Strawberry Panic!

Information of Anime

Aoi Nagisa transferred into the Astraea Dormitory during the middle of the semester.  It houses three all girl schools: St. Spica's Academy, St. Le Rim Girl's School, & St. Miatre Girls Academy (the one Nagisa is attending).  During her first time at the school grounds, she runs into Hanazano Shizuma, the Etoile for all three schools that is beloved by many, when she got lost along the way.  Because of Nagisa's cuteness, Shizuma is drawn to her instantly.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The show focuses on the three schools & the daily activities around it.  Also, there seems to be a rival between the schools, mainly between St. Spica & St. Miatre.  However from the looks of it, it's about the relationship between Nagisa & Shizuma.  Because of Nagisa's presence, Shizuma seems to be more happier than she was before.

During the summer school period, Shizuma makes her move on Nagisa & seems to want to keep Nagisa for herself.  Here, Nagisa looks like is starting to be afraid of Shizuma & we get a glimpse of Shizuma's past bit by bit.  After the halfway point, there is a small fight between St. Spica & St. Miatre in terms of getting the position for the next Etoile using the school's upcoming play as the stage.  The battle is between Shizuma & Amane Ootari of St. Spica.  As the day of the election appears, Nagisa learns that there should be two Etoiles.  Because there is only one Etoile that Nagisa seen, she starts to investigate.

Nagisa learns the other Etoile died in an accident & her name was Kaori Sakuragi.  Kaori was Shizuma's previous lover & it seems that Shizuma can't let go of her.  Seeing Shizuma in pain as she told Nagisa about this, Nagisa can't go on with Shizuma as it's too painful for her.  As this goes on, only two schools have selected their candidates for the next Etoile, Spica & Miatre.  Miatre selects Nagisa & Tamao Suzumi & Spica selects Amane & Hikari Konohana.  A lot of things happen here as Shizuma forces herself to train Nagisa & Tamao while Amane gets a temporary amnesia & forgets about the Etoile & her love for Hikari.  As all of this gets resolved, Shizuma finally confesses her love to Nagisa on the day of the election.  As a result, Spica wins.  This is how the show ends as Nagisa & Shizuma finally fall in love & Amane & Hikari being the next Etoile with Shizuma teaching them their duties.

My Personal Review

Strawberry Panic! is one of those anime shows that was drawing a lot of attention before it aired.  I originally knew it was yuri-themed, which I don't like much.  I only started watching it when there wasn't any other anime shows to watch.  Personally, I'm not too sure what the hype about this series is.

Animation

The drawings are pretty plain to me personally.  A lot of the characters are drawn the same way in terms of the facial features.  Large eyes with long faces.  However, Shizuma is drawn a bit differently in terms of smaller eyes.  The girls are cute, but not extremely cute.  Quite plain & natural to me.  However, the body proportions aren't well balance.  The legs are pretty thin & the heads look a bit to big for their thin bodies.   Also, the arms are thin too.  If Strawberry Panic! is about beautiful drawings, then this isn't what I should expect.

The colours are very dull, but more on the flat side.  This is actually a good thing since there are a few scenes that involve outdoor nature & plants.  For some reason, they do look a little grainy.  You can sort of see it from the toning.  The colours don't clash with the background & characters which is good since the colours are dull.

The backgrounds are a bit dull, but not too bad.  It does give life a bit in the sceneries, which is important since the 3 schools are in the middle of the forest almost.

The animation movement is not bad as it's pretty smooth & flowing.  We see the rare occasions we have fast movements that usually happens when a character panics.

As an added bonus, the ending credits shows a mini music video of the seiyuus, Mai Nakahara & Ai Shimizu, performing the ending theme songs in a yuri-theme.

Sound       

The sound effects are on the realistic side.  You don't have any or very few silly sounds since the series is pretty much drama based.  However, there are some fuzzes when the volume got too loud.

The seiyuus are ok, but I didn't like them much.  A majority of them are high-pitched & a lot of nagging sounds are used.  Plus, we have girls screaming in the background when some female idol passes their way.  Although the voices fit their character personalities well, it was a bit hard for me to bare.

The music is mainly on the orchestra & classical music side, except for the opening & ending themes.  It's quite smooth & calming.  It really sets the mood well most of the times.  When it came to those tense situations, it sounded more silly than serious.

Story

It's mainly about the relationship between Nagisa & Shizuma.  Although the show sidetracks a bit & focuses on the other two schools to have more understanding about the activities & other characters' love relationships there, the main plot is Nagisa & Shizuma.  The show moves at a slow pace in terms of the relationship building, but there's more than that.  In the show, there are talks about electing the next Etoile & the position isn't all that great as it seems.  Despite being popular & well liked with a lot of the girls, it seems it's not a happy position as most of Shizuma's smiles & friendly jesters seem fake to many.  When we learn the reason behind this, we understand why she runs away from most of her duties & why she was crying alone in her greenhouse.  As the show progresses, we start to see Nagisa creating distance from Shizuma & learn a bit about Shizuma's past slowly.  It's only until things patch up nicely at the end.

Although the story is a bit painful & dark than I thought when I see how Shizuma has closed herself for a long time, it's pretty touching at times.  But yet, it feels that she should have moved on a long time ago.  It's pretty annoying to see someone like that who's not willing to give up for almost a year now.  It does drag the pace of the show a bit & it got me thinking a lot about where the show is leading to.  It drags the show just right, but it really feels slow with the extra stories on the side; even though they will be related to the next Etoile election later on.

The ending is pretty good as it tied up a lot of the plot; main & sides.  It was nicely done & didn't leave any holes.  But I felt kind of glad it was over as the show felt like a chore to watch with it's dragging pace.

Overall Conclusion

I honestly am not sure why Strawberry Panic! is very popular.  It may be something in the manga that I didn't seeing in the anime.  There are a lot of situations where Shizuma deeply draws Nagisa into submission with her eyes.  It's probably this reason why it makes this yuri series so hot.  However, this show isn't for everyone since it's heavily yuri-themed & moves at a slow pace as it focuses on an all-girl' school student's life. 

Strawberry Panic! receives a grade of 7.5/10.  I think I'm being quite generous here since the story is pretty much on the realistic side.  However, it's a bit hard to follow with the slow pace.  It doesn't focus too much on Nagisa & Shizuma's relationship or the problems with the Etoile position only as it has some other sides stories as well to keep it interesting.  The ending of the show is well done as it left very little holes.  I'm not a fan of the show, but I was pretty much watching since there wasn't too many anime shows that I want to watch at the time.  Plus, I pretty much went with the bandwagon hype to see what's so great about the series.

Last updated on January 16, 2008