Strawberry Marshmallow (Ichigo Mashimaro) – Volume 1

I have been meaning to review this manga for awhile, but I have never gotten around to reviewing it. As I feel like taking a break from assignments, I felt that it was worthwhile to do a review of it while I had the chance. This manga is a very popular comedy/slice-of-life which spans over not only manga, but an anime series, a 3-part OVA series with another couple predicted and video games. Does it live up to the hype? Read on to find out.

Artwork: Whilst in comparison to future volumes, it is lacking in some criteria, it is overall very well done for the age of the manga, with some chapters going years and years back. Because apparantly this wasn’t supposed to be a manga series, the characters change hairstyles and appearances a few times however by the end, it has set to what they are currently. The series is meant to be shown as cuteish as well as come of humerous, which the artwork both delivers wonderfully. The best use of artwork was definately with Catsuri (Matsuri wearing Miu’s cat hat) and heck, any scene where comedy was portrayed. However, as mentioned above, with the characters changing hairstyles, especially with Nobue who originally looks much younger and has blonde hair, it makes you wonder who the characters are at times.

Characters: All the characters are very different to each other, with them all conflicting with one anothers to bring the comedy to the show. For example, Miu has a rather childish and jokerish personality which causes her to do silly things such as drug Matsuri to force her to fall asleep, whilst “investigating” her white hair and thinking of crazy ways to get herself and Chika to stay awake at night (Usually to painful results).

The other characters are interesting, with Nobue the cute-crazed, smoking highschool girl, Chika the serious girl being the one to often pick on Miu alongside her sister Nobue and Matsuri, another girl from the neighbourhood who is frail and timid and often picked on by Miu. The personalities are definately very funny to watch.

Storyline: Storyline? What Storyline? This is a comedy series, which each chapter being completely different. This isn’t very evident in this volume however future volumes do have a bit more of a structured storyline.

Extras/Quality: While there isn’t much in regards to extras, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a lack of it. This includes:

• Lots of great artwork which each of the characters in seasonal outfits after every chapter.
• A letter from the creator
• Next Episode Summary
• Advertising

In regards to the quality, it wasn’t that bad, however, I did find that there was a small printing error and just a few pages seemed to overlap the side of the page, causing in a small amount of those few, to have a letter or two of text missing. However, this is the only problem I found with the quality of it.

Overall:

Artwork: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Storyline:
Extras/Quality: 3.5/5
Personal Opinion: 4.5/5
Total: 4.5/5

Definately something I would recommend anyone read if they are into the light-hearted comedy or just like cuteish manga!