Strobe Edge



""'Love'... what kind of feeling is it? It makes your chest tighten, it tears at your heart, it makes you want to cry for no reason, and your chest hurts like something's been stabbed into it... but it's not a bad feeling at all.""

Strobe Edge is a shoujo manga by Io Sakisaka and ran in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret from 2007 to 2010. Credited for boosting Sakisaka's fame, it was compiled in ten volumes. Throughout its run, it was met with widespread success, spawning a voice-over comic, two drama CDs, and four light novels.

Ninako Kinoshita is a naive high school student who doesn't really know what love is. Her friends convince her that she must be in love with her childhood friend Daiki Korenaga, who has always held feelings for her. But Ninako gradually realizes what love is through her growing feelings for Ren Ichinose, the school's enigmatic heartthrob.

More conflict arises when Ninako learns that Ren... has a girlfriend, Mayuka Korenaga - a famous model and Daiki's estranged older sister. Not only that, but Takumi Andou, Ren's middle school friend, develops feelings for Ninako too. For a girl who once didn't know what love was, what is Ninako to do?

Has a Character Sheet.


 * A Day in the Limelight: Mayuka, Andou, Yuu, and Manabu each receive their own side stories in the printed volumes of the manga.
 * Betty and Veronica: Daiki is the Betty and Ren is the Veronica to Ninako's Archie. Come the middle of the series, the roles switch to Ren being the Betty and Andou being the Veronica.
 * It's hard to say who is the Betty and who is the Veronica when it comes to Ninako and Mayuka. They appear to be the Betty and Veronica respectively, but only in appearance--Ninako is our main heroine so the audience sympathizes with her more, but Mayuka is Ren's longtime girlfriend while Ninako sort of meddles into their relationship
 * Big Man on Campus: Ren.
 * Book Ends
 * Chick Magnet: Ren.
 * Cool Big Sis: Mayuka.
 * Defrosting Ice King: Ren.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: Daiki and Andou for Ninako, who is a gender-flipped version for Ren.
 * Five-Man Band: Ninako and her friends are banded in a group of five, which consists of...
 * The Hero: Ninako.
 * The Lancer: Sayuri.
 * The Big Guy: Tsukasa.
 * The Smart Guy: Tamaki.
 * The Chick: Noriko.
 * I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
 * Love Hurts
 * Love Triangle: Ninako, Ren, and Daiki. Ninako, Ren, and Andou. Ninako, Ren, and Mayuka.
 * Love Dodecahedron: Daiki and Andou are in love with Ninako, who is in love with Ren, who is dating Mayuka but is slowly developing feelings for Ninako that he is initially in denial of.
 * Maybe Ever After: It's really ambiguous as to whether get together in the end, especially since it's not mentioned in the epilogue. The same thing applies to.
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: There's never an instance where Noriko is not called "Non-chan." Similarly, everyone never refers to Yuu by his full name, Yuutarou, but as simply "Yuu" or "Tera." To a lesser extent, Manabu is also known by the nickname "Ga-chan" (since "Gaku" is an alternate pronunciation to "Manabu") but his family, Ren, and Yuu still refer to him by his real name.
 * Pair the Spares: Daiki, following Ninako's rejection, eventually starts dating and falls in love with Ninako's friend, Sayuri, becoming the Beta Couple in the series.
 * Sacred First Kiss: Ninako runs into problems with this in the post-finale chapter,.
 * Second Love: Sayuri for Daiki, and
 * Sibling Yin-Yang: Daiki and Mayuka.
 * Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy
 * Slice of Life
 * Those Two Guys: It's easy to recognize Manabu and Yuu as two guys Ren is always seen with. Fortunately, their Character Development circa volume 3 makes them more prominent and distinguishable.
 * Two Guys and a Girl: Ren, Andou, and Ninako.
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Daiki for Ninako.
 * Unwanted Harem: Ren rejects all of the love confessions he recieves from the girls at school because he has a girlfriend.
 * We Used to Be Friends: Ren and Andou usually don't consider each other as friends unless they're in a good mood.
 * What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Ninako, never having experienced love before, is confused when her friends convince her that she is in love with her childhood friend Daiki. She agrees only because she thinks she developed feelings for Daiki. She gradually learns of what love really is through her growing feelings for Ren.
 * When He Smiles: Ren rarely smiles to the point that when he actually does, everyone stops dead in their tracks.