Anime Review: Strawberry Panic

Strawberry Panic first started out as a simple series of Japanese fictional illustrated short stories, or you might call them "light novels" written by Sakurako Kimino. They were first published in December the 30th 2003 and ended July the 30th 2005 with 18 magazines in total. Then the same author decided to try and adapt it into a manga on September the 30th 2005, however it was discontinued after only 2 volumes. It's popularity didn't really take off until it was adapted into a 26 episode long TV Anime Series. The animation studio that adapted it was "Madhouse" and it ran from April the 3rd 2006 and ended September the 25th 2006.

Aoi Nagisa transfers to a new Catholic girls only school and discovers a community of fellow students entwined in an intricate heirarchy, at the top of which sits the all important Etoile. In order to fit in, Nagisa must go to class, join clubs, and make new friends. Meanwhile, Shizuna Hanazono, the Etoile of the school, finds herself drawn to this new, exciting transfer student. As Shizuna and Nagisa get to know eachother, Shizuna finally decides it is time to face her troubled past. Nagisa Aoi is a first year high school student who has been sent to the Astraea Dormitory after her parents are transferred abroad. The dormitory houses girls from three different girls' schools: St. Spica's Academy, St. Le Rim Girls School and St. Miatre Girls Academy. There she meets the representative of the three girls' schools, Shizuma Hanazano, also know as the Etoile.

Okey so the story follows a young girl named Nagisa Aoi who has just become a new student at this catholic school. On her first day there she meets Shizuma Hanazano, who is pretty much the big dog at the school, or cat. What happens from then on is simply a whole mesh of wierd "Hot Forbiddon Lesbian Romance Scenes" more on that later. Now I didn't fully understood the romance in this anime seeing as how all the characters were potential lesbians at the drop of a hat. However this romance story is all about unrequited love, oh my god is it ONLY about unrequited love. Anyway funny thing about this anime is there must of been some mad pandemic that killed off every male on the planet because theres not one male presence in all 26 episodes of the anime. Which is good because a guy in a school full of lesbians would be torn to shreds.

Nagisa Aoi: She is your main character, and she has red hair. She has a very peppy and uplifting personality that always likes to smile, and never lets anything rain upon her parade. She attends this all girls school hoping to fit in and make friends. However what she didn't know is that the Etoile Shizuma Hanazono has her eyes set on her, and will do anything to get her in bed, essentially. Whenever she meets Shizuma and makes eye contact she becomes paralyzed, her legs give way, a whole torrent of emotions arrupt from the very recesses of her soul screaming out, my only one destiny in life is to become Shizuma's cute little play thing and devote the rest of my life buried in her adoring and warm bust.

Tamao Suzumi: Tamao is Nagisa's room mate and essentially she was her first friend she made at the school. Oh oh! two girls sharing a room who will become potential hardcore lesbians in the future? Only one thing can come from this, they will be playing an epic game of twister, without the mat, and without any clothes. But in all seriousness yes Tamao has a crush on her, but shes the type of girl that never makes any advances and prefers to just let "time do it's thing" essentially which is kind of stupid because this is an all girls lesbian school and everybody is hooking up with everybody so you better get in there quick before somebody else does, which is pretty much what Shizuma did the first thing she saw her.

Shizuma Hanazono: Shizuma is the "Etoile" and if you were wondering what position that is within the school, well think of it as just higher then the student body president, which must suck for them. She is tall, beautifull and has alot of hair that just screams "hell yeah b****" She is mysterious, well mannered and has an visage created by her many secrets. To all the girls in the school she is the perfect lady and the girl everybody hopes to aspires too, and have sex with. Thats why when she first sees Nagisa Aoi she pretty much goes up to her and tries to kiss her, while in an entire room full of girls. The combined sexual lesbian tension in the room could kill of all men in a 10 mile radius. She goes and does this, many times, which might be the reason we see no males in this anime.

The art quality ussually looks nothing special, and well looks quite bland you can say, theres barely any animation shown at night, or any fast movement so the quality of the animation is kept really simple. But some scenes good gosh look so terribly, mainly speaking at when characters look very disorted and looked like they were drawn by 3 year olds, but this was ussually when the characters were in complicated positions lieing down, while moaning. Yes this can sometime kill off the the whole "Hot Forbiddon Lesbian Romance" mood and all but it really fails to make a mood at all anyway. Also besides the quality of the animation there are some scenes when the japanese voice actors speak english for the scene, or what the westerners like to call "engrish", and long story short, its god awful.

If you haven't noticed already when reading this review, I have mentioned that there are scenes of hot forbiddon lesbian romance, well the truth is, there is as little as you might think there would be. No, you see if your thinking "theres 26 episodes, there must be 26 lesbian romance scenes" you would be wrong, there might be a handfull maybe 5. Now some of these scenes are genuinely romantic, like in a bed, or down right comical like in a bathtub and on the grass. Regardless if your watching this anime for the hot forbiddon lesbian romance scnes then I am afraid to say you won't find many. However the ones you will see will be so worth it as only girls know where other girls feel really good. Namely the breasts, damn there will be alot of breast groping when you watch this anime, and not the comical kind, the "im deadly serious, im gonna rape you kind".

I can barely recall much of what I last saw of this anime, it was many years ago in my first selection of animes I watched. At that time I was exploring a whole range of different anime genre's to see which would be my favourite, and so I decided to pick Strawberry Panic as my "Yuri" genre. And damn is there some serious romance portrayed in this story, or atleast tries to be. However I can honestly say I remember very little of it, however it was still an okey anime, though some people really love this anime because of the romance. As I said don't watch this anime only for the Yuri scenes, because with the whole 26 episodes theres not much, thats what you might come for, but you stay for the sweet romance among school girls.