Extra long review today because I’m heading out for Otakon (Yuri Panel Sunday at 1pm! All ages!) later this week and will probably only post in teeny, non-review chunks for the next few days. Before I start today’s review, I wanted to share this with you. It is a *real* honest-to-god email I received. I have altered it in no way, except to cut out the “Hello Erica” part:

i just wnated to tell you i love youre book strawberry panic so much well i didnt read the book i watched the show and i want more episodes that series made me depressed for a weak and im still not over kaori :'[ make mroe episodes :[

…

Moving right along.

In a surprise move, the Light Novel Strawberry Panic!, Volume 2 was actually pretty entertaining. LOL

As you know, Seven Seas has licensed the LNs. I am reading the series in Japanese first, because I wanted to see what the original sounded like before I read the translation. And, because I enjoy it.

Quick Overview of the Series and Story So Far

(If you know all this, skip to the New Bits):

Strawberry Panic! was a parody series in which many recognizable characters, concepts and whole episodes/scenes from other Yuri anime and manga series were taken and put into a blender, creating the anime version of a Long Island Ice Tea – tasty, intoxicating and not very good for your brain.

The story is as follows: Aoi Nagisa transfers into the elite Astoria, an academy that consists of three different schools – St. Miator, St. Spica and St. Lu Lim. Miator’s strength is academics – it is the oldest and most traditional of the three schools. Spica excels at sports and Lu Lim stresses club life and creativity.

Immediately, Nagisa is singled out by the “star” of the three schools, Hanazono Shizuma, who is known to be a playgirl. Shizuma is the “Etoile” (star) of the schools and is going to graduate this year, but decides to run for Etoile again with Nagisa as her partner.

Competing with Shizuma and Nagisa for the position is the “Prince” of Spica, Ohtori Amane, and another transfer student, the angelic Kotohana Hikari.

In the first Light Novel:

Amane and Hikari win the first contest of the competition, a very silly horseback race to “save” the younger partner from a tower.

Just before the second contest – a showy vow of love and fealty by the elder partner (Ane) to the younger (Cadet) – Nagisa learns that Shizuma’s former partner, and her first love, Sakuragi Kaori, died a short time after they were made Etoile.

At the end of the book Amane and Hikari are given the “petite crown” for winning the first contest, and Shizuma admits her history with Kaori, but swears that her vow to love only Nagisa for all eternity was completely the truth.

New Bits

The first novel basically followed the continuity of the Strawberry Panic! manga, which I have previously reviewed. (Volume 1 and Volume 2) Volume 1 included most of most service-filled scenes from the first half of the anime, as well…I’m convinced that the author was required to include those by the editor.

Volume 2 completely digresses from both manga and anime storylines. It begins with a letter being delivered to Russia (HAH! Bet you didn’t expect that!) to one Kusanagi Makoto, a former Spica student. Upon learning that her beloved Prince Amane is running for Etoile with a no-name transfer student, Makoto leaves her training as a violinist and runs back to Spica to “save” it from the horror.

Meanwhile in Miator, Student Council President Rokujyou Miyuki comes up with a plan so clever that if you stuck a tail on it you could call it a weasel. Amane, it turns out, was dead against this whole women-loving-women thing that went on at Astoria. She had previously proclaimed that she was not interested in such lesbian goings on……then she met Hikari and fell head over heels. As a result, she’s basically overwhelmed and on fire for her newfound love. Miyuki changes the second contest from a tennis doubles match to “The Devil Without a Face” in which the Ane and Cadet are not allowed to see one another for two solid weeks. Many a potential couple had broken under the pressure – either they couldn’t stand the strain and had cheated, or one partner had decided that they *could* do without the other. Two weeks is long enough for doubt and distrust to creep in….

Before the contest begins on St. Meriadoc’s Day (June 8, if you care) the schools are gathering together for large meals each night at one of the school dining halls. Into one of these comes Makoto, who showily commands the attention of everyone by declaring her love for another student – without saying who it is. Neither Amane nor Hikari are in the hall at the moment, conveniently.

Also that night, Lu Lim Student Council President Minamoto Chikaru shows up and plants in Nagisa a seed of unhappiness about how wonderful the late Kaori was and how much Shizuma still misses her.

Before the contest begins, Shizuma meets Nagisa in secret. Before they part for two weeks, Shizuma gives Nagisa a hickey to remember her by. On the same night, Amane and Hikari sneak out together. Hikari kisses Amane before they part.

Chikaru meets up with Makoto, who is so focused on Amane that she does not kiss Chikaru when the opportunity presents itself. Chikaru asks Makoto for a favor…

Hikari’s roommate Yaya is her number one fan. Yaya is absolutely in love with Hikari, but isn’t going to stand in her way – in fact, she’s her biggest friend and supporter against the other students who have been bullying Hikari quite a bit. But on night 10, Yaya takes Hikari out to look at the stars and her heart breaks at the way Hikari is trying to be strong in her loneliness. She embraces Hikari, and they fall into the pool. Overcome by Hikari’s beauty, Yaya strips her roommate and strokes her skin under the moonlight.

While they are apart from their beloved Ane, both Nagisa and Hikari are practicing for the dance competition. Kenjou Kaname, who resents Hikari deeply for taking “her” place at Amane’s side, finds that she is starting to understand what Amane sees in this girl, who looks so much like an angel. Nagisa, in the meantime, is filled with a dark desire to know more about Kaori.

Shizuma has a dream, in which Kaori comes to her as an angel and tells her to be happy.

On the next to last night of the contest, Makoto holds a concert. The whole school attends. Amane and Hikari meet up in secret and later that night, they sneak off to be together. They are immediately discovered by, who else, Makoto, who brings one of the nuns and the three Student Council Presidents as witnesses. Amane and Hikari are disqualified.

One the last day of the contest, Nagisa can’t take another second – she finds Shizuma and demands to know more about Kaori. As Shizuma tells her what she wants to know, she is filled with the certainty that Shizuma is still in love with Kaori – and that their relationship is a sham.

The Spica Student Council is determining who will be their replacement for the dance contest when Lu Lim President Chikaru shows up and admits to being the one who sabotaged both sides. Spica President Toumori Shion asks why, since Lu Lim didn’t want the title. Chikaru explains that Lu Lim *did* want the title. In fact, the “Henshin Club” (the cosplay club run by Chikaru) was a front for her real plan – to turn her harem of underclassmen into school idols and future Etoile. The cosplay was all part of teaching them different roles and responsibilities and to promote them around the school.

As the third and final competition, the dance contest, begins, Amane and Hikari quietly leave the school together, and Nagisa officially pulls herself from the Etoile contest.

The dance contest starts, with Makoto and Student Council Secretary Tsubomi representing Spica and Chikaru’s protégés Remon and Kizuna representing Lu Lim.

End of Book.

I thought that the author did a pretty decent job of adding depth to most of the characters, changing several for the better. Amane and Hikari particularly, were given actual personalities; Yaya’s pain was given some depth; Miyuki continues to be far snarkier and funnier than her anime incarnation; and Nagisa’s behavior makes actual sense. Chikaru, while gaining depth, is also really creepy throughout the novel. I really liked how her cosplay obsession was made into part of the plot (her’s and the book’s.) Extra points to the author for that. :-)

Shizuma remains undeveloped if, perhaps, a bit sweeter and less manipulative than the anime version. Shion took the biggest hit in this novel – she sort of loses all personality and just spends the book being stunned and shocked. Kaname becomes a nasty temper on the hoof – I quite liked her, but I wish she’d stop obsessing about Amane. It’s getting tired.

Lastly, Tamao. I am not in alignment with most of Yuri fandumb in revering her anime incarnation. But I do not find sexual harassment appealing – whether it’s done by a woman or not. In the novels, she’s just annoying to me. Nagisa’s clueless – despite having been at school for several months now – and Tamao steadfastly provides no useful information. Their conversations look like this:

N: “Meowmeow? What’s that?”
T: “Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t know about it. Oh well, you’ll find out. Tee hee!”

Every time the two of them had a conversation, the book ground to a halt in my opinion.

Overall, while less servicey than anime, manga or the first novel, I think that this book is really quite entertaining. There’s a genuine attempt by the author to imbue these characters with some real dimension and the plot with some real oomph.

Ratings:

Art – 6 (one point off for so often illustrating things we don’t want to see and not illustrating the ones we do)
Characters – 7
Story – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Last comment: EVERYTIME Hikari appears, she cries. Every time. No exceptions. It would make a good drinking game – drink when Hikari cries. You’d be blotto by page 50. It’s a 300+ page book.

One of the many reasons I began teaching myself Japanese was because I resented having to rely on translators’ interpretations. I know that in translation one is always balancing “feel” and “sense” and I wanted to be able to read things in the original in order to be able to grasp both, without someone making my decisions for me.

So, since Seven Seas will be coming out with a translation of the Strawberry Panic light novels, I wanted to read them first in Japanese, so I could better appreciate how they were reproduced in English.

Let me give you this piece of background info, that should help you appreciate my feelings about this novel:

On average, it takes me three months to translate a 200 page Maria-sama ga Miteru light novel. If I am reading for myself, without translating, it takes me about a month to read, with the assistance of at least two dictionaries and a translation tool.

…It took me *4 days* to read this 300+ page novel.

With one dictionary.

If you can’t appreciate the significance of that, let me add this piece of information: the amount of furigana in this novel was astounding. There was so much furigana that I’m tempted to think that their target audience is 12 year olds. Tops. Comparatively, there is very little furigana on any given page of a Maria-sama ga Miteru novel. As Tsutako explains to Yumi in an interesting metaconversation in Ibara no Mori (translated here by Erin Subramanian,) the audience for the book is really adults, although it is ostensibly a book for teens.

Strawberry Panic, Volume 1 (and I am still linking to the Japanese edition here, as that is what I am reviewing. When I review the English edition, I’ll link to that) is about the happenings at Astoria, an old, tradition-laden campus that is composed of three distinct schools: St. Miator, St. Spica and St. LuLim.

Miator is the oldest and, in many ways, the most powerful. Spica is the second oldest, and sort of “mod” to Miator’s “traditional.” LuLim is the youngest of the three, and “eclectic” in comparison with both the other schools.

The events and characterizations in the novel follow the manga closely – this one novel pretty much covers the events in the two manga volumes (Here are the reviews for Volume 1 and Volume 2.) Much of the clunkiest, most derivative junk that mucked up the anime has been shed, which is good. So, no memory loss, no global warming, no angsty avoidance. And much less open rip-offs of memes from other Yuri series. (Just one, other than the whole “Catholic schoolgirls misbehaving” thing.)

The opening of anime, manga and novel are almost identical, as we meet playgirl extraordinaire Hanazono Shizuma as she breaks up with her most recent paramour, and proceeds from there to meet – and be enchanted by – incoming transfer student Aoi Nagisa.

Early on, Shizuma determines that she will run for the school’s star positon, the Etoile, with Nagisa. This is unheard of, since she is in her final year at school, and cannot possibly hold the position for more than a few months…and her chosen partner is a transfer student who barely knows anything at all.

Her only real competition for the position is the junior year Prince of Spica, Ootori Amane. Their battle for the position is just about identical to that in the manga.

In Spica, the way Amane and meets her partner for Etoile, Konohana Hikari, differs strongly from manga and anime – and it makes a lot mores sense. So does the fact that they fall in love just about instantly without much fuss.

The first third of the novel is almost identical to the manga, with the creepy, servicey almost-kisses between Shizuma and Nagisa. But from there, the author seems to shed a lot of the less good stuff the story had piled on it, and manages to do a halfway decent job with what is left.

Which is not to say that this is a good story, but more on that later.

Here are some of the main differences between the versions.

We learn a LOT more about the individual schools and how they work. St. Spica, particularly, has some weird rules – all new transfer students live by themselves for two weeks. When you enter the Spica side of the dorms (and there is no free movement allowed between the three sides, so sneaking around for those midnight tea parties is really awkward) you have to ring a bell and announce your name. Even if, especially if, you’re a Spica student.

Hikari and Nagisa are both transfer students. So the first usual test for the younger partner in the Etoile, which is an exam on Astoria history, is canceled completely, as neither has had time to be able to compete fairly.

Nagisa is, as long as she isn’t speaking out loud, pretty much okay. Once, she’s so distressed that she forgets to refer to herself as “Nagisa” and instantly jumps up a notch in my estimation. She’s not nearly as stupid or whiny as the anime Nagisa was.

The vow-taking ceremony for Etoile couples is not held in the church, but in front of a replica of the Roman “Mouth of Truth”.  They get points on style, as they did in the manga. Spica council President Shion still tries to sabotage Shizuma, and fails.

Tamao is in love with Nagisa, but all her pervastic behavior is disappeared, leaving a very intense girl with a crush on her roommate. It was such a relief, let me tell you.

Shizuma tells Nagisa early on about the Etoile position and how it works. After she tries to seduce Nagisa in the library and fails, Shizuma backs off until, on the way back from the grand tour, they meet Chiyo and Tamao. When Tamao claims Nagisa as her “vitamin Nagisa,” Shizuma goes cold and serious and vows to run for Etoile with Nagisa. From that point on, the playboy seduction ends, and she really opens up to Nagisa, and tries to be a reasonable partner. Her expressions of interest in and like for Nagisa certainly seem much more trustworthy.

Miyuki is much, much snarkier in the novel. I liked that.  ^_^

Amane is less hesitant, and completely able to fight off Kaname’s desire to run for Etoile with her. Kaname is the boyish, dark-skinned Kaname of the manga, not the Evil Psycho Lesbian of the anime, so she and Momomi do not appear to be a couple at all. Kaname is interested only in Amane, and Momomi just likes drama. ^_^ We get a fair amount of time in Amane’s head, too, and we really learn just how much she hates being the school star and being idolized by all these girls. It’s not that she hates herself, or that she hates them, she really just doesn’t understand why they think she’s attractive, since she’s so boyish, and feels burdened by their idolization of her and the resulting celebrity she has to deal with all the time.

Hikari isn’t a stuttering ass, Amane isn’t a non-verbal freak. They are so much more likeable here where they are just *together*. Hikari is very lonely in the beginning, mostly because of the isolation rule. She’s contemplating leaving the school when she meets and falls for Amane. She is not nearly as much of a pushover as she is in either manga or anime.

Here’s some things that were the same:

The horseback race/rescue from the tower is still one of the Etoile tests for the elder partner – Amane and Hikari win, and Amane is really pretty showy and fun about it. (Not the acutely embarrassed Amane of the anime, for sure. And phew for that!)

Nagisa still refers to herself in third person.

Chiyo is still an annoying crybaby.

The midnight tea party in the center grounds of the Ichigosha dorms at the end of the manga is the same as well. With a slight difference. The midnight tea party in Nagisa and Tamao’s room is the same – but because we follow Yaya and Hikari there, through the really strict halls of the Spica side of Ichigosha, we get to see what kind of risk they take getting there.

And here are some things that are significant, and help make the novel better than the manga and a whole different class than the anime:

Nagisa does, yes, receive a note that leads her to the library, and to information about Shizuma’s late Etoile partner, Kaori. In the novel we get Nagisa’s thoughts on all this, which are (quite sensibly) that she feels as if Shizuma is using her, Nagisa, as a replacement for her dead lover. This was completely left out of the anime, so that long, (quite tedious,) arc after Nagisa learns about Kaori, in which she and Shizuma avoid one another, is never explained. This reaction was simple, realistic, logical and not overly prolonged. Nagisa ends the book by asking straight out about Kaori, and Shizuma responds straight out by telling her.

Through Shizuma’s thoughts we learn about Kaori very early in the novel, so we *know* that there’s more to Shizuma than just being a playgirl. We also know why she feels that she can never commit to someone like that again…and we see that blown away early on when she meets Nagisa.

The two girls who follow Shizuma around in the anime? Remember them? They are always behind her in the greenhouse. The *appear* to be the other Miator Student Council members…well, they’re actually Shizuma’s closest childhood friends, Hitomi and Mizuho. I very much liked the fact that Shizuma had some close friends.

And lastly, here are some of the things that are either relics of the anime/manga and had to be done, or just didn’t work.

At Miator, the wind is blowing. Fuu— Fuuu—, and the flowers swirl around. Swirl…dance….. If they took out *half* the references to the wind (Fuu–) and the flowers (swirling, swirling!) the book would be 20 pages shorter.

At Spica, they wear miniskirts. Did you know they wear miniskirts at Spica? Yes, miniskirts. Really. By the fifth or sixth mention I was fairly well-informed on the miniskirt situation and really, really didn’t need to be told again. But that didn’t stop the point from being made a few more times.

The utterly pointless scene in the library, where Yaya (who otherwise in the book is perfectly normal and kind of funny/nasty as she refers to Amane’s fanclub as “Amane wannabees”) sexually harrasses Hikari seems incredibly out of place. Shizuma trying to get a kiss from Nagisa feels slightly less absurd, but the whole scene had a sense of “the editor thinks this is sexy, so keep it in or else”. The same was true for the bath scene with Shizuma and Miyuki. The conversation could have been anywhere…and the service felt very forced and incongruous as Shizuma had already abandoned her playgirl persona by then.

All of these things had the distinct feeling of things that the author was *told* to include. None of them make the least little difference to the story, and most of them are very tiresome. They are all in the first third of the book. Starting at about halfway, the book seriously decreases in service, increases in character development and gets a fair power up in the not sucking utterly department.

The last scene, at that “secret” midnight tea party in the central garden of Ichigosha, (to which the entire school comes, but it’s still, somehow, “secret”) where Nagisa confronts Shizuma about Kaori (and Shizuma admits that she wasn’t going to tell Nagisa, and hoped that she wouldn’t find out) was handled as well as one could expect in this series. Amane and Hikari are given the Petite Crown for winning the horseback race contest…and the Etoile-sen continues in the next volume.

I really feel bad for the person working on the novel translation because, although this novel is miles better than the anime, and yards better than the manga, it is whole continents away from being as good as even the worst of the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels. In short, it pretty much bites. The author did a brave job with the material, but you can only do so much with…well, crap.

Ratings:

Art – 7 (light novel, it has pictures, remember?)
Story – starts at 3 and manages to claw its way to a 6 by the end
Characters – 3, except for Amane, who comes in at a surprising 5
Yuri – 9
Service – 9

Overall – 5, but only because the author really, REALLY worked at it.

I’m just dying to see how the English language version does! Because really, anyone who get past that wind, and those flowers deserves an award. ^_^; I really don’t envy that translator and adapter… That all having been said, this is light years better than the Drama CDs, which were service for the sake of service and not much more.