Maria-sama ga Miteru is a Japanese light novel written by Oyuki Konno and illustrated by Reine Hibiki, and is considered representative of yuri novels. The first light novel was published by Shueisha on April 24, 1998, and as of December 2010 the series has grown to 38 volumes. It has produced manga and drama CD adaptations too and between January 2004 and March 2009 the series was adapted into a four-season anime produced by Studio Deen.
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Yumi Fukuzawa is a first year student at the Lillian School for Girls, an exclusive all-girls Catholic school in Tokyo, Japan. The school has a tradition that older girls take a younger girl as their little sister or "soeur" in order to instruct and look out for them. Though Yumi admires Sachiko Ogasawara, a reserved second year student who is a member of the student council, she has no hopes of being chosen as her soeur. When an innocent encounter leads Sachiko to impulsively ask Yumi to be her soeur, Yumi is suddenly brought into the inner circle of the Roses, who are the members of the student council. With Sachiko at her side, Yumi begins to unravel and understand the relationships between the Roses and their soeurs and figure out her own feelings for Sachiko.