Junketsu no Maria

I always feel like I’m stepping into gangster territory whenever I bring up my opinions on fictional products about soldiers and anti-war themes. Yeah I know that not even the fans like everything about Full Metal Jacket, but that doesn’t change the feeling that if I ever admitted that it was the film that cemented my hatred for the genre in public, I’ll have more holes put into me than Sergeant Hartman did after he realized that being an asshole can backfire on you massively. Not to mention, what can one possibly say about the products from that genre even if you are a fan?It has tanks? It has blood? War is rough? This actor captures the grittiness so well? I mean I like my share of martial arts movies, but trying to say something new amongst every single Jackie Chan film just isn’t worth it. Anyways, the point is that I can enjoy anti-war stuff if they do something differently other than saying how awful it is – which is a theme I’m very against because not only is that message filled with so much “duh” you can run around with a giant bag of it and be mistaken for a bank robber, it’s completely pointless to say something like that. War ain’t going to change just because of a movie, let alone an anime, you know. And it also doesn’t help that I find soldiers to be some of the most annoying characters in existence what with their irritating jargon and hardcore behavior that comes off like a little kid thinking that cursing makes you more mature. So I wasn’t exactly hyped when I found out the director of Planetes combined with the writer of Moyashimon was bringing out a story set in the Hundred Years’ War and that the main character is basically a lewd version of Nausicaa. But hey, maybe just like Nausicaa, this anime will do enough with the formula that it’ll actually click with me? Well after finishing the anime, you’ll be pleased to know that Maria the Virgin Witch does some things differently with the anti-war formula. It just doesn’t do enough things differently with the formula, and a bunch of the differences aren’t even for the better – mostly due to the fact that its lead character is pretty much a female version of Vash the Stampede from Trigun. Because, y’know, the original Vash wasn’t stupid enough. The story is centered on a witch named Maria (of course) who lives in small hut on the outskirts of the Hundred Years’ War – which I’m not really familiar with beyond the fact that it lasted 106 years, so I’m not going to go into the specifics of it and I don’t think it really affects the anime too much anyways. As expected from a female Vash – if Vash used witchcraft rather than guns – she hates violence and whenever battles happen around her area, she jumps on her broom, flies off to the carnage, and sics giant monsters on the armies in order to scare them away without actually killing them. During her exploits, she falls in love with a soldier named Joseph, befriends a small group of villagers who think she’s cool because of what she’s doing, and incites the wrath of a church who wants to see her hanged for her transgressions. Oh, and she also calls upon the judgment of the heavens in the form of Lord Michael and an Ezekiel who obviously has no relation to the original prophet because this anime portrays said figure as a whiny little girl who conforms towards Maria’s way of thinking really easily. It’s like discovering that the scary Oyashiro-sama is actually an annoying moeblob who goes hauu~ all the time. Whilst it is obviously not stating that war is a good thing, a good chunk of what Maria the Virgin Witch is about are the compromises between the different factions and what they stand to gain or lose from the conflict – and there you have my reason for paying attention to the show. Because it wants to be a modern-day Nausicaa/Princess Mononoke, and I’ll gladly support an anime that flies that same flag as some of my favorite anime films if it can pull it off well. Which would have helped if Maria, y’know, actually had the ability to pull it off well and not sabotage that message by making “Maria-Sue” out to be more of a Jesus-Dalai Lama-Christ than Nausicaa can only dream of being. And it doesn’t exactly help that she turns into a lame blushing school girl whenever someone so much as mentions the idea of sex to her. There’s being naive and then there’s being someone I can’t take seriously. I obviously have no problems with pacifism and wanting to avoid war altogether, but I really can’t stand it when it’s portrayed so one-sidedly by fiction in general, let alone these types of stories. And it doesn’t exactly help that whilst she’s not as obnoxious as Vash in terms of personality, Maria lacks the compelling reasons and supporting cast that at least tried to make his adherence to that pacifistic philosophy tragic, even if it ended up failing kinda horribly because his way of thinking ultimately won out in the end. There are only three important characters who oppose her, and they’re portrayed as the villains, so it’s hard to really say they lend much weight to the discussion. Everyone else supports her thoroughly, and even Ezekiel ends up conforming to the Church of Maria after a single episode of getting to know her. The show just gets ridiculously one-sided with what should be a multi-faceted issue that it felt less like I was watching a narrative and more like I was watching author propaganda disguised as shitty fanfiction. To be fair, the show does try to make Maria face up to her own philosophies. I say “try”, not “do”, because it doesn’t succeed very well. Around the halfway point, without getting to spoiler-y, Maria pulls off a lighter-version of the turning point in Spec Ops: The Line by pulling out the big guns during a major battle in order to save her love, and not only do the heavens punish her for it, but her actions end up making the war worse and causing a bunch of dicks to go after her in the process. But whilst I’m not asking Maria to go the same path as Spec Ops: The Line given how even the most adult of anime wouldn’t dare follow that route since there still has to be enough that’s “fun” to watch, the show doesn’t punish her enough for my taste. She goes through a lot of physical punishment sure, but there’s not much in the way of inner turmoil – even if you compare it to something more kid-friendly like Kiki’s Delivery Service – and it doesn’t help that a lot of her friends still think that what she did was right after all that. Not to mention, the show pulls a Little Mermaid (the Disney film) at the end, which I found insulting in that movie and I find kinda more insulting in this show due to the heavy subject matter of the material along with it f*cking up worse than Trigun did with its final episode. I’m not going to spoil the details of what actually happened, but after being subjected to its teeth-grinding awfulness, I hunted around for people who liked said ending in the hopes of finding a good justification for why the show went that route, and none of them were able to give me a satisfying answer. The biggest thing people seem to agree on is the fact that Maria’s viewpoint won out in the end with the only thing that changed about her being how she went about it, which might have worked if said change was major and there were some interesting characters to counterbalance her views. Unfortunately, she just traded in one form of happiness for a “different but equal” form of happiness, the people who opposed her lose out in the end, and the reasoning was more stupid than a mime trying to fit in with the Crips. But who cares about ambiguity? Who cares if she ends up solving the final conflict with the same logic that got her in trouble in the first place? Who cares if that ending is the equivalent of celebrating the lowering of your high blood sugar by eating a whole strawberry cheesecake? She’s cute, and that’s good enough for us. Maria the Virgin Witch is good on an aesthetic level considering it’s Goro Taniguchi working with Production IG, and a lot of effort has been putting into capturing the feel of the time period this show takes place in along with portraying the religious aspects accurately if you ignore the fact that they’ve been “anime-upped” a little (although a certain religious colleague of mine would say otherwise). But even that doesn’t pay off as well as it should. The battles are mostly boring to look at, the animation takes a huge dip during the penultimate episode, and the final climax is just a bunch of talking heads. All in all, Maria not only does not come close to the level of Nausicaa, but it goes so far in the opposite direction that it caused me to get annoyed with it at the end. It’s not unpleasant on the surface, and I guess if you don’t think too hard about the show it’s not a bad watch. Just don’t expect me to be on your side, because as much as I like the dude, I am physically incapable of enjoying the kind of stories that would make Winnie the Pooh happy.

Junketsu no Maria (Maria the Virgin Witch) is a rather peculiarly interesting show. Whenever the word ‘virgin’ tends to be mentioned, you may think a show is about concentrates on a character with focus on their relationship or perhaps even their journey to be deflowered. But in this series, it’s a whole lot more than that. Junketsu no Maria takes on a set of refreshing concepts with a thought provoking premise to craft a surprisingly deft story. I have to admit that my expectations coming into this series weren’t high. The manga doesn’t have many chapters while the author’s other works are virtually unknown;with perhaps the exception of Moyashimon. Regardless, the series is adapted by Production I.G based on the manga of the same name. It takes place in a fictional world set in France during the era of the Hundred Years’ War. Maria is known throughout the story as a witch with magical abilities. Her desire to stop the war and maintain a balance of peace has put her on the wrong side of some factions, in particular the Church. That’s not the main problem though. It seems that she has also attracted the eyeful attention of the powerful Archangel Michael, who takes an interesting in Maria. For a show like this, there’s a really a creative balance of ideas – warfare, magic, religion, and who can we forget…virginity. To be honest, the show indulges on fan service but without actually explicating it as a source of shock value. What does that mean? It means that the series has fan service in the form of dialogues (the endless sex jokes), actions (succubus seduction), and character designs. But taking at a closer look, the series actually portrays this in a more solemn way. For Maria, we can see that she is a lonely young witch. The thought of losing her virginity often gets her embarrassed as others teases her for it. And despite being a witch, she holds a pacifist nature and wishes to establish peace between humans. Unfortunately, the show also makes the point that witches are deemed “evil” by certain members of society. If we trace back to origins, there was once a period known as ‘Great Witch Craze’. And although the series doesn’t focuses primarily on that, Maria becomes a target for witch hunt. To think though, this is all because some people believe that witches operate in a defiled manner to society and a threat to their beliefs. Maria isn’t an exception either. The show goes far enough to portray the Church as an antagonist force, bound on making Maria suffer and judging her for just being a witch. As Maria is the primary focus on the show, many characters she gets involved in plays an influence in the story. Early on, we also have the Archangel Michael who instead of punishing her decides to offer Maria a chance to retain her magical abilities except if she loses her virginity. This really builds on a foundation of an almost ludicrous plot device as Maria becomes an object for tease. She doesn’t seem to mind it although deep down, there’s no doubt she feels lonely. Luckily, she has friends such as her witch friend Artemis, her familiar Priapos, and perhaps even a love interest, Joseph. The show makes it clear that although she can’t have sex with Joseph (without the threat of losing her magical powers), there’s a romantic tension between the two. It can be genuinely interesting to see how far Maria can resist her urges despite knowing full well the consequences of being deflowered. Unlike some shows where it primarily relies on the accidental peeking or To-Love Ru-style crotch fallings, this series develops Maria as both a witch and woman. The interactions she has with other characters is attractive as it brings out their personalities. And despite lacking the sexual appeal of some other witches, Maria does have influence on others. She can even make friends with almost anyone including Ezekiel, an angel sent by Heaven with an original intention to kill her. In fact, this is where the show shine through characterization. Taking the example of Ezekiel, her outlook on the world around her begins to change as she interacts more with others in particular Maria. Even opponents such as Galfa and Bernard sets as good examples to portray their motivations. In retrospect, the show’s character cast has plenty to offer with its appeals. A good amount of the story also concentrates on the war. Taking place in such an era breaks apart the usual generic settings of high school or fantasy world. Rather, the war itself looks realistic with the soldiers on the battlefield. France itself also gives off that nostalgic vibe back during the old days when crude weapons were used as instruments of war. Speaking of which, the show also a decent amount of supernatural tropes whether it’d be the powers of witches, angels, or other divine entities. As foremost, there’s also the sense of tragedy with war with people dying and others losing hope. Despite this, the show is able to maintain a good comedy composure with adequate timings of the character interactions. Just be aware that the jokes of the series are not only repetitive but often alludes to sexual undertones; you can thank Maria’s friends for that. Oh and I forgot to also mention that one of the characters lacks a penis in the show (despite being a male) so prepare for some cringy jokes indulged by cookie cutter awkwardness. On a more serious side, there’s also some mature themes including the implication of rape and torture. How you take these ideas to heart is up to you but I think the show’s necessity to craft these themes is to show how cruel a world can be as a witch. Production I.G has made a reputation with their high production quality. This show is no exception as the artwork is not just refreshing but has a realistic way of portraying war. It also presents supernatural elements in the forms of angels with their divine-like design. But for character designs in general, most of the witches are categorized by their unique outfits. Maria, despite being a virgin, doesn’t dress like one. In fact, she shows plenty of skin alongside some of her fellow witches. This shouldn’t be a big issue though as the fan service isn’t directed with diehard attempts to distract the viewers. Instead, it’s more like an appeal to articulate our characters. Otherwise, the world setting of this show has profound landscapes, architectures, and nature that are all designed fluently. Insightful violence also exists (without censorship) with a strong degree of showing cruelty. Soundtrack on most parts knows what it’s doing. The OP and ED songs has a serene-like composure and plenty of decorative tones in the backgrounds. I also give some credit to the OST because of its ability to convey the many expressive scenarios of the series. It’s not always easy to adapt scenes that transits from butt jokes to mental breakdowns. A good set of soundtrack has to go with the flow to get the job done. Thankfully, this show does it well. Character voice mannerism on most parts are also decent although Joseph’s monotonous nature can be bothersome to listen. Maria on the other hand can be a mixed bag for some people. Her voice has more of a balance between childish and caring. A show like this is actually a rare breed with its atmospheric nature and sensible themes. As a witch, Maria is a character you just wants to know more and more with her potentials. But luckily, the other characters can be quite interesting as well if you pay careful attention to them. For a story like this, the premise injects a variety of concepts to make the show inventive. Even with the over repetitive sex jokes, the series maintains a genuine act of comedy during this duration. Now coming off as a manga reader, there’s a bit of an incentive to complain with adaptation. Although the series does have anime original characters and some changes, it still gives a delightful performance.

Maria the Virgin Witch turned out a lot better then I expected it to be despite it being the POV of a female character. This anime was one of my most liked for this season and here's why. Story: 10 The story takes place around a blonde, stubborn, peace-loving witch who tries to stop any fights that happen near to where she lives, which is in thw middle of a secluded forest. Despite being a stubborn girl, she shows kindness to her few closest friends which encompass a little girl, her summons, and a few others. The story progresses as the Heavens above don't like her meddlingin natural affairs that they think should otherwise be allowed to happen. Art: 9 Surprisingly, this anime had one of the most vibrant, colorful art out of all that aired this season, which seemed kind of ironic due to how many people got stabbed or killed in this anime (don't worry, most are side-characters). Sound: 8 The sound was extremely well and fit everything perfectly as well as set the mood throughout the anime, through-out the serious and comedic parts. Characters: 9 The characters, in my opinion, were extremly well done with few, if any, cliches anywhere. Theres the main heroine witch who dislikes fighting. The witchs summonings which are a succubus and a incubus who doesn't have any nether regions due to the witch's messup The angel Micheal whos just the basic guy no one likes. The messenger who secretly likes the witch. The "dove" whos sent to keep an eye on Maria and see if shes doing anything bad. And a few other characters as well, which I won't spoil any more. Enjoyment: 9 Despite this being a anime aimed at the opposite gender, I really found this anime to be among my most liked for this season. It just being good all around led me to really enjoy this anime, and I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a serious, romantic/comedic show about medival witches.

Why you should watch Junketsu no Maria So the series started very promising as a fanservice – action packed mahou shoujo one of a kind and I’m fairly happy to say that it disappointed…by NOT being just that. First of all, magical powers aren’t the main topic here and they’re not wildly used like you often see in series of the same genre and it also comes with a price, or rather with a condition which makes things sooo much more interesting. Maria fights to maintain peace (I know how stupid that sounds) during The Hundred Years' War (1337 – 1453) without actuallytaking any side, but making sure that all the battles going on around her are stopped. What I love about this series is that it also shows the consequences of her meddling and that not all of them are good (like for example the mercenaries who no longer have a job to do are attacking the allied villages in order to get the loot they couldn’t receive otherwise) and thus she attracts the attention of God who sends Archangel Michael to bring her to justice for interfering with the natural order of the world. And this is where things start getting really heavy. The plot itself is both historical (really like that whoever was in charge of graphic design actually took the time to study armor designs) social, philosophical and unexpectedly religious. It deals with the problems the Catholic Church is mostly renowned for and the difference between faith and dogma and also brings into question the purpose of war on Earth. Maria’s magical powers are also based upon summoning ancient creatures and will further on emphasize on the idea that all myths survive as long as there will be someone to remember them. The “new faith” seems to be taken into account as well, although it’s not blatantly mentioned like so. Through Bernard’s character atheism is also masterfully placed on the table in contrast – or rather in perfect harmony with everything that has been shown throughout the series as secular humanism. All these serious aspects of the plot are gradually sprinkled with some good doses of warfare, humor, magic, lively characters and sizzled innuendos that won’t disappoint if you’re only looking for a light series. All and all Junketsu no Maria is so far this year’s must watch and a real delight for all fans of the genre.

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