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it was a hella great anime until ((spoiler?)) my blondie home boy got rejected and my heart could not handle the stress lmao
watch it if you feel like hating the world
if u do feel free to pm me i will console u for the cheap price of $9.99 per minute

Before you decide my review is already too biased what with the perfect marks. . Do read this review and try the manga out first.
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Story: 10/10. Classic romcom story with nice, subtle changes.
Horimiya is, undeniably, a high school romance comedy. It's not something that can be argued about. Thus, you can predict the general idea of how the story goes- girl meets guy, they fall in love, but there's another who was already in love with girl. However, what makes the story so amazing (that is, for a highschool romcom) is that it takes the classic story line and adds twists to it. Sadly, ... as I want this to be a spoiler free review so you can properly enjoy the manga, I won't be able to provide any examples. Trust me when I say they are there, though, and that you will probably adore them.

Art: 9/10. Beautiful, detailled, and gorgeous; practically flawless.
As far as I can tell, almost all romcoms have beautiful art. Horimiya is not an exception. There's not much more to say here. If there are flaws in the art, they are so minor that I haven't even noticed them . . after rereading all available chapters four times.
. . Plus, the boys are pure eye candy. Just FYI. Every night, I cry when I remember that they don't exist in real life.

Character: 9/10. Nothing amazingly unique, but still loveable.
The characters are your somewhat "classic romcom characters." You have the pretty, smart, and housewife-like main female character, the handsome but broody-looking main male character, the second main male character that also likes the main female character, and the airheaded, but loving, best friend of both main characters. You can usually predict what they will do and say, but it doesn't make them any less amazing. Plus, they /do/ things that you don't expect them to at times. Furthermore, they go through a surprising amount of development; even some of the minor characters.

Enjoyment: 10/10.
How could I not enjoy this? As a person who is tired of the usual animes and mangas found in the shoujo genre, Horimiya is not just a breath of fresh air- it is a whole, friggin' whirlwind. But a good whirlwind. As I've said, I've read it 4 times already; why would I do that if I didn't absolutely love and enjoy the manga?

Overall: 10/10.
The mangaka splendidly twists the usual highschool romcom story to make a very enjoyable manga; on top of that, he/she/it also twists the characters, which at first seem just like your usual, average set of characters. Moreover, the art is just a visual feast. I highly recommend this to anybody craving some romcoms but incapable of watching things like Amnesia with a straight face. Of course, if you like Amnesia, you will still like Horimiya.

Thank you for reading this review, and I hoped it helped you. Please provide some feedback if possible so I can better my writing. C8

Strawberry Panic is, in a strange sort of way, like Naruto. It's the most popular in it's genre, and even if you've never read either of them, you know they exist and their basic concept. However, the important thing I'm getting to here is that they are both overrated and suck. As this is just a review for Strawberry Panic, it is now time to drop the topic of Naruto and move on.

Story: 5. Simple story that is executed poorly.
The story of Strawberry Panic is fairly simple and nothing special; a transfer student moves into an all-girls highschool full of- you guessed it- lesbians. ... There, they compete with the other all-girls highschools in the area for some sort of competition for the best couple, or as they call it in the manga, "etoile." I don't mind that it's a simple story; that's not how I critic things. Simple stories can still be very enjoyable when executed properly, after all. However, this is where Strawberry Panic does it's very worst. (Or maybe second worst. More on that later.) The plot jumps all over the place, and the pacing is horrible. Honestly, a story like this deserves a couple of more chapters. There is no preparation for the etoile competition as far as I can tell, and the competition itself appears much earlier then I feel it should. There is absolutely no suspense, thus making the story seem very boring and rushed. I've never seen the anime, but I'm thinking it's probably better paced then the manga as it has much more time to go through everything. Furthermore, the competition itself is actually very boring and almost, well, stupid. Apparently, the mangaka felt the competition shouldn't actually be the main point of the story (despite the whole manga revolving around it), using the competition instead to add some drama between the participating couples, as well as several "KYAAA"-able scenes. Not a very good decision imo.

Art: 7. Decent, but nothing special.
However, if you are just the average, shallow manga reader looking for cute girls doing cute, lesbian things, you are in luck. The art is considerably fair for this sort of manga (I'm assuming yuri art is as bad as yaoi's; one look at those triangular faces saying "I love you, ****-chan" is enough to make anybody cry.) Just remember: I said the art is fair, not the most gorgeous, delicious, beautiful, trunkylicoiaowufsxdmjgh thing I've ever seen. In other words, the art is acceptable, but there are flaws. Most of those flaws can be overlooked, though, so the art still gets a 7/10.

Character: 5. Static, boring, and cliche characters.
As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no character development. None. The characters are all static. This would've been okay if the characters had at least been interesting, but they're not. Just your typical, cliche, stereotypical characters. You can predict everything they do and say; even what they think. On top of that, almost everything they do seems corny and over the top in some way.

Enjoyment: 8.
Why? Just because. Enjoyment of a series has nothing to do with how good it is in the viewers eyes; for example, I believe Fairy Tail to be a extremely repetitive series with all the usual stereotypical shonen elements that is extremely flawed. However, I /still/ love it. Strawberry Panic satisfies my hunger for yuri, so it /did/ complete it's main goal: provide the world with a bunch of lesbians, varying from cute to cool to handsome to nearly yandere-like princesses to lolis to perverts to megane-girls. You could say Strawberry Panic is my guilty pleasure that I like to read in the corner of my room where nobody can see me.

Overall: 6. Nothing special. Not horribly bad, but no where near good.
The story is in the dumps, the art is average, the characters is in the dumps as well, but the story is still enjoyable. Considering it is fairly short, it has a slightly higher reread value then some other series. Whether or not you'd ever want to reread it, though, is a completely different topic. I would not recommend this book to picky readers that want everything to be perfect (or as close as it can get) as this book is chock full of flaws. If you are just a bored otaku looking for something to pass time, though, then this would be a decent fit. (I am taking the liberty of assuming you like or at least don't hate yuri; if you did, you probably wouldn't waste time reading this review.)


Thank you for reading this review. Please provide any sort of feedback so I can better my writing. :D