I just don't find it funny. And that's a sin (pun intended) when it comes to a gag manga. Maria Holic is a rather funny title to think about, because I'm pretty sure the only reason why this title has any sort of cultural relevance is because of the Shaft adaption. As much as I would like to go into detail why I think Team Shinbo might as well be the greatest animation team in all of Japan (yes, even more than your french one piece animators) I don't exactly think that's the point of this review. I feel like it's the biggest issue that peoplehave with this series.

I read this series without watching SHAFT's Maria Holic adaption, because I wanted a somewhat unbiased opinion of the series. Wherever Team Shinbo adpated the source material in a much more enjoyable way isn't my concern, because I want to judge manga by it's own merits, not by ones carried by their adaptation.

Maria Holic is sadly, unfunny. I'm not gonna pretend that the series is fully bad, though. There's a lot of good setups here. You got a raging lesbian who hates men (who is ALSO perverted. think issei from DxD) being paired with a crossdressing boy that is certainly trans-coded, all while being placed in a cathotic school while actively parodying the Maria-sama is Watching Us-likes and the GL genre as a whole, and you could get something funny. It's the perfect type of setup for wacky gags that poke fun at the tropes of the Yuri genre, but I just think stuff is played too straightforward. All of the jokes are played with such a straightforward manner, it doesn't really feel like a parody.

None of it feels like a parody or a gag series, at best you could argue the priest character since he's actively being the biggest dumbass of the bunch with Kanako but.. His whole thing gets a bit stale (haha!! he too wants to crack mariya like kanako!!) after a bit, and I feel like most of the jokes are related to everyone wanting to fuck Mariya in some way or form while Kanako actively gets blueballed and cucked to oblivion like the perverted femcel she is.

Kanako is not a bad lesbian rep, though. I'll address this quickly since it's something I found particularly interesting while reading through older reviews from sites like Bakaupdates, I do not think Kanako is a "offensive" caricature of lesbians. If one says that characters like Issei Hyoudo are a bad representative of men, then they're just being stupid for the sake of the argument. Yes, there definitely is a snotty teenager brat like Issei out there, but I kind of feel like this is a stupid argument to make against Kanako. Maria Holic IS a parody, so it makes sense that the protagonist is a stupid pervert who nosebleeds at pretty girls every time she can. I don't think Kanako has to be THE ideal lesbian rep, since there's a lot of GL works out there that have actually pretty good lesbian characters, and I don't really understand the argument of Kanako being a 'stereotype' when she's meant to be nothing but a silly character in a silly manga.

A silly manga I don't really find that funny. Humor IS subjective, but I definitely appreciate comedy/gag series more than the usual anime elitist around. I feel like this series is just.. not really it. It definitely made me smile once, but is one smile enough for a series meant to make you laugh and cackle?