With this third season, I’m completely sold on the Maria-Sama ga Miteru franchise. The first season took a while to get going, while the second dragged on a bit too much in its second half, but this series of OVAs is perfectly paced, making for five excellent double-length episodes.
This season is all about character-development. It’s always been a big part of the Maria-Sama ga Miteru series, and it’s something that just gets better and better here in this season. It advances the characters, and also does wonders in fleshing out how exactly the characters have changed from the beginning of the first season.
While at first sight yet another high school drama, Maria-Sama ga Miteru sets itself apart in so many different ways. The unique drama that results from the fact that it’s a very neat school, so much that even the tiniest misunderstanding can create genuine and powerful drama. The way in which each student chooses her own younger sister gives a unique twist to these characters, and really allows them to get the best character-development possible in such a setting. It’s a series that’s elegant and innocent, and this shines through the third season more than ever. Even though some of the most interesting characters of the first two seasons have left now, the remaining characters picked up the pace perfectly and created their own story. Yumi, while I once criticised her for sticking her nose into everything, has developed into a wonderful character at this point.
The OVA-format also means that there was no budget wasted on broadcasting costs, so the graphics also look better and more consistent than ever. This third season is well paced, with just the right balance between drama, slice of life and character-development. Overall, I’m very impressed.
| Storytelling: | 9/10 – Excellent balance and pacing that gets the best out of the characters. |
| Characters: | 9/10 – At this point the characters all have some sort of interesting development behind them. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Very solid, as expected of the OVA-format. |
| Setting: | 8/10 – Is set in a high school, yet feels unique. |
lots of character development. i think i marathoned this 4-6 months ago, and damn!!, I cant still get rid of the 4th season’s opening song in my head
This franchise is ridiculously addicting for me; I once marathon’d the 4 whole seasons and I still couldn’t put it down! Kept re-watching and re-watching!
I’m so glad you loved it! I still keep rewatching those oav, even if I had already seen all the four seasons twice! the fifth oav gives us a very depicted view of ones of the most important places in Italy ( the creators sure know its museums with the paintings and sculptures and all of italian famous artworks), and I’ve got the feeling of visiting everything once again but in better. The first oav represents an unforgettable summer vacation, the peaceful yet the utmost powerful atmosphere that gives us a breath of fresh air, the characters with their unique personnality and their usual elegance, the incredible beauty of the landscapes. And the oav’s that take place at the Lillian academy were also perfect. And yes, all this with gorgeous graphics. The fourth season will be impressive as well if you overlook the badly executed first episode, I think you may like it, if you liked the previous ones.
I’m watching this series right now and I agree. The episodic stuff didn’t seem to really work since a lot of the story dragged on for 2 to 3 episodes. 50+ minute OVAs is perfect to drag it on just long enough to expose the characters.
By far the best animated and best characterized out of any seasons.
To me this is the highlight of Marimite and as good as it gets. Maybe I grew out of it but I never finished the 4th season. I find it odd that you gave the 4th season a higher rating than this.