THE MUSIC SHE PLAYS IS SO BEAUTIFUL.

Episode 6 of Strawberry Panic was top notch. Beyond that, I believe it confirms that SP is a direct homage to Maria-sama ga Miteru… unless it’s just plagiarism. Etoile convinces Nagisa to play piano with her, and Nagisa screws up a note. The scene is done almost *exactly* like the piano scene in Marimite first season. All it’s lacking is the kouhai sitting down at the keys first. It wasn’t short one once of yuri blush. Now, homage or plagiarism or whatever, we can’t really be sure- it might just be a stereotypical scene integral to yuri anime.

I believe I keep forgetting to mention this, but it’s something I keep thinking: “I need to mention this next episode, I need to mention this next episode…” The soundtrack of this show is incredible. It’s inspired and works well with the mood. There are some series (Haruhi.), the soundtracks of which might be good or might not, but we can’t really tell because they use the wrong track for every scene and jar the mood (What the hell were they playing towards the end of ep 3 when Yuki said she was an alien?), and this is not one such. I doubt I’d enjoy listening to the OST of SP but it… works. And well. And it’s awesome.

Not much to ridicule occurred this episode (aside from the show airing) which is a bit of a shame. I’m wondering again where this show will go. We had the first three episodes of Etoile coming on to Nagisa, then we had the wtffourth episode that was not funny at all, then we had the fifth which was hilarious in how bad it was. The sixth episode? Some mix between the first three and the fourth. We have Etoile coming on to Nagisa in a LESS Shizuru-style, and we had some tears. (*gasp*)

Overall, throughout this episode, there wasn’t anything really funny. Ok, the cosplay club was a really bad joke, but I don’t consider that to be the focus of the show, much less this episode. It wasn’t about Nagisa being dressed up in nekomimi. It was about Nagisa interacting with Etoile in a VERY, VERY, VERY “we ripped this from Marimite” manner. Did I mention the piano scene?

There were some darker elements to this episode not present in previous installments. Will this show degenerate into Sachiko-class angst? Will this show degenerate into Saikano-class ridiculous depression? Will I wish to have watched this whole show in one go, so as to mind-fuck myself?

I’m afraid none of those questions will be answered anytime soon.

This episode made me want to start playing the piano again. Damn it.