You may be asking yourself: “Say what now? Has Shirukii lost what little shred of sanity he had left?”. I assure you that while my current level of sanity is rather low, it is still there. You read that right, I believe that Strawberry Panic existed two years ago, under the name Maria-sama ga Miteru.

The setting of this anime is a private boarding school for girls called Le Rim Lilian. The series begins with a timid first year, Fukuzawa Yumi, having a chance meeting with the beautiful school idol, Ogasawara Sachiko. It is later revealed that Sachiko-sama is part of a student counsel-esque commitee whose three leaders are known as Roses. …NagisaXShizuma anyone?

The similarities are numerous, and I’m only on episode 5. The academy has a “soeur” system (French for sister) in which senpais take kouhais under their wing and use them as slaves. Extremely similar to the room attendant system St. Miator has, except that it isn’t random, the girls choose their soeurs. In terms of specific events, there has been a school festival which included a traditional play put on by the student body, which incidentally also ended up in controversy. Remember that scene where Shizuma and Nagisa played a piano duet? Virtually copy and pasted from this anime, with slightly better lighting.

Also, there are many parallels in characters. For every character in Strawberry Panic (Nagisa, Shizuma, Amane, Chikaru…etc) there is a matching archetype in Maria-sama ga Miteru…or, as it were, the other way around. Add in the heavy Catholic overtones and you’ve got two very similar shows.

However, that’s not to say they aren’t without their differences. For one, Maria-sama has a severe lack of yuri for a yuri show (StrawPani suffered from this too at the early stages). So far, no ShizumaXNagisa or YayaXHikari grade grope scenes =( Furthermore, in a more realistic fashion, the girls do not completely ignore the existence of males and for the moment do not show an unnatural and immediate attraction to members of the same sex. There have even been two occasions where males have been shown on screen!

There is the possibility that I’m just forcing these similarities onto the shows though, so an objective opinion from someone who has watched both would be nice. If not, and there are fans of Strawberry Panic out there, check this anime out, tell me what you think. And by that, I mean reassure me that I haven’t completely lost it.

Again, sorry for the poor screenshot quality, I suck at this T_T

Same “OMG =O” face on both of the girls, ne?

~ Shirukii ~