I was gonna write one of these every couple of months as an easy way to keep the blog going in between higher effort posts. It's been 7 months since the first one. Whoops!
Ikebukuro West Gate Park (2000)
Strawberry Panic (2006)
It's December and my seasonal depression is in full swing, baby!!! If there's ever been a time to binge a mid-2000s tragic romance anime, it's now! Well, Strawberry Panic isn't really a tragedy, but being produced in 2006 means that it's absolutely dripping with darkness and angst for no real reason apart from that being the style at the time. Adapted from a 2003 light novel series, Strawberry Panic follows Nagisa Aoi tranferring into the Strawberry House, a triangular dorm situated in between three vaguely Catholic all-girls schools. The dorm is a triangle because there are three schools, probably. While adapting to this new life, Nagisa is swept off her feet by her mysterious, brooding, silver-haired senpai Shizuma Hanazono. Does drama ensue? You better fucking believe it, bitch!!!
At first glance, it's easy to dismiss Strawberry Panic as one of the many Maria-sama ga Miteru derivatives that came out of the early 2000s. In fact, even I did so for the good 10 years between my first attempt at watching the series and now. I wasn't particularly hooked the first time around and dropped it about halfway through, and I've grown wary of the mainstream yuri output of that period since. Indeed, Strawberry Panic heavily borrows from concepts introduced in that series, but it's got something Maria-sama doesn't: swag (It's 2006, so I'm allowed to say that). Do girls have sex in Maria-sama ga Miteru? That is a genuine question. I don't think they do? Well, what matters is they are fucking in Strawberry Panic. And even more importantly, the show never attempts to paint the lesbian relationships as pure and innocent idlings between girls who are Really Good Friends. In fact, Shizuma, the primary love interest, is explicitly depicted as unchaste. My word! It's certainly no Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels, but Strawberry Panic is surprisingly forward for a series produced in the early days of yuri.
Strawberry Panic came at the tail end of the anime bubble, meaning we got a ripe (heh) 26 episodes out of the three novel series. That's right, a three volume light novel got 26 episodes. This is fucking absurd by modern standards (Watanare covered its first three volumes in just 12 episodes). This generous padding allows for a meandering pace, letting the first half focus more on developing the characters of Strawberry Hall instead of rushing into the plot. These slice of life format episodes can be a bit hit or miss, skating the line of what may be considered boring by many. I find the show has enough charm to carry itself during this period and does a nice job slowly establishing aspects of the school that are important later on.
Now, I don't mean to paint Strawberry Panic as a masterpiece. It's incredibly stupid most of the time. The traditions surrounding the school are completely nonsensical, cartoon villains pop up only to become reformed after a single conversation, and seemingly the only driving force behind the romance is "Girl... Tall AND Mysterious...?" That's enough for me, as I am deeply vulnerable to the concept of a girl who is tall and mysterious, but that will probably fall flat for many.