I remember when I first got into Shoujo-Ai. It was when I first started to get into BAV. When I got into the whole fanfic business with Ichino and Akari, I soon became a fan of Haruka and Michiru. (Cousins my ass.) And then eventually other couples, but that’s for another time. But eventually I found out about the site Lililicious.net. A great little scanlation site dedicated to all that is wonderful Shoujo-ai manga. I originally went there for H/M doujinshi, but I came across something just as great.

Strawberry Shake Sweet as it’s now called, is the mangaka by Hayashiya Shizuru. Shizuru has done other shoujo-ai esc mangaka before, but this is by far my favorite one. Strawberry Shake is about a girl named Julia Tachibana who is training to become an “idol.” (A star or model. One who’s always in magazines and TV dramas and such in Japan.) Right off the bat though, she has to train another upcoming idol named Ran Arisaka. Who of course, Julia almost falls in love with instantly.

I can’t say how much I love Ran’s character. If I was in Julia’s shoes, I’d probably fall head over heels over her too.

In the first chapter, Julia is quite reluctant to train her, and show Ran the ways of the upcoming idol. Ran however is completely dense to all of this, and just assumes Julia’s personality and aggressive behavior is just another form of ‘tough love.’

Julia however is clearly attracted toward Ran, (Ran has no idea) and manager Saeki has to deal with it all. Saeki is clearly annoyed by Julia’s over the top actions, and tries her hardest to repel Julia away from Ran. To no cigar though.

Now then, this right here gives us the clear knowledge of who’s the main protagonist, the “villain” to some extent, and the love interest. Although I can hardly claim Saeki a villain, since she’s just trying to make a living. We all know she’ll turn around and let the love bloom eventually.

Julia however has no idea what this “fluttery” feeling she’s getting about “Ran Ran” is though, and she’s left confused and quite oblivious until Saeki accidentally tells her it’s love, and her loving another girl could start a scandal. Julia however realizes “Could this be love?” and is happy she finally knows what his feeling is. She thus attempts to make a move on Ran, only to trip on a cord, and twist her ankle. Ran picks her up, asking if she’s okay and that she shouldn’t be on her foot. Julia becomes all flabbergasted, and then picks Ran up instead, saying its more sad that way.

Strawberry Shake Sweet has everything you need, humor, drama, romance, it’s all there, and is certainly something you should check out, even if you’re not a shoujo-ai fan. There are currently five chapters over at Lililicious, and you should download it, along with many other of their scanalations.

And so I don’t get my otaku butt sued, they’re the ones who own all these translations and such, I’m just cropping and using the pics as example. it seems there are so many small loopholes and things you can get in trouble over the net for now.