Strawberry Panic

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Okay, let's be honest right up front. You aren't reading this for the story. You aren't reading this for the deep characterization. You're reading this for the myriad of schoolgirls in a world seemingly devoid of a Y chromosome who fawn over one another like dogs in heat. That said, for the bite-sized morsel of a manga Strawberry Panic! is, few yuri manga come as decadent as this one.

However, decadence leads to overkill, and when you have not one, but two plain transfer students sought after by the goddesses of their respective schools, you know you're straddling the line between overkill and parody. In fact, ... as a parody, the manga actually works quite well. The dialogue is hamfisted and saccharine, and the plot devices are exaggerated and operatic. It's just too unbelievable to take seriously even from the very start. But as I said, there is a fine line between overkill and parody, and given the intended audience of Strawberry Panic!, I'm obliged to lean towards overkill.

This is only seared into the reader's mind further by the artwork, full of doe-eyed girls and delicate but elaborate designs. As it's intended to be, it's very very pretty but given the content, it's adding sugar on top of more sugar.

The manga does add some much needed spice in the characters themselves. Only innocent leads Nagisa and Hikari are sweet as pie, and pretty much every other girl who isn't them is trying to get into another girl's panties. There are secret rendezvouses, locker room changings, and yes, even open-air bathing. None of these events whenever they should happen in the course of the manga ever stays innocent for long and before you know it, one girl is blushing furiously or drooling at the thought of what she could do with the situation. There is some mild character introspection, but it's only done in the context of how it affects the relationship, not the character herself.

So what it comes down to, plain and simple, is this is a yuri manga for people who only care about the yuri. People who don't want to have to fool around with a plot, turn off their brain, and watch schoolgirls fall hopelessly into one another's arms. Fortunately, it ended prematurely thus sparing any and all readers from having to deal with this yuri overkill for too long. What it all boils down to is that your own personal enjoyment will greatly be decided by whether you're the kind of person who enjoys drowning in a sea of girls constantly blushing at the sight of other girls or not.

Overall, I give Strawberry Panic! a 6 out of 10.

Strawberry Panic is, in a strange sort of way, like Naruto. It's the most popular in it's genre, and even if you've never read either of them, you know they exist and their basic concept. However, the important thing I'm getting to here is that they are both overrated and suck. As this is just a review for Strawberry Panic, it is now time to drop the topic of Naruto and move on.

Story: 5. Simple story that is executed poorly.
The story of Strawberry Panic is fairly simple and nothing special; a transfer student moves into an all-girls highschool full of- you guessed it- lesbians. ... There, they compete with the other all-girls highschools in the area for some sort of competition for the best couple, or as they call it in the manga, "etoile." I don't mind that it's a simple story; that's not how I critic things. Simple stories can still be very enjoyable when executed properly, after all. However, this is where Strawberry Panic does it's very worst. (Or maybe second worst. More on that later.) The plot jumps all over the place, and the pacing is horrible. Honestly, a story like this deserves a couple of more chapters. There is no preparation for the etoile competition as far as I can tell, and the competition itself appears much earlier then I feel it should. There is absolutely no suspense, thus making the story seem very boring and rushed. I've never seen the anime, but I'm thinking it's probably better paced then the manga as it has much more time to go through everything. Furthermore, the competition itself is actually very boring and almost, well, stupid. Apparently, the mangaka felt the competition shouldn't actually be the main point of the story (despite the whole manga revolving around it), using the competition instead to add some drama between the participating couples, as well as several "KYAAA"-able scenes. Not a very good decision imo.

Art: 7. Decent, but nothing special.
However, if you are just the average, shallow manga reader looking for cute girls doing cute, lesbian things, you are in luck. The art is considerably fair for this sort of manga (I'm assuming yuri art is as bad as yaoi's; one look at those triangular faces saying "I love you, ****-chan" is enough to make anybody cry.) Just remember: I said the art is fair, not the most gorgeous, delicious, beautiful, trunkylicoiaowufsxdmjgh thing I've ever seen. In other words, the art is acceptable, but there are flaws. Most of those flaws can be overlooked, though, so the art still gets a 7/10.

Character: 5. Static, boring, and cliche characters.
As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no character development. None. The characters are all static. This would've been okay if the characters had at least been interesting, but they're not. Just your typical, cliche, stereotypical characters. You can predict everything they do and say; even what they think. On top of that, almost everything they do seems corny and over the top in some way.

Enjoyment: 8.
Why? Just because. Enjoyment of a series has nothing to do with how good it is in the viewers eyes; for example, I believe Fairy Tail to be a extremely repetitive series with all the usual stereotypical shonen elements that is extremely flawed. However, I /still/ love it. Strawberry Panic satisfies my hunger for yuri, so it /did/ complete it's main goal: provide the world with a bunch of lesbians, varying from cute to cool to handsome to nearly yandere-like princesses to lolis to perverts to megane-girls. You could say Strawberry Panic is my guilty pleasure that I like to read in the corner of my room where nobody can see me.

Overall: 6. Nothing special. Not horribly bad, but no where near good.
The story is in the dumps, the art is average, the characters is in the dumps as well, but the story is still enjoyable. Considering it is fairly short, it has a slightly higher reread value then some other series. Whether or not you'd ever want to reread it, though, is a completely different topic. I would not recommend this book to picky readers that want everything to be perfect (or as close as it can get) as this book is chock full of flaws. If you are just a bored otaku looking for something to pass time, though, then this would be a decent fit. (I am taking the liberty of assuming you like or at least don't hate yuri; if you did, you probably wouldn't waste time reading this review.)


Thank you for reading this review. Please provide any sort of feedback so I can better my writing. :D

I did not enjoy this series. Read another review if you would like to gush about this series with someone else.

I did not read the light novels and I'm not planning to. I was hopeful in the first volume but the way the relationship developed made me uncomfortable, even though it started out okay. But I'll get to that later.

The art is pretty for a series like this. I like the designs as they are extremely memorable, and I liked the background art as well. However that is probably the only praise I can give to this series. The story makes no logical sense and ... is incoherent at times, and the relationship that develops between two of the main girls makes me uncomfortable. It isn't the girls love that bothered me (considering that's what this series is based around). It's set in an all girls school with relationship competitions that they take quite seriously, but that deserves its own spot on this review. The two main characters eventually develop an older sister- younger sister type of thing, where the "younger sister" has to obey and look up to the "older sister" and the "older sister" will get angry if the younger one doesn't comply. I know some people are fond of this, which is fine, but I find it a bit toxic and it ruined the entire experience for me. If you want an abundant amount of girl/girl relationships with odd dynamics, try it out. I heard it's a classic of sorts for the genre.

It doesn’t take much digging into Yuri fan spaces to hear what an absolute disappointment “Strawberry Panic” is to fans of the genre. I really wanted to be a contrarian, able to write a review in defense of this manga. I really, truly did. There were so many signs of this media having been presented to the wrong audience, with this story being fundamentally misunderstood as the wrong genre, its strengths brushed under the rug in favor of its failures. Unfortunately, I failed in this endeavor and have succumbed to the same disappointment of generations’ past. “Strawberry Panic” presents itself as a Shonen battle ... epic with elements of fan-service which parodies the Yuri genre, and truth be told this concept is set up in an exciting way. “Strawberry Panic” never sets out to be a realistic portrayal of the inner lives of same gender attracted girls and the gender non-conforming, it’s trashy and offensive from the get-go, but I was more than willing to go along should this manga commit to treachery, competition, and power plays among an all female cast. It doesn’t. To be frank, it was my fault for assuming “Strawberry Panic” would have the space to tell the story it implies it will tell; as you have already seen, it’s only two volumes, and where it leaves off feels unfinished and rushed if you do truly see it as the intended end of the series. I’m not sure if the ending of the second volume is where the series intended to end, and that’s not a good sign. “Strawberry Panic” feels unfinished, and if you choose to it see it as finished it’s transformation of Shizuma from a conniving manipulative character into a genuine loving one in so little time as well as a total genre shift from Shonen battle series to syrupy Romance is jarring. While I’d like to believe there was a grander vision in mind for “Strawberry Panic” I don’t have any indication this is true. By trying to be multiple things at once “Strawberry Panic” is somehow nothing. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.