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This anime, based on this manga by Ai Yazawa, tells the story of a high school girl (there's a shocker) Yukari, who usually has her nose to the grindstone trying to get through her high school exams. Unlike her perfect little brother, Yukari has to study nearly to death just to get by. Yet one day, a guy in punk rock gear chases her into a giant drag queen and everything changes.

Much like reality, life is meaningless and colorless without a drag queen in it, and Yukari discovers an entirely new world of possibility when it's revealed these strange people she meets are part of Paradise Kiss; a group of fashion school students working together to start their own line of clothing and win the school's competition. They all feel to win, they need Yukari as a model.

Enter George. Ok, George is kind of a dick and that's being kind. As the resident bishonen, he's charming, superhawt and omg, you just wanna bite him (says the anime, I seem to be immune), but he also has a short temper when it comes to little high school girls who think they know everything and expect men to do things for them without a lick of effort on their part. To which I agree. But he's in COLLEGE! If you want that sort of maturity in your girlfriends, try not wooing high school girls!

I won't spoil the outcome of the series but I will say, just like in the manga, Yukari gets better as she goes along. She learns there is more than one road to success outside ceaseless studying. The world has color and life and should be looked at every so often.

If you like the books, you should check out the anime just to see the fashions in glorious color and movement. They make so much more sense than back when I read the books. However, if you already read them, borrow the anime. I just don't see much point in watching this one more than once. *shrugs*

I've been really busy trying to get Dreamhunter ready for re-publishing and brainstorming ideas for that other anthology I want to query. But in between those things, I managed to get my hands on some anime! So, here's a long overdue review of Maria Watches Over Us.

I've watched season one and two and I've come to two conclusions:
1) I have a weakness for shojo. I can't help it. As warped as I am, give me a good silly story with decent characters and I get emotionally invested. I wanted to know everything about these girls and I wanted them to have beautiful friendships with their "sisters" (it's kinda their way or mentoring in the school they attend) for the rest of their lives. I laughed with them, teared up when they cried and genuinely wanted them to graduate and succeed.

2) Yuri is nothing like Yaoi. When searching around, this title came up under Yuri and me being ME, I'm thinking "If it's anything like the yaoi titles I've seen, this is gonna be demented and I would want the rest of my family to be far away when I'm watching it." Not even close. Maria is primarily focused on the emotional relationships between the girls. In fact, it's ONLY focus is how the friendships function and why, and how they grow and change over time. Grab any yaoi manga or video and that's SO not the case. Given that the market for both genres is the same (young women) you'd think there'd be some more emotion in yaoi or more... *achem* sleeze in the yuri. While I am VERY glad there's no sleeze in Maria (it's set in high school, for gods sakes...) I see this divide everywhere. Even in so called yuri manga. Even if the women are obviously in love, they barely share more than a meaningful glance. Meanwhile, the men are boning like jack rabbits through the whole damn thing, sometimes before they even know each other's names.

So, if you're looking for Maria to be like say, the female version of Kizuna, you will be absolutely disappointed. But if you want a classic high school drama filled with real emotion that keeps you going to the next episode, I encourage you to watch Maria. It's just too adorable for words.

Oh, and keep voting for my story on Web Fiction. They refresh the votes every week so daily voting keeps me in the top 5. ;)

I'm almost done with Peach Girl so I'll be reviewing that next. ;)