Bloom Into You

Yagate Kimi ni Naru is an anime that reminds us of the complexity of love. Several philosophers, artists, even you have tried to express that feeling to someone when you fall in love. A close person, a forgotten friend, call it what you want. Maybe someone declared us, and we did not know how to respond. Maybe we have failed, or we have managed to understand the meaning of love. No matter what happened in our life, those feelings are still present. This series uses that feeling, something that we cannot describe and creates a refreshing and pure plot that will fascinate you. On the otherhand, some viewers may consider this series boring, absurd and ridiculous. If you do not like romance combined with slice of life, you will agree with them and this anime won't be for you. --Story-- The story is straightforward, and the relationship between the different characters is exquisitely well developed. We have two girls, Yuu and Touko. The first cannot experience the feeling of love. She may know the literal meaning, but she has never "loved" anyone and perhaps never will. The second is a perfect student, president of the school council who cannot accept being loved. All this leads her to reject any proposal of love or avoid any relationship with someone who shows this feeling towards her. The plot develops gradually when Yuu feels the need to reject a declaration of love. Since she cannot ask for help from her friends, she decides to ask Touku, who supports her and helps her reject the declaration. For some viewers, it could be unrealistic, a cliché, I call it destiny or love at first sight, Touku begins to love Yuu. At first, we can think that it will take advantage of Yuu's condition. However, this is the beginning of an innocent relationship in which both girls will try to understand the meaning of love and about themselves. On the other hand, the plot is a combination of heart and self-definition, slice of life and romance. The series uses school life to improve the relationship and create perfect moments where these characters can be together. In addition, it maintains simplicity and is pleasant. It does not need any strange exaggeration to ignite love like other series like Citrus with forced scenes to name one. Another interesting factor is the setting. In general, yuri romance fails because it is set in an unrealistic place where almost the entire cast is lesbian. However, in the beginning, we can appreciate a diverse group of characters that keep the plot alive and realistic. Unfortunately, the plot tends to this unrealistic configuration in some parts, and that can be seen as negative. The author avoids any social consequences, and this could be interpreted as ridiculous by some spectators. Also, that's one of my reasons for not giving the series a perfect score because it's weird and gives you the impression that something is missing. Another reason, the series has an open ending and the most relevant part of the story is in the manga, and it may not be animated (I hope I'm wrong). --Characters— I like the way how the characters evolve with the relationship. The story has two main characters. Yuu Koito. She is an avid reader, cute, friendly and caring. For some reason, she cannot experience love, and she expects to learn about it with Touku. One interesting factor is the way how she can read Touku because this helps to brace the outcome. For me, she is in constant change because her doubts appear more often. Sadly, we cannot explore more of her development for that reason I invite you to read the manga. Touko Nanami. She is a perfect girl for all the persons around her. However, she is a character full of fears and doubts. She hides that face from anyone, but Yuu can look inside her. She dislikes being loved because she hates herself, so she will reject anyone that show any affection towards her. For me, she is a very complex character but in the deep, she is the weakest one. When she is with Yuu, she gets anxious and irradiates a beautiful feeling to the audience. --Art and Sound— The animation is good. However, there are some angles where the character lost some proportion, and they will look a bit pointed. It is weird but does not occur too often. The camera dynamic and movement are excellent, they are smooth and fit the romantic moments. It makes your eyes focus in the details of the scene. Additionally, the animation uses a bright and vivid palette that is pleasant to the eye and makes the characters glow. The soundtrack contributes with the atmosphere of the scenes and helps in the crucial moments. The sound is elegant, soft and perfect. The OP is fantastic, and I love the rhythm and the connection with the lyrics. The ED is average, but it has a pleasant score combination. --Enjoyment— I do not have too many negative complaints about the series. The plot is entertaining, and it arouses curiosity. The relationship between the characters is realistic, cute and pure. I love how Yuu tease her Senpai and how she reacts to that. The relationship is amusing and captivating. Sadly, the manga stills ongoing, so the series is not going to be completed. I certainly will recommend the series because it has a real emotional level with minor plot issues and acceptable pacing. However, if we compare the series with others from the same genre like Citrus or Aoi Hana, it will give you the impression that something is missing. The series is missing the charisma of a complete couple (two characters are needed in a relationship). In this show, Touku has that charisma, but Yuu lacks it because she cannot express the feeling of love and that gives the impression that the show is average or unfinished, but it is part of the plot concept. For that reason. I invite you to read the manga because you will see Yuu’s progression and changes in the source.

This show is average. Not bad, not good. Just average. That being said, I wasn’t entertained watching this, not even from laughing at how bad it was, because it wasn’t bad. It was just average. Despite what most people think, being average isn’t a terrible thing, so as a little disclaimer, I am not saying everything about this show sucks for everyone who might take this review badly. The show is very clearly, a romance genre. The key to any good romance media is the relationship: nothing else matters that much. My problem with the show is that it doesn’t try to make the relationships betweenour main characters all that interesting. An issue with many yuri or yaoi animes are that they use the idea that they are in a gay relationship to hide the fact that there is no real substance or development; they are too lazy to create anything interesting about the relationship besides the fact that they’re lesbians. The setting isn’t the issue either as there are a ton of romance anime that do well in mundane settings (and even if a romance media is set in a more unconventional and/or radical setting- the relationships itself isn’t taken over by the setting) because romance genres aren’t really supposed to be about exterior factors that govern the story's universe per say, rather a device to tell a love story. My point being, the environment or exterior factors shouldn’t be the most important part overshadowing the characters, but should be used as an effective agent in portraying a relationship. However, Bloom Into You makes this mistake repeatedly throughout its course as boring subplots distract us from the main focus of the anime, the relationship. So why was the relationship so uninteresting? Or, at least why did I subjectively find it bland? Well, it has to do with the romance development/buildup and characterization. A great romance anime that does this very well is Kimi Ni Todoke. There are certainly a lot of cute romance scenes in Bloom Into You, but it isn’t memorable or as effective as they could be. This is because there is no real buildup to the romance scenes or context, (for God’s sake one of the main characters doesn’t even reciprocate the same feelings) which makes the scenes unsatisfying and coming out of nowhere. There is no longing, no real angst that make the romance scenes worth while in this anime. Kimi Ni Todoke, my aforementioned example, takes the time to show longing, reciprocation of feelings as well as showing who each of the characters are: this is what makes trivial scenes of even the characters smiling at each other enjoyable and satisfying- overall making it an effective romance medium. Bloom Into You doesn’t do this very well either. Even in supposed-to-be emotional scenes, I fail to sympathize with any of the characters, and I’m a really emotional person, so it says a lot! There is no real character in dialogue, visuals or voice acting. It feels completely bland and lifeless, a very frustrating issue because the anime is centered around our characters and their relationship with each-other. There is just genuinely no substance in dialogue either which makes it very hard to emotionally relate with the last-minute backstory. Just overall making the characters less likable and therefore the romance/ their relationships less interesting and engaging. A very important note I’d like to mention is the trend in a lot of animes that I’d like to call The Aesthetic Effect. The Aesthetic Effect is used in animes with “pretty” visuals, stories, music and concepts to be used as a facade to it’s mediocre nature. How vague the show is and the inoffensive factors of this anime make it desirable and appealing to a lot of the general audience. I think not only is this anime extremely bland, but also quite offensive at times by using lesbians as a token to justify dislikable behaviour to say the least of the main character Nanami forcefully putting herself upon the clearly uninterested Yuu. Not to be THAT person, but if a male character did things Nanami did to Yuu, it would be seen as extremely creepy. I found these scenes very unsightly and uncomfortable, which is the least thing you want for a romantic scene in a cute anime. To wrap things up, it is very clear this anime was made by people who see lesbians as an easy token key to attract audiences without adding real substance. Bloom Into You is just vague, pretty, attractive concepts jumbled into an unprofessional mess with the name of aesthetically pleasing romance. I will never understand why this anime is so overrated and put on a pedestal for being some sort of groundbreaking anime as it is just plain out boring with not really anything new to offer. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch this anime, it’s just a waste of time and it will leave you with nothing. TL;DR - boring and mediocre, uses gay tokenism to hide behind it’s flaws.

As a fan of Yuri and all things girls love. Bloom Into You left me in a dark state of depression. I dropped the manga a while ago trying to figure out why I never really got into it. But after finishing the anime, I finally figured it out. It's Boring! Starting out with the positive. The presentation is Second to none when it comes to Yuri anime adaptions. Animation is fluid and the attention to detail great. And the Opening has many undertones. But this is where my appreciation ends. The rest of the show is just so boring to watch. The characters are just not very likeable. SoYuu is your typical shoujo manga protagonist. Has never experienced love and wants to know what it is. Unfortunately that's where her development ends. She's still the same person with no romantic feelings at the end of the show. And Touko really started to annoy me half way through the show. and it's mostly because of their romance together. I don't buy it. Their whole relationship together is built around one conversation they had with each other. And it's not a healthy one. I see people praising it for these same reasons, but the idea is that they should develop past that. They could have even fixed this if something ever happened in the show. The show is too slow, and what's worse is that the Play the show has been building up to never happens. I feel like they could have cut a lot of moments out to make it happen. I wanted to like Bloom Into You, I really did. But Bad pacing, a dull romance that goes nowhere, and an incomplete ending left me unsatisfied.

I'm absolutely perplexed and bewildered by the general consensus on this anime, so I would like to provide my two cents, because there's not a single review I can agree with. Art/Sound: Let's get the subjective criteria out of the way first. Art is good, character designs are pleasant to look at, and backgrounds are of high quality aswell. As for the soundtrack, the piano compositions that play at certain scenes are very nice, however I can't say the same about neither OP nor ED, I disliked them both, I'm not going to say that they are bad or anything such, it's just not the kind ofmusic I enjoy. Characters/Plot: The juicy part. What unfolds in this show is a dysfunctional relationship between a person that's mentally disturbed (Touko) and a person that's flawed on the fundamental level, because she is incapable of feeling love and empathy (Yuu). People claim they see a very mellow and realistic relationship between two girls, but I personally fail to see that. There's a lot of opinions that Touko has a genuine affection towards Yuu, but I think that people are mistaking an indulgence for affection. How can you feel genuine affection and love for someone, if you are incapable of loving yourself? She even states outright that she doesn't want Yuu to love or hate her back, and only wants to indulge herself in Yuu's kindness, as that puts her distressed self at ease, a dubious concept at best, since how can a person to whom love and empathy are alien, unknown emotions, can be kind, is beyond me. Touko also quite frequently acts in a mentally disturbed and creepy manner, looking at her family photo and reassuring herself that she'll be exactly as her sister was in her eyes. Because, apparently, if you're a shy and meek child, instead of self-betterment, a much superior choice would be to become a literal copy of your older sister, and then grapple with mental and stress repercussions of your decisions. Not to mention that she low-key contemplates suicide a couple times, once at the crosswalk at the train tracks, and another in the final episode, where she's standing at the train station paltform and takes a step forward, while the train is about to pass the afformentioned station. As I stated earlier, Yuu is flawed on a fundamental level, since she cannot feel love and empathy, yet somehow renowned for her kindness, sure, whatever. In the relationship with Touko, to me personally, she comes off as a Stockholm Syndrom victim, because I cannot sum up a person that puts up with someone who indulges themselves in her, forces her to kiss them, even though she's clearly not in a mood for it, explicitly tells her to not have an affection of any kind towards them, in any other way. The only solace, is that at the end of final episode she's finally had enough of it, as she says: "It's time for us to change trains, senpai". The rest of cast is inconsequential, as they usually have about 5 minutes of screen time, over 12 episodes, total, or are there to fulfill a single role. The only one I will mention, is Maki-kun, a creepy self-admitted voyer, who doesn't want to be in any relationship himself, but rather be a spectator to the relationships of others, that he finds interesting/intriguing. Overall: Personally, I'm revolted by relationship of this kind, I won't elaborate on it here further, as if you're reading this, it's clear as to why I'm displeased. There's nothing else I can add to this. When autumn chart was just released, I dismissed this anime, as I assumed that it will be like just about anything with similiar tags, only to be asked by my friend to join him, cause he saw potential. Now that it ended, he's dissapointed in it, though not as much as I am.