Strawberry Marshmallow
Strawberry Marshmallow 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 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 Ichigo Mashumaro.
Plot
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 allusions, 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.Characters
;Nobue Ito;Chika Ito
;Miu Matsuoka
;Matsuri Sakuragi
;Ana Coppola
Media
Manga
The Strawberry Marshmallow manga, written and illustrated by Barasui, began serialization in ASCII Media Works's Dengeki Daioh magazine on February 15, 2002. The first tankōbon was released on January 27, 2003, and seven volumes have been released as of March 27, 2013. 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. 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.Anime
A 12-episode Strawberry Marshmallow anime series produced by Daume and directed by Takuya Satō 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 went out of print. The anime series was later re-licensed by Sentai Filmworks. Three original video animation 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 CDs 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, two soundtrack albums for the original anime, and two soundtrack albums for the OVA.Visual novel
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.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 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, 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 Network 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 ', contrasts the two series and calls Strawberry Marshmallow'' "purely juvenile gaze-into-the-girls-world stuff".