Strawberry Marshmallow: Perverted or not perverted?
Okay, so I like the manga Strawberry Marshmallow. It's relatively cute, if you are into that kind of thing, but more importantly it is often very funny. For example, the first installment features several kid characters being late for school, so older sister Nobue offers to drive everyone there. Chika (Nobue's little sister, who knows her well) refuses, but Chika's friends assent, and get in the car. Nobue then drives right past the school, despite the protests of her passengers. That night they return, and explain to Chika, somewhat shamefaced, that they went off and did touristy things near Tokyo. This wouldn't be much of anything, except for the pacing: most of the story involves the worry of getting ready for school in a hurry, which leaves two pages for the "kidnapping" and one panel for the climactic return and explanation. It's like a Sophoclean tragedy in that the conventionally interesting stuff (what most manga would focus on: the touristy hijinks) happens off-stage. I love this story. Not all of them work this well, but they're all short, and the hit-to-miss ratio is pretty good.

That was all justification for why I read the manga in the first place. The problem is: according to erinfinnegan, Strawberry Marshmallow is a notorious lolicon pervert series. And if this were true it would answer some questions. Why is there an ever-growing cast of pre-teen girls and no males ever appearing in the comic? Why does Nobue occasionally go all moe on the little girls, and try to kiss them? The pre-teen panty shots are pretty rare, rarer even than what appears in Little Lulu or Nancy, but when they do appear--well, they don't feel like Nancy. And why are they there at all? Do we really need this many baths, young ladies? The cover of volume one has two twelve-year-olds hugging on top of a giant strawberry; the back cover of volume two has one of them in a bikini (!). What did they do to Matsuri after drugging her (!) one night (!) in the story "Sinister Sleepover"(!)? Are the obsessively documented minutae of quotidian acts we witness the girls go through fetishistically documented minutae of quotidian acts (ala Kokoro Library)?

What I'm asking is: Is Strawberry Marshmallow well-concealed kiddie-porn, or is it a perfectly innocent romp that just looks like kiddie-porn because it's Japanese?