This is my first review, so please be easy on me...

Story: 8
At the beginning of the story, you'll find the stereotypical high school love story, where an ordinary girl starts to like the smoking-hot-and-also-ridiculously-popular boy of her school. Well, some people find these kind of stories boring since they look the same, but you know, even though at first sight you can just look at it and think it's jut the typical shojo manga, when you start reading it you realize that isnt the case.
In these kind of stories, where the plot tends to follow some cliches, the quality of the characters and the way the story is told are the key that states the difference between a good romance and a unrealistic romance.

In Strobe Edge, Io Sakisaka tells us a story about growing up and what is the meaning of it, while her characters go through their firsts loves and heartbreaks, a shojo manga where the life of its characters isn't always rainbows and glitter, but also rough situations where the characters are aware of their feelings and what they sould do, but are unable to do it.
The story has the perfect pace, the rythm never falls down and every chapter it's necessary to tell the story the way it should be told. It isn't too rushed and you can clearly see how its characters are developing, as the feelings they go through don't appear from one day to another (something I really hate to find when I read something, since it makes the story look less realistic).

Characters: 9
I believe that what made this romance story so enjoyable was its characters. I'm glad that I didn't end up stressing over the main character for being so pasive and not doing anything but complaint about how miserable her situation is (which happens really often in other shojo mangas). Rather than that, Ninako is, by all means, a cute girl, very kind to others, honest, and a good friend, but she also can be selfish and inmature, what makes her nothing but a human being. Sometimes you'll want to comfort her and other times you'll disagree with her decisions, but in a way that you understand them just because what she was feeling at that moment.

Ren. Oh my god, this guy. First of all, he is a nice guy. I know this may seem obvious, but if you think of all the times we've seen good girls losing themself over bad boys, it doesn't look so obvious. He is just a teenage boy with a nice sense of responsability and loyalty. (SPOILER - STOP READING). Okay, about this, I really liked how of a good boyfriend he was, because to be honest, I don't think the situation with his girlfriend was the best of all, and despite of that, he knew he had to be there for her, because he wanted her to be happy above all things, and then he decided to ignore her growing feelings for Ninako, because it didn't seem alright. (END OF SPOILER)

Andou. Well, you can see him as the guy who is always against the male character because he's in love with the girl, but while reading the manga I realized how complicated his personality was. Even though he knows he shouldn't be angry about something, he is, and he knows it's bad but he can't help but feeling what he feels. He fell in love with the wrong person, and then decided to close down his heart. He's hurt, but hides it with a smile. He has a purpose on the story, and not only does Andou develops throughout it, but makes the other two main characters develop as well. With this, I mean that he's not only the rival, the "bad guy" of the story.

All in all, the characters are profound, and none of them are in the story just because the sake of it. They all have a role in the story, some support the main characters and some others are an active part of the main plot. This characters realize the mistakes they've made in the past or the ones they're about to make, they learn from them, and then they fall down again. That's what being human is. Rather than being perfect characters, they are just good people in difficult situations, where they have to decide between what is right to do and what their heart wants them to do.

Art: 9
What can I say? The design of the characters is just gorgeous. The one thing that I didn't like was that the girls had the exact same face and that the only thing that made them different from each other was their hair. Seriously, sometimes I got really confused because of this, even though I should be used to it by now.

Enjoyment: 10
I personally loved this manga, when I started reading it I just couldn't put it down. I loved all of the characters and it was something that I read with pleasure, because even though it has some drama, it's not the kind of drama that stress you out and makes you want to punch some character right on the face. With this I don't mean that it's boring because nothing bad really happens, I'm just saying that it is a story about some teenagers who could easily be real, and because of that you can relate to it as well.