Bloom Into You
a review by Animusswtor
a review by Animusswtor
This review was originally written on my MAL account on July 22nd 2021, and is brought over here today as is because of a silly little challenge I'm still doing on this site (Hi, it's me, the recent Sound Euphonium S2 review guy.)
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So this will be my first manga review, I guess, although I’ve written a few for myself already but anyway. Just a slight warning, there will be some spoilers regarding this story, the manga „his and her circumstances“(further referred to as Karekano) and the anime „Hibike euphonium“. These spoilers are surface level for the most part but if they're not they are marked as such so you can skip over them. This turned out quite a long review so if you don’t like to read a lot of text then now would be the time to go and do something else ^^
Story:
Bloom Into You is quite literally the lesbian version of Karekano, one of my other favorite romance mangas, albeit way less dark and without some of the 90s Shoujo campiness, which in my mind makes it the better version. I mean just look at the similarities here.
SPOILER SECTION FOR KAREKANO:
It’s brilliant and the story always knew what it wanted to do and at no point did it in any way get disappointing. My favorite Shoujo Ai manga so far has been „ichido dake demo, koukai shitemasu“ or „even if it was just once, I regret it“ in english because it also fulfilled all the requirements I have in a great way (next one on my list is "Girl Friends" which also has quite an amount of good reviews so let's see where that ends up for me^^), but Bloom into you has definitely surpassed that by now, I would even say that this is one of the best romances I’ve watched/read period, and not just in anime and manga, though that's my main romance intake. It has some cliches used in a lot of romcoms in general but they’re always executed really well and there’s no unnecessary drama that feels out of place so 10/10
CHARACTERS:
The characters are all well defined and developed in this. None of the characters feel in any way unnecessary and everyone contributes a bit to the plot. Even the side characters randomly introduced at the end of volume 6 are a great addition to the already colorful cast. We get all kinds of characters like the novelist girl who doesn’t like cute things; the friend who plays basketball to chase after an unreachable crush; the supporting but yet accepting and distance keeping (and lesbian) student council Vice President; the hard working, seemingly perfect yet also really weak and needy student council President; the otaku nerd who likes to fawn over girls but turns out a really nice smart and supportive guy; the (most likely) asexual first year guy that enjoys watching over his friends romances because he can’t experience them on his own, and you know what they say "the ones who can't experience love for themselves are the ones who give the best relationship advise to the ones who do" (this one is actually the one I could relate to the most in some of the beginning chapters when he was the only one who knew because not long ago a very good friend of mine has come out as a lesbian and has started to date one of her fellow students and I am so far the only one in our usual circle of friends that knows about this, it's kind of exciting tbh); the drama teacher who’s in a secret relationship with a cafe owner that happens to be our characters go-to-hangout-place.
All of these characters have their own little story, their own stuggles and goals, relationships, and they are all really complex in their feelings. Their dynamics and chemistry flow naturally and their development always makes sense. At any given time you know what they’re thinking, why they’re thinking this way, how they will react and you can relate to them. They’re all put into situations that you’ve probably experienced at least once before in your life. And my god, FINALLY we get characters that actually TALK to each other, or one of the other characters to ask if they know sth, when there's a problem. So many entries in the romance genre (which by the way I am quite fond of considering it is the one I've seen the highest amount of stories out of all genres of) for some reason entertain the idea of stupid misunderstandings, characters making their own assumptions about situations, getting angry at others, ignoring them or taking their distance, and whatever else. If there's a misunderstanding or a peculiar situation that generates a little worry, then it is sure to be completely cleared up in the middle of the very next chapter, sometimes even just at the begining.
But among all these the one that stands out the most is our main protagonist Yuu Koito. In a way she reminds me of my personal favorite anime character ever, which is Kumiko from Hibike euphonium, but simply for the reason that she is the complete opposite of that. While both of these characters have a personality trait of being indecisive for themselves Kumiko takes on more of a passive observing role and only gets more active at the end of the second season after her character arc is coming to its climax, whereas Yuu is pretty much as active as you can get as a character from the very beginning. She's like Kumiko at the end of the second season all the time. She is (almost) always the one directing where the story is going, where her relationships are going.
Yuu will definitely secure a spot among my favorite anime characters too, I’m thinking of putting her somewhere in the vicinity of another Yu, namely Ishigami Yu from Kaguya sama which would be a spot in the top 25 at least. To be quite honest saying "I love Yu" constantly without following it up with "as a character/protagonist" felt kinda weird. I think she's my favorite romance protagonist actually, both in terms of protagonist of my favorite romance manga (previously held by Sorata from Sakurasou no Pet), and favorite protagonist of a romance manga/anime (previously held by Hachiman from Oregairu). She's the kind of character that's always coming out on top
Yuu and Tokou‘s relationship is easily one of my absolute favorites in animanga so far and it’s so incredibly cute too, but also quite realistic. It reminds me of Adachi and Shimamura's relationship, only that this one is actually a healthy and wholesome one that goes somewhere instead of a one-sided obsessive (at first) unrequited one that ultimately hurts the characters more than it benefits them. I haven't read the novel for that one yet and only seen the anime but that was quite the frustrating watch after hearing it being praised for how cute and wholesome it is when it was in fact the exact opposite of that.
One thing I wish though is that some of the side characters had a bit more screen time or chance to get a little more development but there are also anthologies and spin-off novels and all that i still have to check out. So far 9/10
ART:
I have but one thing to say about the art in this one. Why is the art so fricking god damn good, like seriously, this is almost way too good art to be in a romance manga. Stop that. My eyes can only sparkle this much, so don’t put more details in there. Please. Like, am I blinded by my love for this or is it really way too good? Am I tripping here? 10/10
Now for an anime I would usually just judge the sound here which is relatively hard to do for a manga. DUH. But I did listen to the animes OST while reading this and it was quite good and relaxing. But I won't put a number on it here cuz that'd be kinda unfair, you know ^^
ENDING:
So one of the big points of how I judge a story is if it sticks the landing or not and sometimes it can make or break it. In this case we get the
ENJOYMENT/EMOTIONAL IMPACT:
As you can see already from how long this review is and from the contents of it, I’d say I almost enjoyed it a little too much, I mean I AM writing this review at like 4:30am and I have to get up for work at 6, so there’s definitely something wrong with me here.
Alright, I wrote the rough draft for this at 4:30am, it's currently 11am and I added some things. But once I started I just couldn’t put it down anymore and just HAD to know what comes next. I did even read it twice completely in just 3 days and I'm already planning on another reread. 10/10
So overall I can recommend this for every fan of a good romance manga. Don’t let the fact that this is a Shoujo Ai/ Yuri manga put you off of this if you’re not really into watching or reading that because it handles its topics with the utmost care and sensitivity, much more even than your typical m/f romance stories. Seriously, please read this. I have given a few 9/10s in this reviews to some parts but quite honestly this is a masterpiece. Simple as that. In my personal ranking it gets a deduction of 0.5 points because of the fact that simply a lot of the ideas for the story were unoriginal ones that you can find in every romance or school slice of life. BUT as said above all the ideas even if they weren't that original were used incredibly well and the relationships between the characters are some of the best I've seen.
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Well, that was that, and now I want to make 2 specific additions for this Anilist version because after I looked back at this review in my re-read last summer, I couldn’t just leave them unsaid (also to get a little more personal element in this, because being way too personal is kind of my brand on this site rn):
Number 1: Love is complex.
There is no „right“, or better said „correct“ way to love someone or to be in love. There are multiple ways in which a person can and will express their love, or show their love. Quite honestly, probably as many as there are people on this planet.
For some, love is in the feelings and advances of their actions.
For some, love is in their choices. (Yuu falls under that category)
For some, maybe love is just something distant that plays out like a movie in front of you.
Bloom Into You does a fantastically beautiful job of showcasing just exactly how different each character’s approach to love is, and the diferences and nuances in the way they express it.
In my time of watching and reading romance fiction, I don’t think I’ve come across another author yet who understands love as much as this.
Number 2: People around and close to you pick up on certain things. Maybe even before you yourself do.
I think – and can actually say I have at least a little bit of real life experience with this – that the people that are closest to you, be it a family member like in Yuu’s case her sister or in Sayaka’s case her grandma (it’s in her novels, go read those too, they’re great), or if it’s a close friend like in my case, notice your feelings more than you might initially think.
The way this is portrayed in both the main manga as well as Sayaka’s spin-off novel takes me back to my „earlier days“ (dude, the f’ck were you on about when you typed this, that was just like 5-6 years ago) when I started to slowly come out as bisexual to my friends one by one. The first one was kind of a fun one, too, actually, because we were just hanging out one evening and drinking a bit and playing dice and stuff. I may or may not have had a little bit too much to drink that night and the longer it went on made more and more random comments from my little place at the corner of the table, and in my head it just kinda made click and my brain was like „ah fuck it, this is as perfect a time to tell them as any other“ and just hamfisted a comment about it in in the middle of the game round. The only answer I got from my (male) best friend – we were 4 people in total, including me – was a
yeah, good for you, we figured anyway, can you roll the f’ing dice now please
and I found that quite a refreshing reaction, especially considering some of the usual other ones you get (and I have gotten later) that say stuff like „but don’t fall in love with one of us“ (<- or a question about that if I ever did or some sht) or getting asked about basically my whole life story with that aspect of myself (like, ugh, I get that you’re curious, but I don’t want that to be the ONLY thing I ever talk about with you. I just wanna live the same way as before I told you xD) or whatever others I can’t think of right now (cuz there’s a lot).
My brother for some reason also knew (I think one of my ex-boyfriends might have told him cuz they were friends, too, and he was close with that one’s sister or something…) and at this point for pretty much everyone it’s just an „open secret“ that everyone knows but no one really talks about, unless there’s an occasion, too. (the obvious one would be me starting to go out with a guy, not that that has happened in the last few years….)
But I feel like I’m digressing a bit too much here, so I’ll get back on the manga now:
To me, it just feels so…. real…. how these characters, either actively telling them they notice (Miyako for Sayaka in the main manga) or keeping it to themselves first to not overstep (like Rei for Yuu), stand behind them and support them from the shadows in their endeavors of love.
This, added with my new-found love for every single character (and hey, they even get more spotlight in Sayaka’s novel JUST like I wanted!) and story-beat in this re-read, I’ll just straight up (there’s nothing straight about this*) higher my score up to a full
It’s almost scary how accurate all of the statements I made about my feelings on other characters or stories in this review still are, 2 and a half years later now….
What’s also kind of scary is just how many new LGBT+ people are suddenly around you in your circle of friends (or rather extended circle of friends and acquaintances) after one takes the first step. Like they all wait for whatever reason and after seeing the reaction and support the first one got they all start to come out of their holes one by one, or… well… out of their closet.
In short
This is my favorite romance ever written. Bar none.
Volume 8 is just sugar on top of sugar on top of another layer of sugar and deserves a spot in a royal hall of fame of romance manga.
*I have developed this weird habit that every time I talk about one of my yuri or BL reads and use the words "straight" / "straight up", my mouth immediately starts to move on its own to say
there's nothing straight about this
and I don't know how to stop at this point.
Help? xD
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