Strawberry Marshmallow - Cute Is as Cute Does (Vol. 1) [DVD]

Most of the anime seen in the US is created for the male Japanese market and in turn focussed to the American male market. There is little that comes to the US market of the 'shoujo' or girls' anime.Strawberry Marshmallow is one of those wonderful girls' anime that hits the mark. It's all about relationships and doing stuff together.The characterizations are crisp and the animation is excellent. Music is good, too. (I also recommend the sound track.)There are no worlds to save or monsters to conquer, just kids trying to deal with what life brings their way. A wonderful example is Ana Coppola, a blond, blue eyed, British girl who has been in Japan for most of her life. She struggles with her identity as being instantly recognized as a foreigner, but one who is completely immersed in the Japanese culture and fluent in the language to the point of being unsure of her native tongue.This is a light hearted romp through the lives of some mostly ordinary elementary school girls. One that I found extremely entertaining.(This review is based on viewing the original Japanese release. I am not sure yet how Ana's language differences will be handled by the US release.)

Strawberry Marshmallow vol.3 is the final disc of the short series , personally I wished they had put out more.This disc contains 4 episodes like the previous 2 installments. The episodes consist of one where Chika thinks she has gained weight, a trip meet Nobue who has offered to buy them cake , a visit to a public bath, and the gem of the disc, the girls sticking together to keep Matsuri's belief in Santa Claus alive. This show may not be to everyones liking. The pacing is slow and there's no rapid bombardment of sight gags and fan service. But if you like slice of life anime you'll probably like this show.

This and Haibane Renmei (for different reasons of course) have been far and away my favourite anime series for quite some time now. And though I don't really watch anime anymore, I'll always come back to this one when I need cheering up or am just in the mood to laugh. And I do laugh, a lot, while watching Strawberry Marshmallow. It's one of the funniest series I've ever seen, anime or otherwise. It's clever, it's layered; it's dry and esoteric at times. It's definitely not what you'd expect from an anime. And to top it off, it does a good job of bringing you back to your childhood when you were just being goofy with your friends (although, we definitely never had anyone as goofy as Miu around). Highly recommended.

This series (all 3 volumes) is adorable. It's a silly cutesy slice-of-life with cutesy silly girls and their reluctant chaperon, one of the girl's older sister. The English dub is amazing. I believe the English voice actresses fit the characters better than the Japanese ones. It sounds like they use actual age-realistic actresses for 3 of the 4 girls and the 4th is still good. The voice of Miu is exceptionally gifted in bringing that character to life which is crucial because she's the energetic mischievous one. I highly recommend this to any anime collector of this type of genre.

Anime news network summed it up pretty well , " Cute girls do cute things in cute ways." Its a good show, not great , but at such a cheap price its worth checking out.

Totally cute!

I love it so much... How sweet how touching how wonderful to behold! Also the character are adorable and cute as a button.

This product came in plastic wrap had no scratches, which I love. That's for the perfect dvd, just love this anime.