Strawberry Eggs, Vol. 1: Make-up Exam (2002)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Yuji Yamaguchi
Character Design by Maki Fujii
Music Direction by Yoshikazu Iwanami
Art Direction by Jiro Kouno

Features:

• Item
  
• Bilingual Student Roll-Call
  
• Art Gallery
  
• Non-Credit Opening
  
• Glossary
  
• Bilingual Menus
  
• English and Japanese audio
  
• English subtitles and text translations
  

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

• contrived plots
• ubiquitous panties as fan service
• dirty old men

Rating: 13+

Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Skip it.

Hibiki Amawa has a problem. His rent is due, and his landlady has threatened to kill him over it... and he has no job. He wants to be a gym teacher, but the only nearby school that's hiring is an all-girl's private school that only hires women to teach there. The principal is quite clear about how much she hates men, nevermind that the school's motto is "love is all." So what's a would-be professor to do? Don a dress, of course! What else? Somewhere between GTO and, say, something cheerful and goofy like Tenchi or Ranma lies Strawberry Eggs. A comedy set in a high school, Amawa deals with the problem of acting like a woman the best he can, while also presumably teaching the girls something about physical education.

These first episodes do a good enough job introducing the major players of the tale: Hibiki, the principal, a main student, Hibiki's fellow boarders, and a few others. The characters themselves, however, just aren't as engaging as they could be. The principal is of course the main villain, and is so clearly bad that she's not really very interesting. Hibiki's landlady is too erratic and rather selfish to be likable at all, even though she helps him, and the other adults in the story are just blah, if not downright despicable. The teacher-student relationships and their ethical aspects need to be addressed carefully and examined head-on. Only the students seem thus far immune to flaws, and that remains to be seen in future installments.

The sound and video quality are both solid enough on this disc. The art for the series is quite attractive; something you'll see well if you choose the textless openings. The dubbed voices do a good job of representing age and personality. It's nice to have an adult male lead using a fully adult voice.

The features are also good for this release. The art gallery is beefy enough to satisfy, especially given the nice look of Strawberry Eggs, and the textless opening allows this lovely art to be showcased properly. The student roll-call feature is nice, especially given that this is a relatively little-known series.

Basically, Strawberry Eggs has promise, but doesn't quite deliver in this first volume. Hopefully, as the series continues, the characters will deepen and grow more interesting, and the silly plot coincidences will either stop or at least become funnier. Yes, it's cute and pretty, but not quite charming enough to forgive the cliches. It will be interesting to see how the gender dynamics develop; will Hibiki learn the feminine virtues, or will the nasty principal learn something about men? Will the obvious sexism continue or be toned down as we all learn that men are capable of being loving and gentle and women are not necessarily either?