Throwout123 commissioned this review as part of an Anicord commission event.
This review was designed for people that have already seen the show, and contains spoilers.
It will be in parts split as I see fit, as such:

• About Me
• Production
• Story
• Characters
• Misc.
• Quick conclusion

================================================================= About Me ================================================================== - I generally don't watch pure romance shows as I find it difficult to connect with characters knowing all their problems properly will likely be solved in 4/8 hours. - Some shows tagged romance that surpassed this problem for me would be "Death Parade", "Monogatari series", "Kaguya" - I watch shows once to enjoy them, twice to analyse them, and thrice to start hating shows I love. - I watched Bloom into you twice(~ish). - I firmly believe all art is subjective, this is my interpretation of what I saw at the time of writing. - Some other fun facts about me.================================================================== Production ================================================================== Animation ======================================

Let's start with production, and the first thing you see when you watch this show is its animation. Bloom Into You has hit a sweet spot between budget and fidelity.
Romance shows don't need million-dollar budgets and flashy explosions, they need a consistent, cosy style and clever ways of conveying characters' emotions to the audience. Studio TROYCA nailed it.
The backgrounds are often bare, without unnecessary characters or objects, this ties into the show's laser focus on the main cast. When characters are in frame, it oft feels like time around them is frozen (in a good way).
As mentioned, the show has many effective ways of expressing the emotions of the characters on-screen and there were a few times I was genuinely blown away by a shot (looking at you, star projector) for its pairing of spectacle and context. The show has a thing for flowers, as the name suggests, and there rarely goes by a scene without some on screen, each time placed in a way to make the environment feel special. At no point did I see any immersion-breaking PNG characters, rushed frames or blob characters in the back of a frame.
The only CG I noticed was a standing fan and a dolphin (maybe?), neither lasting longer than 5s.

====================================== Score ====================================== The score was competent, with no tracks being grating or poorly timed. At some points I wished for a standout orchestral piece for when the characters were heavily emotional, something different to the rest of the score but romantic (think planetarium theme from La La Land but for the aquarium scene). An underrated tactic useful in romance shows is silence, which Bloom Into You used on several occasions to great effect. When something important happens (like kisses) the score can either Climax (hehe) or fade, I often found myself pleased with their choices in these moments. I'll end up adding much of the score to playlists, but not listening to it on repeat. (spotify link , worth a listen)====================================== Music ====================================== 1 OP, 1 ED, 1(2?) Inserts. The OPs song was good and fit the show. Skipped twice on the second time around, would happily listen to it again and will go on favourites till I get sick of it. (video link, only one with the video has BR subs)

The EDs song was much calmer and cuter, and reminded me of some of the Monogatari EDs (which is high praise). Won't go on favourites but I'll listen many times over (YT link)

Can't remember the insert too well, but I thought it wasn't unwelcome.

What I really wanna talk about is the OP animation (same link).
The OP uses buckets of representative imagery, mostly with flowers and throughout watching it was interesting to try and piece together how the OPs visuals represent the story as a whole.
My favourite example of this would be the scene where the two main characters stare at each other down a hallway full of wilted flowers while donning literal façades made of blooming flowers.
The imagery isn't hard to understand but the way all of it lines up was very fun to think about.

================================================================== Story ================================================================== Summary ====================================== Overview of the story: - One girl doesn't know what it's like to fall in love (the immediate emotional kind) - The other girl hates it when people love her because she hates herself. - They try and make this unstable relationship work where one person doesn't love the other and the other hates the thought of being loved but wants to love someone else. - Turns out it won't work after all and something needs to change! - If you read this awful transcription of the plot and have an opinion on what's wrong with that situation you'd probably like the show. ====================================== The story under the story ====================================== Though I like the surface-level story well enough, that was not where my interest lay while watching Bloom Into You.

The more interesting story for me was the character arc of Touko, who from episode 1/2 we can see has personal issues and emotional problems, and doesn't feel bad about dumping them on someone else if it helps her feel better.
These problems only seem to get worse for the majority of the show's runtime, where she dumps more and more baggage on Yuu while forcing Yuu to bottle up her feelings.
It really feels like Touko abuses Yuu's kindness to suit her whims, this is not the foundation for a positive relationship.
At many points I found myself hoping for the relationship to work out knowing full well that there is nothing Yuu (who the camera follows) can do about it, waiting for the "thing" to happen that makes Touko a better person.

One of the most important moments is the scene with the stepping stones where Yuu & Touko agree to "meet halfway" with regard to their relationship and the play (met halfway physically and metaphorically).
Though this still ends with Touko flat-out refusing to aim for anything other than recreating her dead sister.
This is around the point where Yuu starts to not want to be left alone (dumped) and marks the point where the relationship becomes dangerous as Yuu now has to lie to Touko.

I also wanted to highlight one of Touko's takes, paraphrased "Loving everything about somebody means you don't/won't love them if they change".
This is a really bad take, and it made me much more engaged with her story as I could see how might be something someone actually believes, even if it is hot garbage.

====================================== Some random story things I liked ====================================== Quickfire round: - The classic trope of making characters with hidden stories act out their stories under the guise of theatre is always welcome. - The story moves quickly from place to place, and feels like a strict schedule to pack as much in as they could. I appreciate that. - Somewhere around the halfway part I began to think that Touko was just faking being in love in an attempt to make Yuu learn to love. It's what you get introducing a mega-genius character who hides part of their personality. - Because it won't come up elsewhere, I felt like the teacher/bar manager relationship scenes were yuri padding and made no real difference to the story. - I like how Yuu grew as a character very much, the pacing was perfect and perfectly believable. - Yuu eating a burger was the cutest thing in the entire show. ====================================== The 6 unfired chambers of Chekhov's Revolver ====================================== - Cheesecake recipe - All of Maki - Akari and her BB BF - The Script being worked on - The theatre group guy saying he has a GF - Sayaka as a part of the triangle (I'm personally glad)

I'm not really mad about none of these being introduced, I'd bet it was part of a messy adaptation process. They were just in my head for an amount of time.

====================================== Ending ======================================

I am upset at how the show ended. I can appreciate the poetry and intent behind a play left unfinished, but this time it just didn't click.
Probably because we never saw that Touko's mental state was resolved, the last thing we see is that without assuming a single persona, Touka thinks she'll feel empty, with Yuu not ending up rebuffing her due to the penguins coming out.
As Yuu is known for being passive and not confronting Touko with her thoughts I felt an actual resolution was not guaranteed.
Guess I just have to read the manga ?‍?
I was very pleased with Touko's mental state up until this point, where she'd recently understood how everyone has different perspectives of people and that one is not intrinsically more correct than the others.

================================================================== Characters ================================================================== Yuu ====================================== I love this character, from the beginning it's weird how passive the character is but we soon learn that it's just her interpretation of compassion. She thinks that what she wants is to fall in love like in fairy tales, but slowly learns, piece by piece over all 13 episodes that such things rarely happen. Yuu then continues to learn and probe how she expresses love, before focusing on what is important to her, helping those she cares about. (A much truer form of love than the one she originally sought).

She doesn't have a sad backstory but she doesn't need one, I don't understand why I love Yuu as a character so much but her struggle against coercive love ends, from her perspective, as an absolute triumph.

Shame I can't see her as the main character of this Show ?.

====================================== Touko ====================================== The real Main character; the confused, stubborn heroine who is also a damsel in distress. She starts out opening up for the first time, content with her goal to finish being the person she knows her dead sister was but even then wanting to be her own person. So she tries falling in love, something she knows her sister didn't do, to great success. All she needed was somebody who won't reciprocate her feelings, to either the part of her trying to be her sister or the nobody left behind when she stops pretending.

The slowest change in a character I've ever seen, with the first real positive change happening in Ep11, and her still contemplating suicide in ep13. I kind of like the way that she ends up relying on Yuu, which is good, and that her problems remain generally unsolved but are heading in the right direction.

====================================== Nobody else matters ======================================

No other character did anything, I'll summarise them below:

• Sayaka: perma-friendzone
• Kanou: can write stuff
• Maki: I love him, why did he only say 10 lines
• Akari: we're told she plays basketball

I love Maki so much, he was given no time and did nothing the entire time.
Basketball girl could have been replaced with a book or other way of telling her style of relationship.
Writing girl was p cool/cute but could have been replaced with anything that writes plays.
Yuu's two friends really feel like they're there to pad plot with more than the main ship, which is a nice break at times but I feel like they could have done more.
Sayaka did have more relevance but in the end, nothing she did mattered, except applying pressure on Touko to her detriment.

================================================================== Other Things I found cool ================================================================== - I really love space projectors - I Like hydrangeas a lot as well - Its funny how they called the anime McDonalds "Y'dhonalds"

• There was a shot where we were looking from the perspective of a teacher as he wiped his glasses but nothing went out of focus when he removed them, which implies that he has cosmetic lenses.

================================================================== Conclusion ================================================================== I really liked the show. With Characters to break down, become attached to and begin to understand. A message to give to the audience, well told through the cast. Didn't ever feel overly preachy, and had animation fitting its situation. Would recommend to pick up if you're bored of your yuri being too sweet.