Bloom Into You
a review by NextUniverse
a review by NextUniverse
(TLDR Review at the bottom. Hopefully, that helped, in advance. Thanks for reading)
(Note: This is a revamp of one of my MAL reviews. If you for some reason have a problem with AL reviews. You can go check out my MAL version if you want)
Obligatory Dream moment note:
To put it simply, Bloom Into You is overrated beyond comprehension. I really don't understand what makes this manga have so much praise. I am not hating on Shoujo Ai, in fact, I quite like Shoujo Ai relationships, but this, simply put, is just a manga trying to look like a great story on a superficial level, only when you look into it, does it become obvious that this very conflicting is just what you could call a sorry excuse for a story. I feel like this story was simply made solely for some more Shoujo Ai relationships to exist within the anime/manga medium, there is no real meaning to anything that takes place in this story. I simply cannot see why so many people like this. Truly a bruh moment, as some would say.
So I am going to work my way from start to end of how this manga just leaves what is a mess behind itself. In the beginning, we have two protagonists who more or less can't feel love, sounds like a promising start, but then it gets better, school council president Touko Nanami falls in love with Yuu Koito after hearing about her issues of being unable to get the feeling of falling in love with someone. Oh, valorous l'rd! Who is't wouldst has't did guess. But what makes it worse you say? Well, it just falls into being generic. But I will say this really quick, being generic doesn't necessarily mean that a story is bad. It is just plain and average. Though, with so much potential of being so good, I don't see how it took such a turn for the worst. The manga is supposed to come across as a relationship of manipulation and how selfish people can be, self-realization and all that other emotional stuff, but this isn't anything new from what I have seen. Summing up the manga and you get, "oh I can't do this since it will make her sad" and lying to yourself over and over again. And whilst oversimplification is definitely something that doesn't strengthen a point, reading this review for myself. I really didn't see a distinct quality to differentiate from that foundation. Picture it as builders creating a foundation for a building, only to say that that was it, the project is finished. And then you get the most useless part of the story which is the student council play. Now, the play in itself is ironic, being better than the main story at hand. It really was. It had an interesting story, and the entire play was nicely executed. If I had to rate it, I would give it a 75/100. It was basic, but the characters were strong and believable, it was so strong that it is supposed to have a say in Bloom Into You characters, in a way that I believe that the characters, namely, that of Nanami is supposed to relate to since she has an identity crisis herself. But here is the problem with the student council play. Now the story has to play with two sub-stories at once simultaneously one being Nanami's love for Yuu and the other being her identity crisis, you could argue that as someone who is in an awkward position with Nanami, this ties in perfectly as a story, there is someone there to look out for her and give her the push she needs so that she can understand what to do with her life. But then why use a student council play? I don't see how they logically entwine together for it to make sense that a student council play has to play a part in fixing a character, even generic manga based on the same idea use some kind of group of people to help said person in their life issues, not some overblown play. It is not to say that the idea of a play is horrible or isn't creative, it is just that it was used in a way to describe something as more ambitious than it should have been. It seriously looks like an excuse to stretch out the story for an unnecessary perplexing idea. There was honestly no point in the student council play. What sucks, even more, is that it is almost as if it has been forgotten up to about Vol 7. So there. I ask you again. What is the point of the play?
Now the story leaves the epitome of "oh I can't do this since it will make her sad" and lying to yourself so much so. At this point, we have seen gradual change happen with the characters, especially that of Yuu, which was a nice change to witness, but it only leads down to the monotonous path of not staying true to yourself you usually see in most romance of its kind. Now I don't have a problem with generic storytelling, if something is the norm, it doesn't mean that it is bad because other stories follow the same structure. It just means that it is the norm. Not good. Not bad. So from Vol 7 onwards, that is exactly what you get, misunderstandings creating a misunderstood situation, creating a finale you already saw coming from when it was obvious it was coming, which is pretty early on in the story. Honestly speaking, this is the best part of the entire story which says a lot about the story itself. But there isn't much to say from it other than, you have seen this before if you are familiar with the genre, romance, and that what you expect to happen, will likely happen.
The ending was quite wholesome though, nothing much to go on about that other than it was wholesome. I think that it ended off on a sweet positive note with very few questions being answered in that ending.
Now the characters…
Nanami.
Just Nanami.
One of the most confusing characters I've come across watching anime or reading manga. One moment she is loving Yuu, the next she is acting for someone who didn't even ask her to do so. Seriously, I really don't understand why she had to act for someone who is no more. It just kinda happened. And the story takes no real time to explain why she had to be that way. I honestly don't understand how this is a natural response for anyone or if anyone would say, "yeah this is the best thing to do in this situation." Maybe I am going mad like some Victorian Professor who refuses to believe in anything they don't understand. But I am quite interested as to why in the hell Nanami thought that her way of life was to act like someone who didn't even need her to act in such a way anyway.
I will explain what I mean (spoilers):
Who asked? Just live your own life.
Her intentions are quite difficult to understand at all, she even says herself at some point in that story "what next", "what do I do after this". Yes. Exactly. What next? She is truly contradicting herself when she becomes a much smarter person. She does not once take into account:
I would really like to see how she would have played out if she had never met Yuu, a character of her kind would just be completely contradictory that I can't see how she would go on other than she realises that what she was doing was stupid. Which would have summed up the entire manga anyways if Yuu were to not exist. Making Nanami an idiot from the get-go. Quite a shame since she could have been such a better character than she was made out to be.
Yuu is an interesting one. She is a self conflicted person but that is quite normal in romance manga so I don't see any reason to dislike how she is presented as a character. The same is for Sayaka, she too is a self conflicted person, but she constantly plays on the sidelines and well, with a bit of knowledge, you can tell how that will play out.
Other minor characters like Maki, Koyomi, Doujima and Akari I find better than the main cast, to be honest. They are more original than the MCs and their attitudes towards everything is based on what kind of character they are, they don't do anything they wouldn't normally do and they do have some feelings to go out of their way to act based on what they think is the best option, again, in their manner. When you look into these characters, they are normal people, with wills to do as they please. It is because they are normal and have reasoning, that I feel as if they are better than the main cast. It is a shame they didn't have much attention to them, I would have liked to see some more content based on them. Another thing I found quite funny is the author's need for yuri relationships, it isn't bad but damn there are quite a few, you could get 5 different ships from this story all around girls alone. Again nothing bad but I just thought it was strange, as I did point out that beforehand.
Well, the art is pretty common. There wasn't anything that particularly special about it, but I did like the art that was given in the aquarium.
The story had random bursts of good art every time some important event would come along. The art was detailed on those particular pages, but even they fell into the average category, nothing bad, but nothing good either, it was pretty to be fair even along the average side of things. I can't say this particular style has been claimed for Nakatani for herself, since you may find something similar elsewhere, but it still has a pleasing visual to spark off. It also goes really well with the soft and light atmosphere of manga, nothing that comes across as deep, but not something to say that it doesn't come across as slightly heavenly too.
I enjoy most things I come across, Bloom Into You is no exception, I quite like romance anime/manga and so seeing things like dates, sharing an umbrella and holding hands, that is quite enjoyable, not to mention wholesome, to come across. Even if stories and characters are bad, I do like trying to find things to like about a particular manga. Although this wasn't the most understanding of the things I've read. It did have its fair share of wholesomeness and just generally good willed actions that are loveable nonetheless.
Somewhat manipulating relationships:
Somewhat one-sided relationships:
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