Review: Strawberry Panic!

Strawberry Panic! was the anime that showed me the yuri genre. I didn’t even know such thing as yuri anime existed. Until today, Strawberry Panic! continues to be my favorite yuri anime, I find it to be the most emotional of them all. It is also one of the Modern Yuri Trinity, along with Maria-sama ga Miteru and Kannazuki no Miko, so it’s a must watch classic.

I’ll try to be as less biased as possible in this one, but I really can’t promise anything. I mean, the first yuri we can never forget, right? Anyway, if you think I’m being totally biased because I’m in love with it, you can just review it yourself here too, so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem

Summary

Aoi Nagisa transfers to a new Catholic all-girls 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, Shizuma Hanazono, the Etoile of the school, finds herself drawn to this new, exciting transfer student. As Shizuma and Nagisa get to know eachother, Shizuma finally decides it is time to face her troubled past.

Plot

The plot is slow and it ins’t so original, since it seems to be heavily inspired by another all-girls school yuri anime: Maria-Sama ga Miteru. But it grabs your attention because you just want to find out who will be with who and if it would have a happy or sad ending. The history is touching and that’s what seduced me. There are some secrets which are revealed later and I just love secrets! Strawberry Panic! has tragedy, romance and comedy. Each new episode leaves you with a strong feeling of happiness or sadness.

Characters

The characters are well developt through the 26 episodes. The history doesn’t follow just the main couple. Each one of them have  their moments and since the characters are extremely charismatic, if you find yourself cheering to one or more couple. Well, your fucked. Sure you will be happy when good things happen to them, but when the bad things hit them, it will hit you too, that’s how charismatic they are.

The relationship between Nagisa and Shizuma is the most complex and dramatic, but HikarixAmane is nice aswell. I think Shizuma is the most complex character in the anime, she is all melancholic and misterious and all that she is, is explained later on.

Animation

It’s visually beautiful. it’s not breath-taking, but it might please most of people. The scenary are gorgeous and colorful and the characters are just admirable with really expressive faces. The only thing I didn’t like in the character design were the arms and legs. They are sooo thin it’s wierd!

Sound

If you don’t like instrumental music, you prolly won’t like the soundtrack. As for me, It went the other way. I didn’t like the opening and ending songs but I loved the background music, all instrumental. They, just like the characters voices, portray perfectly the feelings in each scene and what is cool is that alot of couples have their own theme. Like Shizuma/Nagisa have “Kaori no Theme“. Each school has their own theme aswell!

Entertainment

As I said, you become anxious to find out what couples will come out of it by the end of the anime, and it has a good blend of drama, romance and comedy, each episode has a different feeling to it. When it ended, it left me longing for more. It’s one of those anime you don’t want to come to an end.

Yuriness

It has alot of couples, some implicit sex scenes, cute and romantic yuri moments. What can I say? Men aren’t shown or even mentioned in this anime, as if they didn’t even exist – and that’s kind of surreal -, I think this makes Strawberry Panic! the most yuri anime ever made?

Editor’s Review

Visitor’s Review

Filed Under: Yuri Anime Reviews

Tags: All-Girls School, Drama, Romance, Strawberry Panic!, Yuri Anime, Yuri Anime Review