recognito | Review-sama ga Miteru

Mary Watches Over Us/Maria-sama ga Miteru, 1998-2012 (light novel), 2004-2009 (anime), there are somehow even more spin-offs but I'm not listing them here - I tried finding streams of the anime, only to find that, in the years since I've been absent from anime/manga, RightStuf folded, the DVD/Blu-rays were sold at firesale prices, and all the rights have expired?! I wound up picking up pirating a bunch of the anime episodes and rereading the translated volumes of the light novel and will probably pick up the Blu-rays on eBay later, too.

It's hard to state just how influential Mara-sama ga Miteru (also called Marimite by fans) is in the world of yuri anime and manga. The most enduring impact is the reintroduction of Class S to the contemporary anime scene, popularizing a new strain of yuri with the otaku crowd, and laying the groundwork for the subsequent growth of explicitly queer yuri series in the years that followed. To this day, I can't help but see pigtailed protagonists and long-haired, classic beauty love interests who scold and reprimand their love interests and think, "I know what you are… I know what you've seen…"

I've mentioned class S a few times in these reviews, but now I'm like, okay, we need to address this in more depth. These days, we use Class S almost exclusively to refer to yuri, but it once referred to a broader genre of literature focused on girls' stories. Nobuko Yoshiya, a lesbian woman writer active from 1916-71, is a foundational figure within the genre. From Yoshiya, we get Two Virgins in the Attic, which originates the term yuri to refer to lesbian fiction. Apparently this is also where we get the trope of lesbians going into the attic and resolving to be together, though I can't think of any known works where this happens?!

The "S" apparently can also stand for "sister," referring to the practice of senpai-kouhai romantic mentorship relationships practiced in Christian private schools, where wealthy girls were educated. At the end of their time at school, they'd often enter arranged marriages.

If I were to imagine the ideal Class S work, I'd probably say the necessary components are a high school setting (ideally, an isolated all girls' Catholic boarding school to maximize points), wealthy girls, friendships with a strong romantic component, absent parents/outside world, strong senpai/kouhai bonds, and, finally, a historical setting. Maria-sama ga Miteru's primary innovation is bringing all of these Class S elements to the present day and reintroducing the sister system, now called the soeur system.

The soeur system is probably the element that most clearly says "ah, you've watched Maria-sama!" Without a ton of historical Class S works available in English, it's hard for me to say how similar the soeur system is to the historical practice. Looking back at works like The Row of Cherry Trees/Sakura Namiki, published in 1957, we can see the term onee-sama used for upperclassmen and the close bond between Yukiko and Chikage (Chikage-onee-sama!) and the way the two girls are basically dating and exclusive. The trope is common enough that it appears in Sweet Blue Flowers, too: Akira, in her first year at Fujigaya, an all girls' private Catholic school, greets her upperclassmen with, "Hello, onee-sama!" and promptly learns that only kindergarteners call older students "onee-sama;" using that term for her upperclassmen becomes proof that she's new to the school and not yet accustomed to its ways.

In Maria-sama ga Miteru, the soeur system is a highly formalized ritual, involving a senpai presenting her kouhai with a rosary and the kouhai going on to wear the rosary for the rest of their time together. It's not just a metaphor, however, for romance. What makes it work nicely in Marimite is how the soeur system creates succession drama within the student council, where it is assumed the three Roses' little sisters will take their older sisters' place. The standard question of "am I well suited to have a relationship with this person?" gets combined with, "Can this person teach me the qualities I need to become a future ruler of my student body?" It makes sense that all eyes are on the student council members and the line of Rosa grande soeur/Rosa en bouton/Rosa en bouton petite soeur; choosing the right soeur becomes a local political matter and a marriage novel all at once.

Yumi and Sachiko are the main soeur pair of the series. Their relationship is clearly modeled to be romantic ideal of a senpai-kouhai relationship: Sachiko is stern, strict, and constantly fixing Yumi's scarf, even when it doesn't need to be fixed; Yumi is good natured, expressive, and self-deprecating. They grow into their relationship over the course of the series, and the newness of their relationship is used as a lens to explore the soeur system and other soeur pairs. Soeur pairs can be made because the two soeurs were already close before high school; they can be formed because the two soeurs are members of the same club and get along; they can be formed based off whims. As the series goes on, it becomes clear that there's no single way to be soeurs: each relationship is distinct and unique because the people contained within the relationship have distinct needs and wants.

Surprisingly, the series confronts lesbian romance and its interaction with the soeur system head on in volume 3. A recently published pseudonymous autobiographical shoujo novel gets published and rapidly circulates among the student body. The details of the school match Lilian High School (the gokigenyou of it all, soeur system, and so on), and the details of the forbidden lesbian romance, which ends in an attempted double suicide, resemble a mysterious incident that happened the year before between Sei, the current White Rose, and Shiori, a girl who transferred out of Lilian the year before.

Sei has self-identified as a lesbian in volume 1, albeit in a roundabout way that went over Yumi's head. She's consistently portrayed as perceptive, flirtatious, and Yumi's close friend and ally when it comes to navigating complex situations and her relationship with Sachiko. Sei pulls Yumi and Yoshino (the Yellow Rose en bouton petite soeur… sorry, in a Marimite review, one does feel compelled to bust out some bad French) and explains the incident with Shiori in terms of friendship, but Yumi and Yoshino understand it to be romantic, and that Sei's still pained by the way the relationship ended. We then find out that the novel was written by a graduate of Lilian High School, all the way back during World War 2, and that the headmaster of the school is the other girl who supposedly "died" in the suicide attempt.

The back half of volume 3 is a flashback told from Sei's point of view. Sei's in her second year and does not give a shit about playing the role of pure, gentle maiden. "Maria-sama, standing in the middle of the garden, looks so serene and kind, but in reality, she's dividing students into good or bad," Sei says, and then makes a gun with her finger and shoots Mary. "Whoa!" I remember thinking the first time I watched the episode. Sei's frustration and annoyance with the world of Lilian High School comes through clearly. She dislikes doing things for no reasons: small talk, laughing at jokes she doesn't find funny, attending student council meetings, and so on. Sei meets Shiori, a first year, one day in chapel and instantly falls in love. Shiori feels the same.

Everyone around Sei quickly picks up on the romantic nature of Sei's interest. Sei's friend, Youko, the future Red Rose and Sachiko's grande soeur, warns Sei to stay away unless Sei's going to take Shiori as a soeur; after all, they meet all the correct qualifications. Sei rejects it instantly. Sei doesn't want their relationship to be defined in terms of the soeur system, with its senpai/kouhai framing and symbolic love. Sei wants an equal partner and a committed, physical relationship that lasts beyond high school.

The romance, as we know, is doomed: after the death of her parents, Shiori decided to enter a convent once she graduated from high school. Sei, shocked and upset, accuses Shiori of only humoring her feelings, since it'd only go on until Sei's graduation. Sei tries to kiss Shiori, but Shiori slaps her and warns her that they cannot kiss: "Maria-sama is watching." Sei, bitterly, thinks to herself, "I lost to Mary, a two thousand year old ghost."

Sei and Shiori separate, but, after some time apart, reunite, affirm their love, and vow to run away together. They agree to meet at a train station. (In a cute touch, the manga has Sei carry a Louis Vuitton duffel.) Shiori never shows. In a letter, she tells Sei she went to the headmistress of the school and decided to transfer away and keep her promise to enter a convent.

So, 1. great title drop and also 2. I really think this is a standout moment, one that brings everything the series has built up to now crashing to the ground. What is the soeur system, exactly? It can be many things, but for the characters in the series looking for romantic love, the soeur system cannot accommodate them. The series reaches this conclusion in volume 3 of 37. The revelation in the first half of volume 3 that something similar has happened more than fifty years ago and that the constraints of Lilian High School have remained essentially the same ends up feeling like a depressing statement on homophobia then and now: it's built into the soeur system, it's pervasive, and it hurts.

I've seen some people read Sei fulfilling her role as the White Rose, taking on a soeur, and going onto college at Lilian as Sei "perpetuating the system that hurt her," which I think is a fair reading. Ultimately, I think Maria-sama ga Miteru is big on obligation. The biggest problem with her and Shiori was how she fell fast and hard, to the exclusion of everything else in her life. She's "saved" by the efforts of her older sister, who expects nothing from Sei except to care for her and to be nearby, and Youko, who reminds Sei of her obligations to the world but ultimately cares for Sei's well-being. Sei takes on the responsibilities of the White Rose because she wants to repay her grande soeur; she takes on Shimako as a soeur because she comes to understand what she can give Shimako and what Shimako can do for her. The relationship isn't a romantic one, but it is important to both of them.

Sei ends the series happily enough: she's met someone that may or may not be her girlfriend, she's cheerful and doing well in school. But the series seems to consider volume 3 to be its final statement on queer characters. It doesn't address the complications lesbian relationships might bring to the soeur system again.

These days, Maria-sama ga Miteru is often seen as a series that's been "outgrown," for lack of better words. I can't deny that the genre has evolved beyond the limits of Class S. If we look at works like Sweet Blue Flowers, published at the height of the Maria-sama ga Miteru craze (serialization began in 2004, anime aired in 2009), we go from subtext to actual text: Fumi dates two girls, the word "lesbian" is used, and sex happens on the page. Importantly, I think, Maria-sama ga Miteru is a shoujo work with mainstream and otaku appeal; compare, for example, Marimite to its contemporary, Strawberry Panic, a work that can be most accurately described as fan service for an otaku audience. The delicate treatment Maria-sama ga Miteru uses with its characters and plot is probably the key to establishing a field for high school lesbian relationship dramas that can address both female and male viewers, such as Kase-san, Sweet Blue Flowers, or Bloom Into You.

The fantasy Marimite presents us with at the beginning of the light novel emphasizes the lady-like qualities of "Maria-sama's lambs." They walk slowly to not disturb the pleats on their skirts, they have impeccable conduct, their bodies and hearts are both pure (huh??). But the students at Lilian run all the time. They yelp in surprise, slam doors too loudly, and shout, "You're being tyrannical and mean!" Becoming soeurs is supposed to be a serious, dignified ritual. Sachiko first proposes to make Yumi her soeur on impulse, in front of the entire student council, in order to drop a role in a play. The stately, lofty goals for Lilian High School are often undercut by the basic fact of its students being high school girls.

Throughout Maria-sama ga Miteru, we find that people and relationships aren't what they seem. This is most apparent with Rei and Yoshino, who are close and intimate cousins at home, and switch over to a more traditional soeur pair at school; their introductory arc is all about how people assume Rei is ultra butch because she does kendo and has short hair while Yoshino is a wilting flower, when Rei loves feminine objects and bases her self-worth on being Yoshino's protector, and Yoshino is hotheaded, loves sports, and has no fear about going on the offense. There's a public and private face to everyone. The basic problem of Maria-sama ga Miteru is one of bridging who you want to be to others (a reliable colleague, a beloved friend, an emotional support) and becoming that person. The answers Maria-sama ga Miteru give its audience are simple but hard to live by: Communicate in a way that's clear and appropriate to the relationship you currently have. Learn what other people need from you and try to live up to being that person. Be honest with yourself and others about what you want and what you've done.

I've been thinking about the appeal of Marimite to today's audience, which may have different expectations for queer series. It's fair to want more direct queer representation, but I've never really been dissatisfied with what Marimite has to offer. To be fair, I watched this series in high school and was immediately obsessed. I still really like it, even after I've aged into a queer man, pretty squarely out of the target demographic of the books and anime. To some extent, it's a matter of imprinting (you're destined to like the music you listened to in high school basically forever, it seems), but I do think the real fantasy Maria-sama ga Miteru offers is pretty appealing: What if high school didn't suck??? What if understanding the people around you took time and effort, and the time and effort you put into it was ultimately rewarded? What if the girl you love is a beautiful, really rich horse and you are the only one who could ever tame her? What if you love a girl so much and she love you back exactly in the same way that you love her and you agree to go out in a way that's perfectly acceptable to both of you and you work really hard at it and you become a great couple that other people admire and want to emulate? What if there's something that only you can give to another person and they need it and they have something unique to them that only they can give, and you're irreplaceable to one another? What if the hierarchical roles that you inhabit in life made sense and you can grow into them and then pass on your knowledge to others? What if all of this lasted forever, in a perfect and timeless world?

It's a conservative small c fantasy, but I still really like it... It's one of those series that's really clear about what it has to offer the viewer, the tropes and conventions it's working with, and delivers exactly what it intends to deliver, with a wink and a nod. The series gives us a good variety of character and relationship types, and, because there's so much source material, if you like what you're reading (or want to hateread), there's a lot of character/relationship development to experience--a rare experience these days, when most series only get a single season of thirteen episodes, if you're lucky.

If the things mentioned in the review sound appealing to you, or if you're generally interested in yuri as a genre, I strongly recommend checking it out. Your best hope for watching this now is to pirate, dig up your torrented fansubs from 2009 languishing on a hard drive under your bed, or buy DVDs/Blu-Rays on eBay; alternatively, you can read the kind of mediocre(/bad…) translations of the light novels online.

Tune in next time for. uh, whatever it is I end up reviewing first (Ikoku Nikki, Night Beyond the Tricornered Window, Yuri is My Job, or Onii-sama e...). Or maybe even the book reviews that I'm supposedly also writing while consuming as much anime and manga as my computer can handle. omfg.