This was my first venture into the wonderful world of yuri/shoujo ai and I do not regret it at all. Though not the best anime I’ve seen, Strawberry Panic (henceforth called Yuri Panic) was unexpectedly good. When I first thought of yuri, strong images of unnecessary girl on girl fanservice flooded to my head and led me to a bias against it. And as most anime fans will attest to, fanservice for the sake of fanservice (and I use fanservice in its panty-flashing connotation) can and often will ruin a scene, episode or even the entire series. That being said, I avoided the genre like the plague. However, ravings of Yuri Panic’s deep plot and character relationships intrigued me enough to risk it.

Yuri Panic revolves around the daily happenings of three interconnected all girl schools, Miator, Spica and Le Rim. The students have seemingly been brought up to despise men and the gender is completely non-existant in this world. I don’t know if it’s a direct result of the previous point but ALL the girls have a completely natural and instinctive attraction to members of the same sex. It’s not even questioned, it’s just how it is, in this world they’re all lesbians. Now this may seem like a set up for the copious amounts of fanservice that I mentioned before, but surprisingly, Yuri Panic doesn’t go down that road at all. In fact, actual yuri scenes were so few and far between (until the end) that if there was a guy or two in the mix, we’d have a perfectly normal harem.

If you’ve read my reviews and summaries in the past, you know that I value characters over all other aspects. The amount of character drama that was in this anime was off the charts and the relationship web was the most elaborate I’ve ever seen. The sheer volume of characters was intimidating at first, but they all had their places. The main characters were distinctly identified as such, whereas third party and supporting characters played their minor roll and relegated to background scenery, it was all very well done.

Although there was a lot drama in the series, it wasn’t all good. There were scenes and arcs that seemed to be forcing the action forward and it turned out horribly. Actually, the ratio of good:bad drama in Yuri Panic was roughly 1:1. The show’s quality in almost all of its aspects (animation, plot, sound, voice acting, action) was very inconsistent. When it was good it was AMAZING, but when it sucked I really had to struggle through episodes. However, overall, I think the good outweighed the bad.

The animation, as mentioned, was inconsistent. The fluidity of motion and the scenery varied over a huge spectrum. Sometimes we were presented with beautifully fitting and detailed backgrounds and character designs accompanied by fluid movement and detail. Other times it looks like the a whole episode was put together by a flash newbie learning the basics of tweening. Although not a crushing blow to the overall appeal, when a climactic and dramatically charged scene is accompanied by terrible animation and detail, it definitely detracts from the effect.

The music and BGMs were excellent for the most part. The OPs and EDs for both seasons were catchy and fitting, I even dled them to listen in the eternal breaks between episodes. The BGM music was particularily well done, ESPECIALLY the occasional piano classics, I’m a sucker for classical background music. Although the music isn’t about to stick with me for months to come (a la Haruhi) it got the job done and complimented most scenes very well.

Seiyuus…I’m sort of on the fence on this. Some characters were a perfect fit while others were just plain annoying. Thankfully, most of the main character’s seiyuus did a good job, Tamao, Rokujou and Shizuma standing out as excellent. The second party characters, unfortunately, were not represented as well…Yaya, that girl with the bear and Nagisa’s room maid were particularily annoying. Overall I think they did a pretty good job, but the high tension scenes would have been just that much more convincing if the voice acting had been executed flawlessly =(

All in all, an excellent anime, a definite recommendation to ANYONE, yuri fans or otherwise. However, if you are a yuri or shoujo ai fan, you may find the lack of actual yuri scenes disappointing. There’s some groping, kissing and occasional nude embrace, but (with a few exceptions) these scenes are mostly static and probably not what you have in mind. To those who are terrified of yuri because of the parallel phenomenon of yaoi *shudders*, like I was, fear not! This is not at all what you think it might be like. Yuri Panic has a great base storyline, dramatic plot, memorable characters and decent execution, definitely worth the time. It’s basically a story about an all girl school filled with sexually deprived, sapphic schoolgirls…with a description like that, you can’t help but watch! XD

Oh, and if you’ve just finished Yuri Panic and are looking for a replacement, I think Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru in the fall season is looking to be a good stand in. Alternatively, check out Maria-sama ga Miteru, which is essentially the same show, but with even less yuri…which can be either a good or bad thing, depending on how much you like the yuri aspect or how much you love the drama aspect.

But enough rambling, go watch this, nao! You won’t regret it

~ Shirukii ~