So now that I've talked about the Manga lets dive right into the anime and to be honest after the whole debacle that went down with Citrus' adaptation my expectations going into were very low but now that it's all said and done I can actually say with confidence that I definitely got both more than what I was expecting while also maybe a little less but that's not me saying its bad if anything they still did more than what I expected but lets just get into it
Story
Okay so for the sake of not leaving you guys in the dark lets start off with the story and how it translates from the page to the screen and as I said going in with low expectations I actually got quite a lot of enjoyment from this adaptation and the thing I picked up on almost instantly from the first episode is that Bloom into You is one of those loose but effective adaptations in the sense where they trim the fat from the story while for the most part keeping the rest in tact while in many respects there are even scenes added to the anime that make the emotional experience even stronger
Of course neither is this a perfect method as it still carries one or two drawbacks which boils down to this: As I said aside from a bit of fat trimming the series is literally a page for page adaptation of the manga but the one problem I did notice is that there are a couple moments throughout the anime where it feels like the studio played it relatively safe with the camera animation and if I hadn't read the manga before hand I might not have noticed this but because I have those moments become a lot more noticeable when you look at the anime and manga side by side and notice that there are some scenes that look less three dimensional than others and although this could be chalked up as a nitpick it does still kinda give off a sense that they could've done better. On the flipside though these scenes are still few and far between as there are just as many great scenes to be amazed at
Characters
Now moving on to the characters and I gotta say that for the most part my thoughts overall on the characters haven't really changed all that much however I will say that I do feel slightly more invested in them due to the simple fact that there is music and voice acting in order to reinforce the emotions that the characters are feeling and conveying to each other although if i'm allowed to be biased for a moment I do find this more often than not to be the case with shoujo/shoujo-ai/romance series in general
However one thing that surprised me most of all about the anime when it came to my opinion on the characters is how much more invested I became in the secondary characters compared to the manga and its funny to say that as there are in fact very few differences between the two and the only way I can describe it here again draws back to what I said about the voice acting: I feel just hearing these characters speak and convey their emotions leaves a much bigger impression on me if I were just to read it off of a page and the performances do add that extra weight to the characters. I felt the characters I got this experience the most from where Yuu's sister Rei, Miss Riko, the girls' teacher and her girlfriend Miyako. And while I will admit the trade off is slightly less investment in the main cast the latter still does take enough center stage for me to remain invested in Yuu and Nanami
Visuals and Music Finally lets talk visuals and music cause they really do go hand in hand with one another and the best way I can describe this is that the whenever the visuals pop on screen the music and soundtrack is perfectly timed to capture a moment in time almost like it was taking a visually spectacular picture, a method to which I can do nothing but praise Sentai Filmworks and Troyca for capturing that feel in fact my two favourite moments like this are the scene of Yuu looking up at her ceiling, decorated with stars from the planetarium nightlight given to her by Nanami.
The other scene that popped out the most to me is the dark and eerie visual of seeing Yuu's worries of what the school will think of Nanami after Maki finds out about their first kiss as it perfectly represented a very real fear while also in it's own way showing just how much Yuu's feelings for Nanami were already beginning to sprout
And to that end the best way I can describe the visuals is that they're great examples of visually telling the story in places where very few words are actually needed. Now as far as what I think about the opening and ending I'd say they follow that very similar principle as well but on a much grander scale and while many times over the openings and endings to romance anime have been kinda hit and miss to me this one left a much better impression with it's music and visuals as they both tell us what kind of story we're in for and even a little early look into the characters even before the show itself even begins
Conclusion So ya there's not much more for me to say outside of what I said in my manga review other than Bloom into You is definitely worth your time and in someways despite the slightly lower score I've given to the anime I actually do recommend it slightly more than the manga just for the visuals and moments that do add slightly more to the story than the manga do but i'll let you decide on your own which one you prefer and either way i'll be keeping my eye open for Season 2
7.9/10
79/100