Ichigo Mashimaro

Ichigo Mashmiaro is another slice of life anime set around the life of four Elementary School friends and a sister. Theres no ecchi but there are LOADS of fanservice in this show. You can tell just by watching the first episode. Its even more frequent in the ova's. Also, the power word for this show is CUTE. I cant emphasize this enough... CUTE is allover.

For some reason the chemistry between all of them really make for a unique experience. Their character traits sound so standard for a slice of life comedy but the way its executed is far better than most anime of its ... kind. Every minute you'll be going "aww" or even "omfg how CUTE!" Thats mainly in part by the way the girls react to each other and feed off each others actions/reactions.

The voice acting is top notch for what its worth... all the girls all have their cute tendancies intact and their voices are just to gaddamn cute *_* Their singing the credits is even good too. Speaking of singing, theres no music whatsoever during the show. Just the seiyu and the enviromental sound effects, with a fair dose of typical comedy sounds. I think absence of the music is just a plan to emphasise how cute the girls are in their "tranquil" and "innocent" enviroments. it does work very well to set off that cute aura that surrounds the entire show.

When i said the power word for this show was "CUTE" the art and animation shows that in spades. First of all you'll notice the color scheme consists of only pastel spring colors. Even the dark colors like black and brown have that pastel touch to it. Theres so much color that some might even be drowned in the pastel. The enviroment art is half part of how they show how great their cute theme is executed. Every thing from the Chika's simple bedroom layout with the pink bed sheets and sunflower yellow wall, to the dirty laundry stacked in the laundry basket filled so high sleeves are pouring out the side, down to the different individual lunches ALL the kids in the classroom are eating with their little milk jugs. They even seem to enjoy their art so much that there is quite a few still life shots when they're showing time is passing. This just shows how much time and effort they put into setting the mood and enviroment for their viewers.

The character artwork are in a whole nother level than any other anime you've seen. Not only do they draw individual background characters with sheer detail and cuteness, but they somehow manage to give the main characters dozens of different costumes to wear. Theres so many, i wouldnt be surprised if there were over 100 costume designs for the girls. The character themsselves are detailed as any high value anime should be. You can also tell this anime has its own art style from the begining. And it works very well showcasing the cuteness of the girls.

Everything about this show seems to mold together extremely well. When it seems like theres a school comedy, or 2, or 5 every season, Ichigo Mashimaro surely sticks itself out far above the rest. Its a school anime that if you like it, you'll definitely remember it long after your finished. But if youre not into all that cute loli stuff then by all means, avoid this like the plague. But this is by far one of the best loli anime i've ever seen. Too bad im not really into the cute loli anime.

"her distinguishing trait is that she doesn't have any real distinguishing traits"
That's how i would describe this anime.
I came into it hoping for a decent slice of life anime. I wasn't expecting gold, but i hoped this would at least make me smile... or chuckle... or something, but it didn't. Most of the characters are decent. They're all pretty generic and forgettable but they're still pleasant. The key word here is most. The problem i had with this anime is Miu, the most annoying character i've seen in an anime. There are characters similar to her in other great animes, Azumanga comes to mind ... here, but Miu takes it to a whole new level. She's a selfish, attention seeking brat that made me want to punch her most of the time. I actually found myself asking why she is even friends with the other characters throughout the entire show. She doesn't actually do anything other than be annoying.

This wouldn't necessarily kill the show alone, but all the jokes are build around her. The show is pretty much about her, so all the jokes are about her as well. I just couldn't find anything funny when i hate this character so much. Like other characters like Miu, she often ends up face down on the ground when her antics get out of hand, but it doesn't show her getting hit or anything. It's not satisfying, and she doesn't seem affected by it, so it might as well not have happened.

Since all the "jokes" revolve around Miu, and the other characters are really bland, this show is almost completely empty of anything funny. There are parts without Miu that are enjoyable, but not funny. This show only made me laugh out loud once, and that was the first few minutes of Ana entering the show. That one part if what is keeping me from giving this a 5, or 4, or even something lower.

At least the plot, artwork, and sound was okay, but nothing to write home about, again, no distinctive features. Apparently, some people actually like Miu, so you might like her as well, but i would strongly suggest staying away.

Welcome everybody to the house of fun and also welcome to my review of Strawberry Marshmallow,which as the title suggests is so cute it can cause rotten teeth and obesity.

So what is this anime all about then?

The answer to that would be.....Nothing..It's another SOL-Moe anime garnished with the comedic bodily fluids of the chef.Which i'm sure many of you like very very much indeed.

And since i don't have to bother with the story part i can go on and talk characters..The cast for better or worse isn't a vast one,you only have to do with 5 characters.These characters would be Nobue(the older sister),Chika(the younger sister) ... and then Chika's friends Miu,Matsuri and Ana.

Now i thought-as many of you will too i'm sure-that with such small cast the anime would be epic..I'm sad to report that this isn't the case.This anime for starters tries to be something other than itself,it tries hard to be like Azumanga Daioh.And Azumanga was a total waste of time if you ask me.Sure it paved the way for other anime of this type but i'm not sure this is a good thing in the first place.And although this has-in a way-its own character it ends up as a mere shadow of Azu.

The problem lies first and foremost within the characters themselves.The only character that was doing the heavy lifting was Miu.She was,and i'm not exaggerating one bit,the driving force behind almost everything in this anime..Whatever comedic elements were prevelant in SM were a product of Miu's actions..All the rest of the cast had to do was follow the lead,and it's not like they did such a good job anyway cause the end result was a tad boring.

Don't get me wrong,this show was funny 70% of the time or less..But by pushing almost all the effort towards one character and then Nobue to a lesser extent,things go down faster than a burning aeroplane.The jokes themselves were a mixed bag and the only thing that kept them from dying altogether was very clever use of timing and brilliant voice acting on the part of Orikasa Fumiko.Honestly i think her delivery played a major role and since Miu was the center of attraction in this anime voice was bound to be an important part.

Matsuri is little more your standard cute,shy little kitten always doing her own thing..Being invisible that is..Then there was Ana who is a foreigner(never been done before)who for some reason wanted to make her life hard just for the fuck of it,which wasn't funny in the least,instead it was sad to watch.Chika was,i think,the only one that could barely keep up with Miu,aside from her sister.

But as i said take out Nobue's and Chika's little bright moments they couldn't hold a candle to Miu..And that was the demise of SM cause after a while the comedy hit rock bottom and by the time you've reached the final third even the bad jokes were a nice distant memory.They did try to replace the comedy with some FEELS MAN THE FEELS but to no avail.This dead horse was more beaten than Rihanna when she was with Chris Brown.

One other problem i spotted was pacing.This anime felt longer than it actually was.Seriously there were times where nothing was happening.Whole scenes where everyone was sitting around a table doing and saying absolutely nothing.

And another one was that despite its random humour it was more than obvious that it was trying too hard.You could guess with a 100% accuracy what was coming next and that isn't good at all.It came close to ruining the whole thing.

Which all brings me on to this..Being cute doesn't mean jackshit.If you don't have anything else to offer other than moe then off you go to the long dead and forgotten anime cemetery.It was a fun anime make no mistake but in the end it couldn't stand on its' own 2 feet and its' value fell faster than Venezuela's economy.