This review might contain major spoilers for the manga
Strawberry Fields wo Mou Ichido is a shoujo ai manga done by Kazura Kinosaki, released on a less known magazine named @ vitamin (without the space). I managed to`` read this manga in a day, which normally doesn't happen with myself, just because of how unique and interesting this concept of story in a GL manga was introduced.
The story follows Akira, an otome-game lover, who rejects the concept of being in love with a "3D person". Now, for something completly different, this Akira girl meets a new transfer student whose name is Pure. Who happens to declare that ~~Akira is her lover in the future~~ and this is the beginning of the narrative.
I was expecting a longer approach to the story, but somehow, these 22 chapters actually manage to compact the narrative well. If you are still clueless about this, yes this GJ manga grabs the ~~time travel~~ as one of the main themes of the story. With various resources including in media res, analepsis and prolepsis that manipulate the time of the narrative. That way of storytelling was satisfatory, the characters were alright, the big focus here are the relationships between them and how they relate to the backstory. I didn't expect this manga to be emotionally strong, but somehow it made some tears leaving my eyes while I was reading the last chapters. Even though, the story lacks some points that I think could be important, maybe I am being a bit picky, but the timeline gets a bit messy with the prolepsis that is an analepsis at the same time - if it wasn't for the extra chapter (22.5) explaining the timeline at the end, I couldn't understand it properly. Plus, there's the relationship between Akira and ~~her brother, Ruri~~, which could be better, yet this maintains a big part of the narrative in question.
Now, the artstyle. There are some really strong panels/pages but overall looks like your average romance/shoujo ai manga artstyle, even though cute girls can help digest the most heavy parts of the plotline, previously mentioned on the last paragraph. The next two images are from the same chapter, two pages that together give a really strong impact while reading the story:
Spoiler, click to view
Spoiler, click to view
No amount of words could express this scene in question, in my opinion, the mangaka did a great job at this exact situation. Therefore, the art manages not only to lighten the mood behind the narrative, but also manages to give you a dry punch in the gut when it can.
In the end, the manga was alright, I could've enjoyed it more, but I feel 7 is the appropriate score for this. Even though, I highly recommend you to give it a read. I really do recommend.