I know that you too, daily wrestle with concerns like “whose purple underwear is this!?!” Therefore, I also know that you too, will find the story in Strawberry Panic Drama CD: Lyric 1, “Miator Hen” absolutely riveting. :-)

The Drama CDs for Strawberry Panic each focus on the characters from one of the three schools. The first DCD, “Lyric 1” deals with the girls of Miator, the second will focus on Spica and the third, Lu Lim. While the story for this CD is original, i.e., not from either manga or anime, it has no actual plot. An official fanfic, if you will. If you were going to build a timeline, this would be taking place somewhere during the first half of the anime.

The story opens with Nagisa and Shizuma in the greenhouse. Shizuma embraces Nagisa from behind, and, as rain begins to pour down, attempts to kiss Nagisa. When Miyuki interrupts, Nagisa breaks free and runs into the rain.

In the meantime, back in their room, Tamao is fretting while Chiyo-chan functions like a real maid – sort of there, spoken to, but not heard. When Nagisa comes back soaked to the skin Tamao forcibly undresses her and shoves her into the shower to warm up. Tamao, during this scene, is made to sound so extremely perverted that it’s either really scary, or really impressive. I’m still not entirely sure which.

This sets up the one major crisis of the story – the case of the strange underwear. Tamao offers to do Nagisa’s washing, which Nagisa refuses. They both go off to the laundry room. Somehow or other, Nagisa ends up bringing back someone else’s underwear. These are scandalously colorful (as oppsed to the white with little-girl patterns kind Nagisa wears…) apparently, which overwhelms Tamao with the need to find their owner. They watch for a bit, but after some exciting possibilities, they are shooed away by Miyuki. When we return to the room, we get a careful catalog of Nagisa’s real underwear. No gratutious service here, no way.

During all this time, Chiyo-chan is having paroxysms of ecstasy and doubt over the return of Nagisa’s handkerchief. It has become her important treasure. I’ll skip to the end of this excitement – Nagisa gives it to her.

The third plot driver is the titilating rumor that Shizuma, the Etoile of the school, skinny dips in the pool every night. Nagisa repeatedly fantasizes about seeing her, even joining her.

One day, quite randomly, Shizuma rides up on a horse (cue cameo by Amane) and takes Nagisa off to the ocean. Chikaru, who clearly has no schoolwork at all, decides to follow since, after all, they will BOTH probably swim naked. Woo-hoo! Everyone, except Amane decides to tag along.

Nagisa and Shizuma share a romantic moment, until a hullabaloo from behind the rocks alerts them to the presence of the others (i.e., Tamao, Chiyo, Yaya, Hikari, although what *she’s* doing there, I have no idea, Chikaru and her whole harem.) Shizuma admits that she swims naked. Not. And Yaya decides to take a swim in her underwear. She pulls off her clothes and SHOCK! She’s the one with the scandalously not infantile underwear! Yaya points out that white underwear is prohibited at Spica and starts to undress Hikari to prove it.

With the sound of all the others frolicking in the surf – assumably in their underwear – Nagisa and Shizuma have more asexually romantic time.

The next to last track is cast comments, all of which are short. Some are downright hysterical. Tamao’s voice actress, Shimizu Ai (Hatsuki in Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, Mikoto in Mai Hime/Otome) comments, quite acerbically, that she had to talk alot about underwear, didn’t she? Amane’s seiyuu, Kaida Yuko, (Minako from Marimite, Ryomou from Ikkiitousen) hopes that she’ll have more lines in the “Spica Volume” and Kagome’s seiyuu, Fukui Yukari, comments, finally, that Percival (Kagome’s teddybear) is interested in underwear. This last made me laugh out loud.

The final track is a preview of the “St. Spica Ben” the second volume of this Drama CD series. It includes such drama-filled excitement as “Yaya sexually harrasses Hikari in the shower” and “Kaname and Momomi bathe together.”

While I don’t think this DCD will win awards for plot, character or…well, anything…it wasn’t anything as awful as the Mai Otome Drama CD – and it wasn’t openly ripping off memes from other, better series, except in the most general way.

Ratings:

Story – 3
Characters – 3 (If you didn’t already know them, you’d have no idea who was who or why.)
Yuri – 7
Service – 9

Overall – 5

If this were an episode of the anime, people would trash it, but forget they hated it by the end. ^_^ Be that as it may, this, and many other Yuri Drama CDs are available from Amazon Japan through the Yuricon Shop!