I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at an anime so hard in my life! Every episode topped the last in its insane, totally-from-left-field brand of humor. An added bonus is that it is animated by Shaft Studios, which means the animation is lovely to look at with lots of creative uses of techniques and background in jokes.

The story is a spoof of “pure love” yuri school romances, most notably Maria-sama ga Miteru. Our main character, Kanako, is finally accepted into the all girls private school of her dreams. She is determined to finally find her one (pure?) love before her high school career comes to an end. And she thinks she’s found it on her first day too! But why does the “girl” of her dreams give her hives when “she” pecks her on the cheek? Something that only happens when one of those horrible boys gets close to her… Find out the answer to this mystery and many more! What is that creature that lives in Kanako’s school bag? What does the dorm dog bury every night? Is the dorm mistress really god and what’s with the cat ears?

The show spoofs not only the yuri/school romance genre, but a variety of others as well: current affairs, pop idols, other popular shows, and dating sim games, nothing is safe! Most of Kanako’s love interests fall into the stereotypical archetypes of dating sim games with hilarious and hidden spins to them. There is also a lot of love for us older generation gamer types often told pan faced by the “God of the Dorms”. Anyone remember Virtual Boy? Raise your hand, don’t be shy. I have my hand raised… The ending credits are also an amazingly fun wink at the old NES side-scroller games. I’m going to stop now before I come across as too much of an old foggey.

If you like this anime, you’d probably like some of the others Shaft Studios has done: Goodbye Mr. Despair, Bakemonogatari (Ghostory) and the now airing Baka to Test to Shokanju to name a few. Conversely, if you like any of the above mentioned, I am sure you’ll love Maria Holic! Fans of gender-bender comedies like Ouran High School Host Club will probably fall in love with this too. Beware of copious nose bleeds from the main character. It’s turning into a Shaft trademark…