Story (7) / Characters (7)
“I swear I will make you love me” is how to approach this manga. Will the characters succeed? The answer is not given until the final chapter. You will spend the entire 42 chapters watching characters trying to reach this goal. Under the circumstances, the pacing was really good. The relationship is not immediate, especially since Ren has a model girlfriend named Mayuka. Then comes a love triangle that later expands to a love square. Emotions were expressed well as one struggled with unrequited love, rejections, and jealousy. The love triangle is solved in the last two chapters, but the other part is left hanging. One disappointment of the manga is the inability to show any hope for a character’s desire to escape unrequited love.
The manga was right on point about a girl’s experience with her first crush. Ninako is more like a lovesick puppy, stalking Ren in earlier chapters. Her monologues are all thoughts of Ren and her contemplation of the meaning of love. Ninako was incredibly immature in the beginning, but she became wiser by the 5th volume. Discussions with experienced characters opened her eyes to her feelings for Ren. Her monologues in the last three volumes were more mature, considering the events that occur.
The high school girls were annoying, always trying to get Ren’s attention by either screaming his name or “accidentally” bumping into him in the hallway. Ren was a laidback heartthrob, who just treated it as a normal thing after growing used to it. All of the girls in the class, except for maybe two or three, are after Ren, but Ninako believes she has a pure chance to make him love her. I found unrealism within Ninako’s large group of friends consisting of 5-6 girls. All of them, except one, fascinated Ren before Ninako. When Ninako revealed her feelings for Ren, they suddenly backed away and cheered for Ninako’s success without any sense of jealousy whatsoever.
The manga got better when it focused on other couples, giving you different individuals to root for. One-shots revealed some characters’ past experiences with love, and each story gives wise lessons that impacted the characters. It reveals the reasons for their current relationships with certain characters. Those characters tended to be more mature than the others, and each one had their own personality.
Art (7)
The art was cute and expressed characters’ emotions excellently. You can laugh at their reactions or feel the characters’ pain. Background design was mostly outlined, but the settings were still unique. The downside comes from the character design. Sometimes characters lacked detail with blank faces. Nearly all of the characters look alike, and I spent the entire manga confusing Ninako with two or three other girls. The worst part is that Mayuka and Ninako look exactly the same, except Mayuka had tons of makeup. The main difference between some characters is the hair length. The only character that stuck out was Ren, and Mangaka Sakisaka Io did a good job of making him appear attractive. Uniqueness towards Ren was needed, since he is every girl’s dream guy.
Enjoyment (5) / Overall (7)
In my opinion, Strobe Edge was a sheer disappointment and a waste of time. It totally contrasts with Sakisaka’s other popular work, Ao Haru Ride. I planned to drop it after five chapters because of the naïve characters, but I continued reading to expect excitement in later chapters. Eventually, I got bored and couldn’t wait until I completed it. I wanted a love story of the MCs sooner than just in the final chapter. The characters were unbearably naïve, and it took forever for the manga to pick up.
This Shoujo may not be intriguing for some, so I highly recommend reading both negative and positive reviews. Sakisaka delivered her message well and depicted high school life on a realistic level. However, it can tend to be unenjoyable, depending on what type of manga you’re looking for.
