the way she came to complete the challenge. It's true letting Kanako get hit by the rubber-tipped arrows would have done less damage, but you have to remember that Ryuuken's coolness trumps Kanako's well-being. I guess the answer is Yes then. In the dorms, Dorm-sensei is God. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Judging from this episode, it certainly looks like Maria Holic Alive will be very similar to the first season with all the randomness and stuff that makes no sense. Kanako's delusions and nose-bleeding were present, and so was Mariya's random costume change and mostly insulting but sometimes supportive remarks. And of course Matsurika and all of Kanako's pals are still around each with their own quirky personalities. This wasn't a good premiere episode though, mainly because it just wasn't that funny. Nobody expects Maria Holic to make much sense or be conventional, but this was just one of those episodes where the characters did random stuff but didn't generate much laughs. There were these kind of episodes from the first season, so I'm not too surprised or disappointed. My expectations are not high for this series (hence I won't be blogging about it weekly), and so I'll be satisfied if the show can generate a few hilarious moments over the season. One thing I was looking forward to was the OP sequence, since Maid Guitar/Paint Splash from the first season certainly stood out among the crowd (the OP sequence was arguably the best part of the show). Unfortunately it looks like the real OP is not done yet, and for this episode we were treated to a montage of scenes from the first season coupled with a joke song about Kanako's adventures in the girl's academy. Let's see if Shaft can come out with something nice... and not take an unreasonably long time to do it lol. From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
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