Strawberry Panic Series Review

This show was retarded. I loved it.

I dunno how or even if I should summarize this – everyone who woulda wanted to see it already has, basically.

Strawberry Panic chiefly tells the tale of Nagisa Aoi, the new transfer student at St. Miator Academy, one of three all-girls’ schools at Astrea Hill. Upon entrance to the school, she catches the eye of Shizuma Hanazono, the resident pimp, who also is the Etoile, the head of the three schools, along with the eye of her roommate, Tamao Suzumi. Nagisa is another one of those hapless anime heroines, who is utterly boggled by the attention she’s getting from Shizuma (Tamao sticks to the age-old sexual harassment schemes that roommates tend to). Unfortunately, Shizuma has a secret and a tragic past…

Along with this, we get the story of Hikari Konohana, a girl who is fairly new to St. Spica Institute. She watches the quiet Amane Ohtori from afar, who is the athletic god of Spica, and the story follows them as they grow close. Hikari also has a roommate who wants her, Yaya Nanto, whose sexual harassment tactics get toned down a lot in the anime. Too bad the resident evil lesbian duo, Momomi and Kaname, want to keep Amane and Hikari apart for reasons of their own. But we love these guys ’cause they’re the biggest fanservice providers.

Chikaru and her merry little harem run around on the side over at St. le Rim School. They don’t angst out like anyone else does, but thats ok ’cause Chikaru is the best character in the whole series. And all these girls do is cosplay.

If you’re wondering where the guys are, they don’t exist. We get one shadowy outline of a guy when they’re talking about some girl’s horrible fate of marriage immediately after she graduates, but thats it.

Strawberry Panic is bad. Really, it isn’t just bad, its awful. But I don’t care, and neither do most people who watch it, because its like those shitty sci-fi movies you watch on TV that are so horrible you merrily watch the whole thing. Or Footballers’ Wives.

I’ve watched this thing twice, and ate it up both times. Even though the whole thing is crappy, they hit the important points for what makes a good yuri show:

1. Umbrellas
2. Hydrangeas
3. Catholic girls school setting
4. cute uniforms

This is why Blue Drop failed – it only had hydrangeas.

The uniforms are the highlight of the show – with three different schools, we get six basic uniforms (each school has one for summer and one for winter), and some variations on each like whether they wear a sweater or a blazer or both. And what their socks are. And their shoes. Its total win for us.

The characters are also varied enough to be good. Nagisa is annoying, and Hikari cried too much, but I liked the cast basically. Except for Chiyo, I wish she didn’t exist, she took Nagisa’s annoying factor, added a high-pitched voice from hell and upped it by about 23. Kaname and Momomi shoulda had a bigger role, though, ’cause their evil lesbian routine included some pretty hot scenes.

Stuff I’d change: Shizuma shoulda just made a mass harem and left Nagisa to get together with Tamao, but overall its ok, we got our sex scenes. Ok, implied sex scenes. Oh, and Hikari and Amane just shoulda invited Yaya to a threesome. This whole thing basically read as fanfiction anyway, so my suggestions aren’t outrageous.

Animation is fairly solid, with a good range of bright colors. The music is ok, I didn’t really notice it, except for the 1st ending, and that was ’cause of the Mai Nakahara and Ai Shimuzu softcore action… ok, maybe not softcore, but it did feel pretty illicit.

It has girls kissing and implied yuri sex – how could you go wrong with that? Just don’t take it seriously, ’cause, really, this is just someone long, wet dream. I’m still hoping for a second season.