Manga Review: Strobe Edge

 
I'm about to introduce you to the best romance manga you have ever read. Brace yourself.

*ALREADY FANGIRLING* Okay, calm down. Let's begin.

Strobe Edge is written and illustrated by the talented Sakisaka Io. It began serialization in 2007 and ended in 2010 with a total of 10 volumes. I've just found out there is a live action film adaptation which will be coming out in March 2015 and I am trying to control another fangirl reaction. The manga has been completely scanslated so you can read it in its entirety.

SUMMARY

Kinoshita Ninako is a sweet, kind and caring schoolgirl who is small and looks young but has a strong, honest personality. A chance encounter with a boy on a train has her starting to fall in love for the first time. However, not only is Ichinose Ren the most popular boy at school, he also already has a long-term girlfriend. After he rejects her kindly, she decides she still wants to be his friend and starts to bring out a more relaxed, happy side to Ren than his usual quiet and withdrawn demeanor.

However, Ren's unusual attitude towards Ninako sparks an interest in his friend Andou Takumi, who surprisingly finds himself falling in love with this kind-hearted special young woman. And Takumi, who has so often let Ren be the one to shine, decides he no longer wants to live in Ren's shadow.

TL;DR

This story centers primarily around love, and the love triangle between Ninako, Ren and Andou. There are side stories, but these also concern love, so if romance isn't your thing then this manga may not be for you, however good the story and however well it is drawn.

But if romance is for you, then you will struggle to find a manga to top this one. From the characters to the drawing to the plot, this manga has everything you could ask for. Realism, escapism, heart-warming characters, relationships, and scenes, it's got it all. Ninako is an extremely likable protagonist who cares greatly for the people around her. She is incredibly sweet and occasionally I felt like I just wanted to reach into the manga to pinch her cheeks.

Ren and Andou are also brilliant as love interests, and it's Ren that ultimately captures my heart. I say ultimately, but from the moment I was introduced to him I wondered where I could get one. The fact that these characters don't just materialize into the story, but have important back stories that influence how they currently live their lives is extremely compelling and it brings them to life.

The plot progresses really nicely so that it feels neither too rushed or too slow. As characters shift and change, you really believe them and the mangaka guides us through their emotions so nicely. Although the ending is rather predictable, as is the case with most shoujo manga, I really enjoyed the journey. I can't count how many times I've read this manga, so I give it 2 thumbs, 8 fingers, and 10 toes up.

And now for spoilers...

FULL REVIEW

This is by far the best manga I have read so far, because everything works together so brilliantly. The drawing is great, the plot is fantastic, the progress is believable and no one suddenly goes off the deep and acts out of character. The characters are believable and relatable, the love interests have interesting stories of their own, there is a side story so that you can see that there are other things in this world that matter and happen, not just to the protagonists. The length is great, and it doesn't end abruptly after the characters get together like so many mangas where you see all of the struggle and none of the reciprocal romance. There's just so much good in this manga! I'll try and think of some bad but there's hardly any to me.

I definitely added the speech bubble above... just so you know ^_^

Ninako is a fantastic character because she doesn't do stupid things, and oh what a relief it is. She doesn't follow the usual tropes that other protagonists fall into like dating a guy just because the one she likes is unavailable. "Date me and I'll make you forget all about him." How about no?

You can see that her desire to be Ren's friend is genuine. She doesn't want to weasel her way in to his life and his good books; by falling in love she has come to care about him. And you can see by how she treats her other friends that she is a really good person. Her friends don't feel like convenient characters to show she isn't an outcast, she is just as considerate of them as she is with Ren. She's also considerate on Andou as well, even though she finds that more difficult because he is actively pursuing her. But isn't that a natural reaction when someone you like and treat as a friend declares they're in love with you and won't give up!

Of course this manga does deal with many familiar romance conventions: the love triangle, the popular idol of the school as the love interest, awkward working situations etc etc, and they don't occur in completely new and unusual ways that I've never seen before, but when I read them I feel that they are in a way treated differently as I get a different feel for them.

For example, love interests are sometimes dating other people at the start of a manga but Ren and Mayuka's relationship is different. It's long term, which is slightly unusual, and is based not only on attraction but emotional need. Ren has always felt isolated, and Mayuka opened herself up to him, spent time with him, actually wanted him to be around. Mayuka was dealing with her parents' separation which had rocked her world and she not only needed a sounding board but also something that promised to be constant, and Ren did just that. And so they fell in love. And we are led to believe that they genuinely loved each other and they even say so, which definitely gives them some depth.

Mayuka's relationship with Ren is also fantastic as a comparison to Ninako's. While Ninako's is platonic despite her feelings, we can see how Ninako changes Ren more than Mayuka was able to. While Mayuka provided companionship and the feeling of being wanted, she began to put her work first despite the fact her relationship was important to her.  Ninako on the other hand brings Ren completely out the darkness of isolation, which had been started by Andou years earlier. She enables him to open up to others around him and his classmates begin to see him as more friendly than they realized. And she also represents his equal in terms of a partner. Whatever Ren puts into the relationship she can match with emotions, feelings, attention etc, unlike Mayuka.

SQUEEEEEE! This is one of my favourite drawings of Ren. Isn't he beautiful? I was a goner almost at the beginning, and my friend Sakiko and I would sigh endlessly over him. He's beautiful. Okay. I shall try to limit my discussion of his looks to just this.

Which isn't hard because there is so much more I can say about him. I need to go back and reread exactly why he felt isolated from such a young age, perhaps it was from his parents ignoring him? Anyway, at school, long before he attended the same one as Ninako, he was an isolated fellow without friends because his classmates would misunderstand him or be jealous of his looks and smarts. Then Andou comes along and we see the drawing where Ren feels like he is going to be buried by darkness and isolation around him, and then Andou figuratively reaches out the hand of friendship. It's not a big deal to Andou who is friends with everyone, but it's huge to Ren.

I really like this aspect to the story, it creates an incredibly interesting relationship between Ren and Andou. Yes, they end up competing for the girl but they have a strange relationship whereby they are close, but not close at all. Some of it is due to the incident with Andou's ex-girlfriend, but it's also because they are polar opposites - the social butterfly Andou and the quiet loner Ren. Even so, Andou feels like he lives in Ren's shadow somewhat, whereas Ren believes he lives in Andous. This could be seen as negative, living in someone's shadow, but they don't let jealousy pervade their relationship (at least till Ninako comes along). In fact it can be seen as a complimentary, because they clearly hold each other in high esteem to believe they cast a shadow. It's great that these boys' relationship is thoroughly explored throughout the manga as well. Without it, it just wouldn't have been as good.

Oh Andou. It's odd but all the way through the manga I was completely in line with Ninako's feelings for him. When she was first getting to know him and didn't quite know what to expect with him, I felt that too. When she did her best to protect him and his feelings I felt like I wanted to protect them too. But also the fact that she refused to date him to get over Ren and, as even Andou says near the end, she never came to think of him as anything more than a friend, I felt that too. I also felt heartbroken for Andou when he admitted to himself that Ninako never really "looked" at him (considered him) once, as her feelings were always tied to Ren. It was clearly both something he admired in her, because she was steadfast and unwavering unlike his ex-girlfriend, and hated because it did mean she always looked at Ren instead of him.

The bit where the ex-girlfriend comes down the stairs and promises she's going to chase after him seriously now instead of supporting his new love is a bit convenient. Luckily it's not like she literally appeared out of nowhere at that moment, she had been a part of the plot before, but yeah... convenient so that Andou doesn't become a loose end. In fact I wouldn't have minded if the ex-girlfriend had been left out altogether and that incident between her, Andou and Ren was introduced to us in some other way. Either that or she needed to have been more of a threat to Ren and Ninako than she was. There was a lot of promise for her to be a real threat, but it kind of seemed to tail off.

There we go! Some constructive criticism instead of just I love it I love it I love it!

I have a few favourite moments which I can try and recall. Again, it's been a while. I love the small moment when Ren is listening to music on his headphones and Ninako ends up listening to the other ear bud. I thought it was immensely clever how Ninako's face slowly fades in Ren's mind when Mayuka breaks down in front of him and tells him how much she needs him. I also love when Ren smells the air, realizing it's "half winter half fall," then Ninako does exactly the same out loud behind him.

They are so on the same page. GET MARRIED AND HAVE BABIES ALREADY!

Ahem.

I am now reading Ao Haru Ride, another manga by the same mangaka. The drawing is just as great, the plot, the progress etc etc and I'm so excited about it, although it has not been completely scanslated yet so I am waiting for that. However, as good as it is, it hasn't quite replaced Strobe Edge as my absolutely favourite shoujo manga of all time. It's definitely up there with the best! But I don't think I'll ever find one as good as this.

If you do know of a manga that would compare, please let me know. I'm desperate for some more good ones!

In conclusion, I highly absolutely recommend this manga. I love it to pieces and have read it over many times. I hope you enjoy it as much as me, otherwise I really built this up to be something for nothing ^_^ I hope Sakisaka Io brings out more mangas like this, and that they are scanslated. This was truly a pleasure to read.