What’s left to say about Ichigo Mashimaro that I haven’t said already? It’s still loli, it’s still funny, Miu is still psychotic, I still enjoy it. This volume is not overwhelmingly, or really even underwhelmingly, Yuri, but it is pretty gay.

Several of the vignettes from this volume were in the anime, so I’ll skip those. Of the ones that weren’t, the first is by far and away the funniest. A salesman comes to Miu’s door. She scams him and steals his goods, then complains that he’s a pervert thief. He goes off to try another house and accidentally wanders over to Chika and Nobue’s, where Miu has joined the Itou sisters. She tells them that he’s a perv, they believe him. The gag goes on as he meets them again and again at Ana’s house, and Matsuri’s, the back at the Itou’s. By the end, Nobue punches him up the conk and he’s left a defeated, miserable and yes, hysterical, wreck.

Also notable in this volume is the episode where Nobue gets a love letter, ostensibly from a classmate. (Miu asks if the letter is from a human.) The girls all take Nobue out shopping for a dress, then play act what she will say to and how she will act in front of her potential boyfriend. Matsuri takes the role of the boy, as unlikely as that sounds. Miu, dressed as a sleazeball guy, attempts to strongarm Matsuri away (having forgotten than she was playing a guy, but says she doesn’t care if Matsuri is a guy, she swings both ways. Nobue reminds Matsuri that she is supposed to be the guy, so poor Matsuri attempts to punch Miu, which fails utterly. In the end, it was Miu who sent the letter in the first place. Hahaha.

In between chapters, there’s a Q&A with the characters, which I found amusing, as I also do periodic Q&A’s with Yuriko. (You can read them on the Yuricon website.) The question – and answer – I liked best was “If the world was about to be destroyed, what would you do?” Most of the girls answer sweetly that they’d want to be with their friends. Nobue would want one last smoke. Miu’s answer? “It’s okay, I’ll be the only one rescued.” And there you have it.

I thought about writing this review and decided that Miu is pretty much a politician or religious leader in training. I can see her running for student council president, on a platform of lies, then cheerfully denying all of it, and being popular *anyway*. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Stupid, nose-snortin’ fun.