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Strawberry Panic (Manga) #1/2 + extra chapters
Strawberry Panic Omnibus
For new transfer student Aoi Nagisa, St. Miator Girls’ Academy offers her the chance at a fresh start and a way to redefine herself. But these noble intentions go out the window when she catches her first glimpse of honor student Hanazono Shizuma, whose porcelain white skin and goddess-like beauty leave Nagisa speechless.
It’s puppy love at first sight, but naive Nagisa is unaware that Shizuma is a serial heartbreaker who has set her sights on Nagisa herself. Will Nagisa end up as another notch on Shizuma’s belt, or does fate have other plans in store for the new couple?
It’s puppy love at first sight, but naive Nagisa is unaware that Shizuma is a serial heartbreaker who has set her sights on Nagisa herself. Will Nagisa end up as another notch on Shizuma’s belt, or does fate have other plans in store for the new couple?
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2010
13 people are currently reading
435 people want to read
About the author
Sakurako Kimino
27 books22 followersSakurako Kimino (公野櫻子 Kimino Sakurako) is a Japanese novelist. She is notable for the creation of Sister Princess and Strawberry Panic!, two very successful bishōjo series where almost all the characters in both series are young girls. She has had her work serialized in the Japanese bishōjo magazine Dengeki G's Magazine, published by MediaWorks. She is also the creator of the light novel series Baby Princess, currently serializing in Dengeki G's Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
November 5, 2017
I was loving this until I got to the ending. This is the complete collection of the manga, which means there are no more chapters available. However, this ended in a cliffhanger where nothing got resolved. The Etolie competition didn't even end, or have a winner picked. The relationships didn't advance. It felt like reading the manga was a complete waste of time.
January 14, 2011
I picked this up to read in my local Borders & I have to admit that I was both impressed & disappointed. I was awfully tempted to purchase this on the artwork alone, but unfortunately there was one thing that stopped me from buying it:
The lack of an ending.
The artwork in this manga is gorgeous.It manages to be incredibly cute & beautiful at the same time, which is great because it captures the personalities of the very different characters very well. The basic story of the series is also great- you have different pairings going on & you can really feel the emotions between the various pairings in the book.
The only downfall is that the manga ends abruptly, leaving you wondering exactly what will happen. There's absolutely no ending- not even a clean one. The story inside of the manga jumps around a whole lot, which left me feeling sort of like I'd missed several pages of plot.
It wasn't until I came on here & read another review, then checked wikipedia, that this manga is based on a series of light novels. The manga was discontinued which explains the ending, but even so the manga just seems like it was just the "greatest hits" of the light novels due to the disjointed feel that came from the manga jumping around from scene to scene. (On a side note, I discovered that the same company also released the light novels, so I'll have to check those out.)
So is this manga worth buying? Yes & no. If I wasn't trying to limit my manga purchasing, I'd have bought it. The artwork alone is worth buying & re-reading for & the pairings in the manga really are very sweet. However, if you're looking for a manga with a clear beginning & end, you'll be heavily disappointed by this series.
The lack of an ending.
The artwork in this manga is gorgeous.It manages to be incredibly cute & beautiful at the same time, which is great because it captures the personalities of the very different characters very well. The basic story of the series is also great- you have different pairings going on & you can really feel the emotions between the various pairings in the book.
The only downfall is that the manga ends abruptly, leaving you wondering exactly what will happen. There's absolutely no ending- not even a clean one. The story inside of the manga jumps around a whole lot, which left me feeling sort of like I'd missed several pages of plot.
It wasn't until I came on here & read another review, then checked wikipedia, that this manga is based on a series of light novels. The manga was discontinued which explains the ending, but even so the manga just seems like it was just the "greatest hits" of the light novels due to the disjointed feel that came from the manga jumping around from scene to scene. (On a side note, I discovered that the same company also released the light novels, so I'll have to check those out.)
So is this manga worth buying? Yes & no. If I wasn't trying to limit my manga purchasing, I'd have bought it. The artwork alone is worth buying & re-reading for & the pairings in the manga really are very sweet. However, if you're looking for a manga with a clear beginning & end, you'll be heavily disappointed by this series.
August 11, 2018
This manga is not life-changing in any sense, but it's a fun bit of escapist fluff, especially if you really just want to see some cute girls falling in love with each other. As others have said, the predatory nature of some of the upperclasswomen did bother me a bit, though, and I wish there had been more development to some of the couples and explaining why they're so into each other (as in, it's easy to see why an awkward transfer student would be swept off her feet by the likes of Shizuma or Amane, but hard to understand why these older girls get so immediately obsessed by these cute transfer students that they're going to pledge undying love to them). But overall, I enjoyed it. Understanding it for what it is, and not expecting deep romance, makes it a lot better.
Ultimately, the fact that it lacks an ending makes it less enjoyable for me, and from what I've heard the final volume of the Strawberry Panic manga is probably never going to be written. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to look to the novels and the anime for that!
Ultimately, the fact that it lacks an ending makes it less enjoyable for me, and from what I've heard the final volume of the Strawberry Panic manga is probably never going to be written. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to look to the novels and the anime for that!
January 15, 2017
This was really cute! Since there were so many couples/characters it sometimes got confusing. I didn't know the characters very well because of how many there were. The index/term glossary was helpful but I didn't find it till the end though. I'll definitely read the last volume, I want to see who wins the competition!
I do recommend If you want to read this manga series just get the bind up one with all 3 volumes, because this one only has the first 2 volumes and I can't find the 3rd volume separately.
I do recommend If you want to read this manga series just get the bind up one with all 3 volumes, because this one only has the first 2 volumes and I can't find the 3rd volume separately.
February 1, 2015
This was a train wreck of weird power dynamics, improbable high school traditions, and most importantly, there's no ending! The author never finished the series, so it just ends at the beginning of the second etoile competition, and we never find out which school or couple wins the tournament.
August 13, 2019
To keep my mind off certain others putting my email through the scrutinies, I've been enjoying this shoujo manga which I learned about from the pretty Free Library of Philadelphia which I can't wait to visit in real life so I can get my physical card. (At the moment I just have an online account - my card # being 244041) Matilda my older cat loved sniffing the pages as well, though Cora scoffed. "Didn't you grow out of this kind of thing when you graduated from high school twenty or more years ago?" she rebukes me. "That might have been seventeen years before I was born!" What antipathy.
"Cocchan, give our owner a break, she has been having migraines lately and needs to relax with something harmless."
The premise of this story is that there's an Astraea Hill Tri-School Competition coming up where there will be only one Étoile couple. Which two girls will it be? There are more femmes fatales than on the front cover if you open this book up to peek.
What I most liked about this book was its treatment of bullying in academia.
Not necessarily just all the flowing long hair and flowing skirts, but I was encaptivated by the helpless eyes too.
SOOO you can see by this review that in the veneer of a Catholic girl's school where the older girls bully the younger ones I thought it was hopelessly the K-adjective. I saw in it versions of chibi stuff I hurriedly drew as a high school student (before I ran off to test out of x class, y class, and z class) as well hence I got more inspiration to draw again. Maybe in the margins of my letters to tomodachi.
There are some icky parts so if you aren't comfortable with female x female action I'd look elsewhere, but if you like that stuff, I think this may be one of the models. My copy is copyright 2006, so the translation came out when I was in high school.
"Cocchan, give our owner a break, she has been having migraines lately and needs to relax with something harmless."
The premise of this story is that there's an Astraea Hill Tri-School Competition coming up where there will be only one Étoile couple. Which two girls will it be? There are more femmes fatales than on the front cover if you open this book up to peek.
What I most liked about this book was its treatment of bullying in academia.
Not necessarily just all the flowing long hair and flowing skirts, but I was encaptivated by the helpless eyes too.
SOOO you can see by this review that in the veneer of a Catholic girl's school where the older girls bully the younger ones I thought it was hopelessly the K-adjective. I saw in it versions of chibi stuff I hurriedly drew as a high school student (before I ran off to test out of x class, y class, and z class) as well hence I got more inspiration to draw again. Maybe in the margins of my letters to tomodachi.
There are some icky parts so if you aren't comfortable with female x female action I'd look elsewhere, but if you like that stuff, I think this may be one of the models. My copy is copyright 2006, so the translation came out when I was in high school.
July 24, 2020
This really didn't end with an ending?
May 23, 2015
I read this for work because I had to confirm that it was not, in fact, YA. I've never read any "girls love" manga before, which is what I'm assuming this is. It was cute and kind of surreal, although the upperclassmen are at times predatory and disturbing. Overall it was better than much of the small sampling of manga I've read, although disappointing that we don't see the storyline end naturally.
July 5, 2019
It's hilarious how long it took me to read this. I bought it in 2013, if I remember correctly. I believe it was in the Spring, in my Freshman year of college, but I didn't start reading it until the Fall, in Sophomore year. I think I only bought it because I thought yuri manga would be sexy, or I thought so when I was much younger but simply never got around to checking any out. It's weird how long ago this was - Seven Seas used to be mainly a yuri publisher and now they do all kinds of shit (though I mostly use them for somewhat-naughty things anyway, like Monster Musume and To Love-Ru).
So I started reading this while taking a shit like six years ago, then just didn't continue after a couple chapters. Got back into it finally in fucking March 2018, when I read like the first nine chapters on the toilet (again). THEN I put it off for another year or so, having to re-read Chapter 8 and 9 because I couldn't remember shit. Blazed through those chapters and the rest of the volume in less than half an hour, if I'm not mistaken. So why the fuck did it take so long to read!?
****
This is not a very high-quality manga. Everyone is just randomly in love with everyone else for no concrete reasons. There is forced melodrama regarding everyone's crushes. The whole thing ramps up to some big festival for all three schools, but then simply stops partway through. We're even treated to a "THE END...?" caption. I understand there are light novels and a 2-cour anime by MADHOUSE which will probably build on the story, but as far as this manga goes I feel somewhat cheated. I don't really go out of my way to read manga for stories, but it's never really nice to have a non-ending such as this.
So the basic premise is there are three sister Catholic schools or something for girls from mostly wealthy families. There's a bunch of shit about Easter and Saints and things, but the whole school seems to foster an idea of having these teenage girls fuck each other. It's kinda funny, since it feels like the Catholic stuff is just fluff like the crazy Judeo-Christian symbolism in Evangelion. Rich Western girls might go to church-y schools, so rich Japanese will go to church-y schools. Even if they're doing things that may be seen as a no-no by the clergy. The best part is that one of the schools is specifically noted as being a place where girls are bred to become "good Japanese housewives" (I'm quoting). Now, I'm not Japanese myself, but I can't really imagine I'd want a horny lesbian for a wife... But it makes for decent pseudo-smut, I guess.
So there's this one chick who takes the main character as her "little sister." Turns out the chick's former "sister" tied of some terminal illness, so the main girl Nagisa is nervous about being able to make the other girl happy. Another girl has a tomboy-ish "prince" girl whose "little sister" is likewise nervous about being able to make the prince happy. They're both less important, but then the big thing about the apparent plot is that the prince's school's student council is teaming up with another school to sneak -another- tomboy-ish "prince" girl (an "emperor," actually!) into the festival games to win their contests. But, again, the manga ends before anything actually happens, so I guess we just have to imagine that the emperor may or may not "dethrone" the prince, and anyway Nagisa and her "onee-sama" probably will win the festivities.
The shit's cute, though. I guess. The art is kinda wonky at times. I think a lot of yuri is oriented toward male audiences, but there's a vain attempt at simulating stereotypical shoujo art-styles, which leads to something kinda okay. I don't care too much for the art overall, but the character designs are sometimes pretty cute, and the girls' eyes look very good when faces are in close-up (though I can't tell why it is I don't like them as much in regular scale).
There isn't as much lewd stuff as I was expecting. There's a good bath scene, and some of the petting and kissing between Nagisa and her "onee-sama" is okay, but whatever. I guess I intended to read this for naughtiness, but ended up enjoying it just for the fluffy simplicity. I'll check out the anime soon, but I don't have high hopes for it (actually, I have weirdly high hopes because it's MADHOUSE for whatever reason).
So I started reading this while taking a shit like six years ago, then just didn't continue after a couple chapters. Got back into it finally in fucking March 2018, when I read like the first nine chapters on the toilet (again). THEN I put it off for another year or so, having to re-read Chapter 8 and 9 because I couldn't remember shit. Blazed through those chapters and the rest of the volume in less than half an hour, if I'm not mistaken. So why the fuck did it take so long to read!?
****
This is not a very high-quality manga. Everyone is just randomly in love with everyone else for no concrete reasons. There is forced melodrama regarding everyone's crushes. The whole thing ramps up to some big festival for all three schools, but then simply stops partway through. We're even treated to a "THE END...?" caption. I understand there are light novels and a 2-cour anime by MADHOUSE which will probably build on the story, but as far as this manga goes I feel somewhat cheated. I don't really go out of my way to read manga for stories, but it's never really nice to have a non-ending such as this.
So the basic premise is there are three sister Catholic schools or something for girls from mostly wealthy families. There's a bunch of shit about Easter and Saints and things, but the whole school seems to foster an idea of having these teenage girls fuck each other. It's kinda funny, since it feels like the Catholic stuff is just fluff like the crazy Judeo-Christian symbolism in Evangelion. Rich Western girls might go to church-y schools, so rich Japanese will go to church-y schools. Even if they're doing things that may be seen as a no-no by the clergy. The best part is that one of the schools is specifically noted as being a place where girls are bred to become "good Japanese housewives" (I'm quoting). Now, I'm not Japanese myself, but I can't really imagine I'd want a horny lesbian for a wife... But it makes for decent pseudo-smut, I guess.
So there's this one chick who takes the main character as her "little sister." Turns out the chick's former "sister" tied of some terminal illness, so the main girl Nagisa is nervous about being able to make the other girl happy. Another girl has a tomboy-ish "prince" girl whose "little sister" is likewise nervous about being able to make the prince happy. They're both less important, but then the big thing about the apparent plot is that the prince's school's student council is teaming up with another school to sneak -another- tomboy-ish "prince" girl (an "emperor," actually!) into the festival games to win their contests. But, again, the manga ends before anything actually happens, so I guess we just have to imagine that the emperor may or may not "dethrone" the prince, and anyway Nagisa and her "onee-sama" probably will win the festivities.
The shit's cute, though. I guess. The art is kinda wonky at times. I think a lot of yuri is oriented toward male audiences, but there's a vain attempt at simulating stereotypical shoujo art-styles, which leads to something kinda okay. I don't care too much for the art overall, but the character designs are sometimes pretty cute, and the girls' eyes look very good when faces are in close-up (though I can't tell why it is I don't like them as much in regular scale).
There isn't as much lewd stuff as I was expecting. There's a good bath scene, and some of the petting and kissing between Nagisa and her "onee-sama" is okay, but whatever. I guess I intended to read this for naughtiness, but ended up enjoying it just for the fluffy simplicity. I'll check out the anime soon, but I don't have high hopes for it (actually, I have weirdly high hopes because it's MADHOUSE for whatever reason).
July 31, 2023
This is about a girl named Ali Nagisa, who just started in her new boarding school - St. Miator Girls’ Academy - a religious school for girls.
In her first day she already gets to meet by chance the most honoured student of the academy - Hanazono Shizuma. From then on, things start getting more intense and new bonds are made.
I was actually not meaning to read this one, but I'm trying to end books in my collection so I can put them in storage for the next 5 months while I move to a spare apartment while mine is in renovations. This one came up... This was actually a present from my mom (no, she had no idea what this was, it just seemed cute).
I generally don't tend to read yaoi or yuri, it's not that I don't like it, I do. But, I prefer softer romance like shojo. If you don't know what yaoi or yuri means, yaoi is basically graphic male romances and yuri is graphic saphic romances. That said, this book did have some graphic parts, but nothing that spicy. Some boobs and some butts and oh-so cute blushes because of it, gasps, and so on.
It was overall an extremely quick romance, they just met and are already infatuated with one another, and so are other two characters in these volumes.
In this school there's a competition between three catholic academies for girls. It's called the ètoile competition. There's three rounds and to participate you have to team up with another girl that you like/love/can't leave without, you got the point. You have to pledge yourself to the other person in front of all the schools and then you can start competing. It was very gallant and fancy, quite French like.
The characters are, well, adorable really. Loved how they are drawn, how they are such typical high schoolers with all the quirks and flaws of that age.
The romance while too fast for me, was cute and I started getting invested, but then, guess what? This says complete manga collection in the book and it isn't. There's at least one more volume? I'm dumbfounded! I didn't even want to read it and now it does me dirty. I'm gonna need the last volume... It was slightly addicting and it ends with a freaking cliffhanger. Yeah, not the best manga out there but a good introduction to simple yuri.
In her first day she already gets to meet by chance the most honoured student of the academy - Hanazono Shizuma. From then on, things start getting more intense and new bonds are made.
I was actually not meaning to read this one, but I'm trying to end books in my collection so I can put them in storage for the next 5 months while I move to a spare apartment while mine is in renovations. This one came up... This was actually a present from my mom (no, she had no idea what this was, it just seemed cute).
I generally don't tend to read yaoi or yuri, it's not that I don't like it, I do. But, I prefer softer romance like shojo. If you don't know what yaoi or yuri means, yaoi is basically graphic male romances and yuri is graphic saphic romances. That said, this book did have some graphic parts, but nothing that spicy. Some boobs and some butts and oh-so cute blushes because of it, gasps, and so on.
It was overall an extremely quick romance, they just met and are already infatuated with one another, and so are other two characters in these volumes.
In this school there's a competition between three catholic academies for girls. It's called the ètoile competition. There's three rounds and to participate you have to team up with another girl that you like/love/can't leave without, you got the point. You have to pledge yourself to the other person in front of all the schools and then you can start competing. It was very gallant and fancy, quite French like.
The characters are, well, adorable really. Loved how they are drawn, how they are such typical high schoolers with all the quirks and flaws of that age.
The romance while too fast for me, was cute and I started getting invested, but then, guess what? This says complete manga collection in the book and it isn't. There's at least one more volume? I'm dumbfounded! I didn't even want to read it and now it does me dirty. I'm gonna need the last volume... It was slightly addicting and it ends with a freaking cliffhanger. Yeah, not the best manga out there but a good introduction to simple yuri.
December 3, 2019
I have been hearing about Strawberry Panic for years now, when I first started to become interested in the yuri genre.
I was excited to finally read it and see why others loved it but while reading, my excitement turned into...anger. Where was the cute relationships? From what I reading these were just relationships based off power and one being older.
Nagisa is transfer student who is lost while trying to find her dorm and runs into Hanazono Shizuma who everyone admires but has secrets of her own. Nagisa is attracted to her at first sight but when Shizume declares that they are going to run for the Etolite competition, the other girls get jealous and bully Nagisa! How cruel can the other girls be!
Let alone Shizume just gives off creepy vibes. Nothing about their relationships is not healthy so I, not rooting for them.
The other couples featuring Hikari Konohana and Amane Ohtori from what I read (I read about half of this before I felt like I couldn't read anymore), was who I wanted to see more of. Their relationships felt more real and more drawn out the way it should. Amane atleast truly care about Hikaru without her past inteferring.
I am hoping to finish this today just to read it, but I am hoping that the anime paints this in a better light because this manga was not at all what I was expecting from one of the most known and praised yuri mangas.
I was excited to finally read it and see why others loved it but while reading, my excitement turned into...anger. Where was the cute relationships? From what I reading these were just relationships based off power and one being older.
Nagisa is transfer student who is lost while trying to find her dorm and runs into Hanazono Shizuma who everyone admires but has secrets of her own. Nagisa is attracted to her at first sight but when Shizume declares that they are going to run for the Etolite competition, the other girls get jealous and bully Nagisa! How cruel can the other girls be!
Let alone Shizume just gives off creepy vibes. Nothing about their relationships is not healthy so I, not rooting for them.
The other couples featuring Hikari Konohana and Amane Ohtori from what I read (I read about half of this before I felt like I couldn't read anymore), was who I wanted to see more of. Their relationships felt more real and more drawn out the way it should. Amane atleast truly care about Hikaru without her past inteferring.
I am hoping to finish this today just to read it, but I am hoping that the anime paints this in a better light because this manga was not at all what I was expecting from one of the most known and praised yuri mangas.
April 15, 2019
A long time ago I watched the series. And I loved it to bits. A few years later I bought and read the manga, only to be disappointed that it was not a finished series. They stopped halfway. But I kept the manga in my collection and I cannot part with it still, simply because it was such an important series to me when I was a teenager.
There is more humour in the manga than in the anime series. For as far as I can remember anyway. And the manga is also darker, regarding the motivation of certain characters. They have little regard for certain personal boundaries, Shizuma being one of those people. But these moments of overstepping boundaries always lead to humorous reactions, so the annoyance is taken away with a laugh.
This series, manga and anime, will always have a spot in my nerdy heart.
There is more humour in the manga than in the anime series. For as far as I can remember anyway. And the manga is also darker, regarding the motivation of certain characters. They have little regard for certain personal boundaries, Shizuma being one of those people. But these moments of overstepping boundaries always lead to humorous reactions, so the annoyance is taken away with a laugh.
This series, manga and anime, will always have a spot in my nerdy heart.
June 4, 2019
Stars: 2
Status: Incomplete
Format: Print
Talk about a manga that doesn’t hold up to a reread.
It is important to note that this manga series is INCOMPLETE and will (very most likely) NEVER be completed. This series was translated and published in english around 2007 with only two volumes (there were only two volumes made in Japan too.) Looking around I have seen two different reasons as to why this series, despite it being popular in Japan, was never finished. One is that that artist and writer became ill and couldn’t finish. The other is that it was just canceled (maybe something about delays? It was years ago when I heard this.)
There are so many issues with this series:
1. Lack of consent all over the damn place. That was a big glaring problem reading it eleven years after it was first published in the USA.
2. The manga ends after the first big event. You never see the other two or who wins.
3. Did I mention the lack of consent? Lots of unwanted touching that the touch receiver doesn’t seem to enjoy.
4. Where are the adults? This is set at a (seemingly Christian religious) all girls boarding school but it feels like the girls are totally on their own. I’m used to a lack of adults in high school manga, but this feels wrong.
5. LACK. OF. CONSENT. In my fiction, I enjoy the surprise kiss thing, but it goes way further than that in this. I am normally horrible (but getting better!) at noticing consent issues in stuff but it jumped out to even me. That’s bad.
6. It’s a bit on the fan service here, which is another thing I’m bad about noticing and this made me cringe.
The art is nice and I love how different the uniforms for the three schools are. I really like the basic idea of three schools on the same grounds competing with each other, but the issues above ruin it for me. One of the main characters, Shizuma, has some EPIC and cliched hair and I LOVE it. No clue why, but I think it is awesome. There are some adorable characters and the “Prince” and “Angel” characters are so sweet.
There is a light novel series (3 books) that I heard goes farther than the manga, but I can’t confirm that or know if it completes the story (though I doubt it) due to not having read them. If you want a complete story, there is an anime of this, though a little different story wise from the manga. I believe there are consent issues in the anime as well, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it and can’t confirm how bad. I remember enjoying it a lot, but that was 10 years ago and I don’t know if it holds up to a rewatch.
Overall I can’t recommend this manga. It is incomplete and full of issues. The only reasons I did not give it 1 star, is that I remember enjoying it at the time and it was my introduction into the existence of yuri manga. Truly sad it doesn’t hold up.
Status: Incomplete
Format: Print
Talk about a manga that doesn’t hold up to a reread.
It is important to note that this manga series is INCOMPLETE and will (very most likely) NEVER be completed. This series was translated and published in english around 2007 with only two volumes (there were only two volumes made in Japan too.) Looking around I have seen two different reasons as to why this series, despite it being popular in Japan, was never finished. One is that that artist and writer became ill and couldn’t finish. The other is that it was just canceled (maybe something about delays? It was years ago when I heard this.)
There are so many issues with this series:
1. Lack of consent all over the damn place. That was a big glaring problem reading it eleven years after it was first published in the USA.
2. The manga ends after the first big event. You never see the other two or who wins.
3. Did I mention the lack of consent? Lots of unwanted touching that the touch receiver doesn’t seem to enjoy.
4. Where are the adults? This is set at a (seemingly Christian religious) all girls boarding school but it feels like the girls are totally on their own. I’m used to a lack of adults in high school manga, but this feels wrong.
5. LACK. OF. CONSENT. In my fiction, I enjoy the surprise kiss thing, but it goes way further than that in this. I am normally horrible (but getting better!) at noticing consent issues in stuff but it jumped out to even me. That’s bad.
6. It’s a bit on the fan service here, which is another thing I’m bad about noticing and this made me cringe.
The art is nice and I love how different the uniforms for the three schools are. I really like the basic idea of three schools on the same grounds competing with each other, but the issues above ruin it for me. One of the main characters, Shizuma, has some EPIC and cliched hair and I LOVE it. No clue why, but I think it is awesome. There are some adorable characters and the “Prince” and “Angel” characters are so sweet.
There is a light novel series (3 books) that I heard goes farther than the manga, but I can’t confirm that or know if it completes the story (though I doubt it) due to not having read them. If you want a complete story, there is an anime of this, though a little different story wise from the manga. I believe there are consent issues in the anime as well, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it and can’t confirm how bad. I remember enjoying it a lot, but that was 10 years ago and I don’t know if it holds up to a rewatch.
Overall I can’t recommend this manga. It is incomplete and full of issues. The only reasons I did not give it 1 star, is that I remember enjoying it at the time and it was my introduction into the existence of yuri manga. Truly sad it doesn’t hold up.
July 23, 2023
This is yuri for the male gaze -- cute girls doing cute things with/to other cute girls, often with dubious levels of actual consent, and nobody actually thinks of themselves as queer, oh no, because it's all happening in an imaginary private school. This (the private school S-genre part) is something I frankly love when it is done for women -- I wish I could find an English-language version of The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us -- but I didn't enjoy either the fan service or the dubcon aspects of this one.
February 25, 2022
There will never be a return to strawberry panic, the anime being the most complete format in which the story was told. A pretty straightforward light novel, the Hikari/Amane subplot felt like filler at times although the Shizuka/Nagisa story is one of the strongest in this subgenre overall. If you like the anime you’ll certainly like this, despite its lack of completion.
May 29, 2017
The writing wasn't...uh...great. I liked the anime better.
August 30, 2017
Absolute bottom of the barrel for-male-gaze girls love trash but still kinda fun. Does end on a huge cliffhanging. I'll probably try the anime or the novels.
November 14, 2019
??????????
What???? Did???? I???? Just???? Read????
I've been trying to read different manga to find out what I like, and... in terms of both content and concept, this is completely ridiculous.
What???? Did???? I???? Just???? Read????
I've been trying to read different manga to find out what I like, and... in terms of both content and concept, this is completely ridiculous.
April 13, 2022
This omnibus volume includes the two volumes I just completed plus two extra chapters. The extra chapters added nothing; they just left the story hanging.
April 28, 2022
pretty cute, pretty weird!
March 15, 2023
I thought this was really cute to be honest. I wish the story had been a little longer but it is what it is sadly. It'd be nice if the mangaka returned to this world one day.
February 3, 2025
1.5 stars— cute art style, and the fact that it is yuri, but like yuri on some crazy crack and not in the good way, the lack of consent is a little insane actually!
June 17, 2025
The story is incomplete! Talk about a letdown. Had I known I would have just went and watched the anime.
June 22, 2025
Thats it?
July 2, 2025
I liked the story but it ends before things are complete. So it lost points for that.
August 4, 2022
this goofy little manga... this silly unfinished story...
It is deeply cute and fun to read but most of the relationships aren't all that fleshed out. But they are cute!
It is deeply cute and fun to read but most of the relationships aren't all that fleshed out. But they are cute!
April 4, 2020
2
Aside from my luke warm feelings towards this manga, I feel that putting 'The Complete Manga Collection' on the front cover of this edition is misleading when it only consists of two out of the three volumes in the series. I didn't get an ending when I was expecting one.
Aside from my luke warm feelings towards this manga, I feel that putting 'The Complete Manga Collection' on the front cover of this edition is misleading when it only consists of two out of the three volumes in the series. I didn't get an ending when I was expecting one.
November 22, 2012
Welcome to Astrea Hill, where three girls schools are sectioned into three parts; St. Miator Girls Academy, St.Spica Girls Institute, and St. Lulim Girls School. New transfer student, Aoi-Nagisa enters St. Miator Girls Academy, where she encounters the stunning and beautiful Hanazono-Shizuma. Little did she know during their brief meeting, that she is adored by the entire student body and represents all three schools. In other words, this royalty like status is known as being an Etoile. Throughout the story, one of the most revered events in all of Astrea Hill's three schools is the Etoile Competition.
An Etoile Competition is a high status for all three schools, which is a competition produced every year throughout the semesters of Astrea Hill. Nagisa-Chan, the protagonist of the entire story, begins to question Shizuma's true motives for entering here, a first year transfer student, into this wondrous event to which she feels that she cant possibly compete in. In actuality, Shizuma enters in with her not for the glory fromthe student body, nor for the attention of her status which she had already claimed the previous year. No, her true motives, are more then just what it seems, and how Shizuma feels is more then just friendly.
Other characters in the manga that you will adore hopefully as much as I have is Suzumi-Tamao-Chan, Nagisa-Chan's lovely roommate, Minamoto-Chikaru, St. Lulim Girls student counsel president, and many others adorable characters. It wasn't a complex read and the pace of the story was very alluring, it was a real page turner for me. The illustrations were quite exceptional, and with this being a Yuri, it was definitely browsing through more then 7 times. It's not like Yuri Hime Wildrose, but because of the story plot, it wasn't even necessary to make it into explicit kind of Yuri. I like how it focused on the relationships developing between characters rather then just focusing on the fact that their all girls and then next thing you know, there having hot lesbian sex *dramatic gasp*.
Seriously though, it's a nice and satisfying Yuri manga, and what I really admire is the fact that its a realistic kind of Yuri in the sense of school life, making friends, relationships, etc. My only critique on the manga is how it ended, it had left me feeling slightly empty. It was unfinished, and was supposed to be the complete manga collection. However, there is the complete novel addition, with an actual end, so if you feel compelled to finish the story, read the novel edition. The is also an anime adaption based on the manga. This is a Classic Yuri every Lesbian or Bisexual girl in real life should get to read. A very heart warming story similar to the manga Girl Friends, which you will want to relive again and again.
An Etoile Competition is a high status for all three schools, which is a competition produced every year throughout the semesters of Astrea Hill. Nagisa-Chan, the protagonist of the entire story, begins to question Shizuma's true motives for entering here, a first year transfer student, into this wondrous event to which she feels that she cant possibly compete in. In actuality, Shizuma enters in with her not for the glory fromthe student body, nor for the attention of her status which she had already claimed the previous year. No, her true motives, are more then just what it seems, and how Shizuma feels is more then just friendly.
Other characters in the manga that you will adore hopefully as much as I have is Suzumi-Tamao-Chan, Nagisa-Chan's lovely roommate, Minamoto-Chikaru, St. Lulim Girls student counsel president, and many others adorable characters. It wasn't a complex read and the pace of the story was very alluring, it was a real page turner for me. The illustrations were quite exceptional, and with this being a Yuri, it was definitely browsing through more then 7 times. It's not like Yuri Hime Wildrose, but because of the story plot, it wasn't even necessary to make it into explicit kind of Yuri. I like how it focused on the relationships developing between characters rather then just focusing on the fact that their all girls and then next thing you know, there having hot lesbian sex *dramatic gasp*.
Seriously though, it's a nice and satisfying Yuri manga, and what I really admire is the fact that its a realistic kind of Yuri in the sense of school life, making friends, relationships, etc. My only critique on the manga is how it ended, it had left me feeling slightly empty. It was unfinished, and was supposed to be the complete manga collection. However, there is the complete novel addition, with an actual end, so if you feel compelled to finish the story, read the novel edition. The is also an anime adaption based on the manga. This is a Classic Yuri every Lesbian or Bisexual girl in real life should get to read. A very heart warming story similar to the manga Girl Friends, which you will want to relive again and again.
November 12, 2011
About what I expected. Actually, quite a bit of fun school political drama (sort of Utena lite). The LesYay could go one of two ways: either the characters are being completely innocent and you're just reading into it (it's obviously written in, with only the characters unaware), or this is seriously twisted. Sort of like Kimagure Orange Road in that sense: combination of light innocent and happy with desperately twisted emotional shipwrecks. Plot drops off in the middle...hopefully the novels and/or the anime pick it up. (Yes, I have the anime, and the novels are on order.) Fun guilty pleasure.
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