Strawberry Marshmallow
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese manga
series by Barasui
about the adventures of four elementary school girls and their older sister-figure. It began serialization in ASCII Media Works
' manga magazine Dengeki Daioh
in 2002. In 2005, the series was adapted into an anime
series and a PlayStation 2
video game. Three original video animation
(OVA) episodes were later released from February to April 2007. Another two-episode OVA project titled Strawberry Marshmallow Encore was released in 2009. There is an unrelated manga titled .
s, such as Ana's dog Frusciante being named after John Frusciante
of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
, while episode eight of the anime sees two goldfish called Richard and James
. The title itself was inspired from "Mashimaro", a single by Japanese rock artist Tamio Okuda
.
The Strawberry Marshmallow manga
, written and illustrated by Barasui
, was first serialized in the Japanese shōnen
manga magazine Dengeki Daioh
published by ASCII Media Works
on February 15, 2002. The manga has been licensed and is published by Tokyopop
in both the United States
and Germany
; the French
company Kurokawa also have licensed the manga. As of March 2009, six bound volumes
have been published. Early chapters of the manga break the fourth wall
, especially in the first volume, where Chika often turns to face the readers when describing her plight.
series produced by Daume
and directed by Takuya Sato
aired in Japan between July 14 and October 13, 2005 on the TBS
Japanese television network,. The anime series was licensed for English language
distribution by Geneon
, but due to the shutdown of their anime division, the series is out of print. Three original video animation
(OVA) episodes were later released between February 23 and April 25, 2007. A two-episode OVA series titled Strawberry Marshmallow Encore was released between January 23 and March 25, 2009.
were released between July 22, 2005 and August 25, 2006 on the Frontier Works
record label. They use the same voice actresses as the anime. There have also been four character song
singles (one for each girl except Nobue), two "Toy-CDs", two soundtrack albums for the original anime and two soundtrack albums for the OVA.
The visual novel
, under the original title of Ichigo Mashimaro, was developed by ASCII Media Works
for the PlayStation 2
based on the series under an all-ages CERO
rating. The game was first released on August 11, 2005, and was re-released on March 8, 2007 under a 'The Best' budget price.
Character designs are even more inconsistent with the visual novel, which uses a mix between the manga and anime's styles while throwing in some new departures of its own. For example: Matsuri has blonde hair in the visual novel, whereas she has white or gray hair in other mediums. Early chapters of the manga also had Miu drawn almost identical to Chika, with their hair length being the only visible difference between them.
In addition, some of the girls' personalities are slightly different in each media: Matsuri is shown to be a little more defensive in the manga than her anime counterpart, which was demonstrated by her slapping or shoving Miu away when the latter got overboard with her pranks, while she never (deliberately) laid a finger on Miu in the anime. There are also subtle differences in Miu and Chika's personalities between the manga and the anime: Miu is more random and unpredictable in the manga compared to her anime counterpart. Chika is also targeted by Miu more often in the manga as compared to the anime (but not as much as Matsuri is), resulting in more outbursts of anger from her in the manga.
has described Strawberry Marshmallow as "a clever little comedy that delivers laughs via its straight-faced approach" and has mentioned that "There is something uniquely appealing about Marshmallows deadpan delivery". Dirk Deppey from The Comics Journal
stated that "Barasui sets up his comic situations with little if any extraneous padding and plays out the resulting gags with the skill and grace of a master craftsman".
Erica Friedman of Yuricon
has called the series "too-cute-to-hate". Friedman has also criticized the English-language adaptation of the manga for not providing any translations for sound effects and not giving any explanations for some puns. Jason Thompson
, writing about The Last Uniform
for the appendix to Manga: The Complete Guide
, contrasts the two series and calls Strawberry Marshmallow "purely juvenile gaze-into-the-girls-world stuff".
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series by Barasui
Barasui
is the pseudonym of a Japanese manga artist. He is most known for the manga series Strawberry Marshmallow, which has been made into an anime series and OVA. He also had a part in the Weekly Dearest My Brother series.-External links:...
about the adventures of four elementary school girls and their older sister-figure. It began serialization in ASCII Media Works
ASCII Media Works
is a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group which formed on April 1, 2008 as a result of a merger between ASCII and MediaWorks where MediaWorks legally absorbed ASCII. Despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company...
' manga magazine Dengeki Daioh
Dengeki Daioh
is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works under the Dengeki brand. Many manga serialized in Dengeki Daioh were later published in tankōbon volumes under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Comics imprint. The magazine is sold every month on the 27th...
in 2002. In 2005, the series was adapted into an anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series and a PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
video game. Three original video animation
Original video animation
, abbreviated as media , are animated films and series made specially for release in home-video formats. The term originated in relation to Japanese animation...
(OVA) episodes were later released from February to April 2007. Another two-episode OVA project titled Strawberry Marshmallow Encore was released in 2009. There is an unrelated manga titled .
Themes
According to the manga, Strawberry Marshmallow is set in Hamamatsu, Japan. Seasons play an important role throughout Strawberry Marshmallow as the characters are involved in many normal seasonal activities. The series is speckled with many small, music-related allusionAllusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
s, such as Ana's dog Frusciante being named after John Frusciante
John Frusciante
John Anthony Frusciante is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, record and film producer. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he had been for a number of years and recorded five studio albums...
of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
, while episode eight of the anime sees two goldfish called Richard and James
Aphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
. The title itself was inspired from "Mashimaro", a single by Japanese rock artist Tamio Okuda
Tamio Okuda
is a singer, songwriter, and producer. He started his career in 1986 as a member of the band Unicorn. After Unicorn broke up, Okuda moved on to a solo career in 1994 with the single "Ai no Tame ni." He has written and composed many songs for various artists, particularly Puffy...
.
Characters
- Nobue is the eldest main character. She is Chika's older sister and usually has final authority on all matters. She often tries to "borrow" money from Chika to buy cigaretteCigaretteA cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s. Nobue is perpetually searching for a part-time job to earn money for more cigarettes to calm her nicotine addictionTobacco smokingTobacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the resulting smoke is inhaled. The practice may have begun as early as 5000–3000 BCE. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 16th century where it followed common trade routes...
.
- The story suggests that Nobue derives some kind of sensual pleasure from watching the girls do cute things. In this respect, Nobue appears to appreciate the moe aestheticAestheticsAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
. It is seen during the anime that Nobue prefers Matsuri and Ana over Chika and Miu.
- The Nobue character changed from the manga to the anime. In the manga, she is a sixteen-year-old high school freshman, while in the anime she is a twenty-year-old junior-college student. Her age is presumably changed because of her smoking and drinking habit, both becoming legal in Japan at age twenty. In the first episode of the anime, she initially introduces herself as a sixteen-year-old, intended to be a joke as she quickly states that she is really twenty. She tends to act somewhat less mature in her manga incarnation, doing things such as tricking Matsuri into thinking that Miu is dead. Her appearance changes radically in the early stages of the manga, especially her hair, which goes from blond to dark brown (and is black in the anime).
- Chika is one of two twelve-year-olds in the story. Chika is the same age as Miu, and attends the same class as her neighbor Miu. Chika is a cheerful girl who shows more common sense than the other girls, especially Miu. Her main role in the series is that of an average, twelve-year-old girl, which is emphasized in the first manga volume, where Nobue describes Chika as specializing 'in being totally generic'. Her special skill is cooking, especially baking cookies. Chika is Nobue's little sister. She is nicknamed Chi-chan or just Chi.
- Miu is another twelve-year-old girl who is depicted in the story as having a problem-child personality. A childhood friend of Chika, she lives next door to the Ito house and attends the same class as Chika. Miu likes to say random things out of the blue and often plays pranks on Matsuri and Ana, but is most of the time interrupted by Nobue (and sometimes by Chika), ending up lying face-down on the floor. She has the least common sense or manners of the girls, and is rarely taken seriously because of her weird ideas and comments. She seems to harbor some sort of jealousy of Ana and Matsuri, because Nobue finds them cuter. She does not have any delicacy and tends to do things that bother people around her. Miu is nicknamed "Micchan". Miu has been described as "Yotsuba KoiwaiYotsuba Koiwai, also known as just , is a fictional character from the comedy manga series Yotsuba&!, as well as the one-shot manga "Try! Try! Try!", both by Kiyohiko Azuma...
with fangs". - While she is often causing trouble for the other girls, an interview with the cast that was published in volume 4 of the manga series reveals that Miu is extremely fond of Chika, whom she dubs as her 'one and only'. The interview also goes on to claim that Miu derives satisfaction from amusing Chika, and that she will never go to bed before making sure that Chika's room light is turned off. There are also scenes within the manga which hint at signs of lesbianism from Miu towards Chika; when Miu reveals that the both of them have kissed and rubbed each other's breasts, Chika makes no attempt to deny the claims or defend herself.
- Matsuri, nicknamed "Mats" in the manga, is an eleven-year-old glasses-wearing girlMeganekkois a Japanese word which translates to "glasses girl"....
with a pet ferretFerretThe ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...
named John, and is depicted as having a very timid personality in the story. She is often the subject of Miu's teasing and can resort to crying and hiding behind Nobue. She is one grade below Chika and Miu, in the same class as Ana, with whom she quickly became friends. Matsuri discovers that Ana can speak Japanese fluently and helps her hide both her Japanese language skills and her lack of English language skills from the rest of their class. While she has gray hair in the anime, her hair is white in the manga.
- Ana is an eleven-year-old girl who originally came from CornwallCornwallCornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, five years before the series, but seems to have forgotten how to speak English. She first pretends that she speaks only English, but it is not long before she is discovered by Matsuri while speaking very polite Japanese. Matsuri tries to help her re-learn English. Ana is often teased by Miu because of her name, Ana Coppola, which in Japanese sounds like a typical psychomime (a form of onomatopoeic sound). Ana really dislikes her last name for that and becomes angry every time Miu calls her "Coppola-chan". Miu also makes things worse by spelling her name in kanjiKanjiKanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
to mean . Ana's "proper Japanese" personality is reflected by her very traditionally feminine and polite speaking style. And her impressive knowledge of Japanese words, kanji, customs and traditions makes her more "Japanese" than most Japanese people (which she also tries to hide). Later in the series, her ability to speak Japanese is discovered by the other students in her class. Ana owns a pet dog.
Manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
, written and illustrated by Barasui
Barasui
is the pseudonym of a Japanese manga artist. He is most known for the manga series Strawberry Marshmallow, which has been made into an anime series and OVA. He also had a part in the Weekly Dearest My Brother series.-External links:...
, was first serialized in the Japanese shōnen
Shonen
The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...
manga magazine Dengeki Daioh
Dengeki Daioh
is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works under the Dengeki brand. Many manga serialized in Dengeki Daioh were later published in tankōbon volumes under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Comics imprint. The magazine is sold every month on the 27th...
published by ASCII Media Works
ASCII Media Works
is a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group which formed on April 1, 2008 as a result of a merger between ASCII and MediaWorks where MediaWorks legally absorbed ASCII. Despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company...
on February 15, 2002. The manga has been licensed and is published by Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
in both the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
; the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
company Kurokawa also have licensed the manga. As of March 2009, six bound volumes
Tankobon
, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...
have been published. Early chapters of the manga break the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
, especially in the first volume, where Chika often turns to face the readers when describing her plight.
Anime
A 12-episode Strawberry Marshmallow animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series produced by Daume
Daume
is a Japanese animation studio.- TV series :* D4 Princess * I Love Bubu Chacha * Hanaukyo Maid Team series * Please Teacher! * Please Twins! * DearS * Strawberry Marshmallow...
and directed by Takuya Sato
Takuya Sato
' is a Japanese script writer and director of anime.-Works:*Street Fighter II V Assistant Director*Harimogu Harry Storyboard, Episode Director*NieA 7 Director, Script*Princess Tutu eps. 6,11 Script...
aired in Japan between July 14 and October 13, 2005 on the TBS
Tokyo Broadcasting System
, TBS Holdings, Inc. or TBSHD, is a stockholding company in Tokyo, Japan. It is a parent company of a television network named and radio network named ....
Japanese television network,. The anime series was licensed for English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
distribution by Geneon
Geneon
is a Japanese music, anime and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise headquartered in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Geneon has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime in Japan...
, but due to the shutdown of their anime division, the series is out of print. Three original video animation
Original video animation
, abbreviated as media , are animated films and series made specially for release in home-video formats. The term originated in relation to Japanese animation...
(OVA) episodes were later released between February 23 and April 25, 2007. A two-episode OVA series titled Strawberry Marshmallow Encore was released between January 23 and March 25, 2009.
Audio CDs
Five Strawberry Marshmallow drama CDsRadio drama in Japan
Radio drama in Japan has a history as long as that of radio broadcasting in that country, which began in 1925. Some consider the first Japanese radio drama to have been "" which was a radio broadcast of a stage play. Others consider the Japanese translation of Richard Hughes's "Danger" or to be...
were released between July 22, 2005 and August 25, 2006 on the Frontier Works
Frontier Works
is a Japanese company specializing in the creation and distribution of media related to anime, such as producing OVAs, radio dramas, drama CDs, anime soundtracks, or other related products...
record label. They use the same voice actresses as the anime. There have also been four character song
Image song
An image song or character song is a song on a tie-in single or album for an anime, game or dorama that is usually sung by the seiyū or actor of a character, in character...
singles (one for each girl except Nobue), two "Toy-CDs", two soundtrack albums for the original anime and two soundtrack albums for the OVA.
Visual novel
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
, under the original title of Ichigo Mashimaro, was developed by ASCII Media Works
ASCII Media Works
is a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group which formed on April 1, 2008 as a result of a merger between ASCII and MediaWorks where MediaWorks legally absorbed ASCII. Despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company...
for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
based on the series under an all-ages CERO
Computer Entertainment Rating Organization
The is a Japanese entertainment rating organization based in Tokyo. rating video game content in console games with levels of rating that informs the customer of the nature of the product and for what age group it is suitable...
rating. The game was first released on August 11, 2005, and was re-released on March 8, 2007 under a 'The Best' budget price.
Differences between media
There are several, large differences between the manga and anime versions of the series such as the much earlier introduction of Ana in the anime than the manga. In the manga, Ana does not appear until the second volume, while she makes her debut in the second episode of the anime. Events that take place in the manga never appeared in the anime, and chapters that were adapted were mixed together or were altered. For example: episode seven of the anime, "Going to the Sea", mixes elements of episode nine, "Critical Investigation", and ten, "Beach Challenge" of the first volume of the manga. While Ana is present in the anime episode, she was not in the manga versions at all. Character designs were extremely inconsistent in the early stages of the manga, before Barasui knew that Strawberry Marshmallow would become a series.Character designs are even more inconsistent with the visual novel, which uses a mix between the manga and anime's styles while throwing in some new departures of its own. For example: Matsuri has blonde hair in the visual novel, whereas she has white or gray hair in other mediums. Early chapters of the manga also had Miu drawn almost identical to Chika, with their hair length being the only visible difference between them.
In addition, some of the girls' personalities are slightly different in each media: Matsuri is shown to be a little more defensive in the manga than her anime counterpart, which was demonstrated by her slapping or shoving Miu away when the latter got overboard with her pranks, while she never (deliberately) laid a finger on Miu in the anime. There are also subtle differences in Miu and Chika's personalities between the manga and the anime: Miu is more random and unpredictable in the manga compared to her anime counterpart. Chika is also targeted by Miu more often in the manga as compared to the anime (but not as much as Matsuri is), resulting in more outbursts of anger from her in the manga.
Reception
Strawberry Marshmallow has received positive reviews in English. Carlo Santos from Anime News NetworkAnime News Network
Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...
has described Strawberry Marshmallow as "a clever little comedy that delivers laughs via its straight-faced approach" and has mentioned that "There is something uniquely appealing about Marshmallows deadpan delivery". Dirk Deppey from The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal
The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels...
stated that "Barasui sets up his comic situations with little if any extraneous padding and plays out the resulting gags with the skill and grace of a master craftsman".
Erica Friedman of Yuricon
Yuricon
Yuricon is an anime convention geared toward fans of yuri anime and manga. The first Yuricon event was held in 2003 in Newark, New Jersey with about 200 attending, although Yuricon has existed as an online entity since 2000. The event was organized by Yuricon, LLC., which continues to run...
has called the series "too-cute-to-hate". Friedman has also criticized the English-language adaptation of the manga for not providing any translations for sound effects and not giving any explanations for some puns. Jason Thompson
Jason Thompson (writer)
Jason Thompson is a manga critic, journalist, writer and comics artist.-Life and career:...
, writing about The Last Uniform
The Last Uniform
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Mera Hakamada. The series was first serialized in the Japanese seinen manga magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat on February 24, 2007, published by Houbunsha, but later had concurrent serialization in the magazine Manga Time Kirara Max between May...
for the appendix to Manga: The Complete Guide
Manga: The Complete Guide
Manga: The Complete Guide is a 2007 encyclopedia written by Jason Thompson and published by Del Rey which provides basic details and short reviews of over 1000 Japanese manga titles that have been translated and released in English in North America...
, contrasts the two series and calls Strawberry Marshmallow "purely juvenile gaze-into-the-girls-world stuff".
External links
- Strawberry Marshmallow at TokyopopTokyopopTokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
- Strawberry Marshmallow at ASCII Media WorksASCII Media Worksis a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group which formed on April 1, 2008 as a result of a merger between ASCII and MediaWorks where MediaWorks legally absorbed ASCII. Despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company...
- Strawberry Marshmallow at TBSTokyo Broadcasting System, TBS Holdings, Inc. or TBSHD, is a stockholding company in Tokyo, Japan. It is a parent company of a television network named and radio network named ....