It’s been a long time since I’ve typed these words, (4 years, in fact)  but here we are, reading Ichigo Mashimaro, Volume 7 (苺ましまろ).

In those four years, two things have changed for Chika and her friends: One – Chika’s become a pretty damn good comedian in her own right and; Two – Miu’s skills using everyone and everything around her as a prop has soared to transcendent heights.

Volume 7 features, almost exclusively, the two of them committing sublime acts of comedy.  Anna functions mostly as Matsuri’s keeper and occasional kuroko. Nobue plays the same role for Chika. This volume is the Chi & Mi Comedy Hour…and don’t you forget it.

The first chapters are pure manzai in a time warp. The teacher yells at Miu for something, Miu responds with boke precision and Chika supplies alternative punchlines.  Same gag over and over, different punchlines. For *pages.*

Several chapters are retellings of well-known stories, Mashimaro style. Momotarou never looked so petulant, and Mario has never been so cruel to Princess Peach. And there are several classic ensemble-style chapters, including a precious one where the Chika and Miu pair are held up as foils to the Anna and Matsuri pair. Who reigns supreme at the end of the chapter depends on how boring you are – or not. ^_^

The  chapter where Miu is drawing special and sound effects on transparencies then holding them up, so we can “see” the effects is laugh out loud hilarious.

It’s all fun and games, but the highlight for me was a short gag in when we see exactly who Chika has become. Drunk Nobue comes home and is drunk. Chika stands up, and offers her a seat in the VIP section. Nobue staggers in. Chika closes the closet door on her and returns to watching TV with Miu. It’s only a few pages, but it’s an epiphany.

Ratings:

Art – 8 For the visual gag chapter alone
Story – 6
Characters –  Miu and Chika steal this volume – 9 for them, 5 for everyone else
Yuri –  2
Service – 7 (Same old underwear gags and lots of dress up and strange poses)

Overall – 8 When it’s funny, it’s really funny.

Miu ‘s dying words as a crossword puzzle for the win.

Chika and her friends are back and even sillier things than ever before are happening in Ichigo Mashimaro Encore.

Much of what is animated in Encore is from the 6th volume of the manga. If you have read and enjoyed these chapters, you are likely to enjoy them again as animation.

If you don’t care that Miu’s antics can make demons in hell laugh, then you probably won’t care so much. And if you don’t care that Nobue is not their friend, but their gang boss, or that Miu and Chika’s friendship is almost alien in it’s intense weirdness, then, again, you probably don’t want to watch this anime.

But if you are a member of the Miu Fan Club, if you like the idea that Miu and Chika’s relationship surpasses words and has moved on to bizarre ASCII art, if you like the idea that Chika and Miu make a stellar comedy team then you too, will enjoy Encore.

Yuri is low, with one “are we lesbians” gag but despite that, yes, I still think the Miu is a EPL-in training. Call it a gaydar thing. :-)

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8, sometimes 9
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service – 3

Overall – 8

If the world is a good place, someone will license the OVAs and this Encore series and put them out in a box set.

Once more it is my genuine pleasure to welcome Sean Gaffney back as Guest Reviewer!

The sixth volume of Ichigo Mashimaro (苺ましまろ) is finally out in Japan (it’s been running since 2001, but is only up to Volume 6 due to the author’s frequent breaks and the sometimes short chapters). There’s no earth-shattering changes, except that if anything Nobue gets even less to do. As Chika has gotten more tsundere and taken over much of the beatings of Miu, Nobue has sadly faded into the background a bit.

In any case, we get 10 new chapters here, interspersed with ‘a day in the life’ interstitials. My favorites of the interstitials are a) Miu responding to her teacher’s request to solve a difficult fraction problem by getting out her giant protractor, and b) Miu’s amusing giant geek glasses she wears during chemistry, complete with spiral effect.

The girls battle a cockroach, have fun drawing on each other’s faces (in 2 separate chapters, one with a ‘third eye’ and the other with Japanese characters), and practice cooking (in a hilarious Miu and Chika 2-hander that barely has the others at all).

Some of this volume is also being animated in the Encore OAVs, such as Matsuri’s utter inability to help herself not be kidnapped. Oh yes, and Miu dies and goes to hell, in easily the best chapter in the entire volume. You can see it animated in the first Encore OAV. Note once more Chika’s inability to stop laughing when Miu does insane stupid things, even when she’s a demon of Hell.

The final chapter, where Miu complains that the only playing they do anymore is gaming, and that they should go outside and be more physical, was only in Dengeki Daioh last month. So don’t expect a new volume anytime soon. Still, it’s 160 pages of cuteness and Miu insanity, which is always worth your time.

Ratings:

Art – 7 (I do like the attention paid to the different outfits)
Story – 6 (loose collection of gags, really)
Characters: 7 (9 for Miu and Chika, 6 for Matsuri, 5 for Nobue).
Yuri – 3 (Not as much here as the last volume, though Miu and Chika are
so going to be a couple in a few years)
Service – 9 (It’s Barasui. What else needs to be said? It only loses a point for lacking catgirls.)

Overall – 7. A good, solid volume.

Oh yes, and Ana is in it too.

–SG