Manga Thoughts: Bloom into You 3
Sep. 25th, 2017 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAfter taking notice not just of another "girls' love" manga series from Seven Seas but of an unusual yet intriguing interpretation of one of its main characters and her ever-so-slow build towards not just accepting but feeling love, I managed to comment on not just the first but also the second volume of "Bloom Into You." As I bought the third volume, I remained a bit conscious that there's a delicate balance between having been fascinated that some saw something "asexual" about Yuu to begin with and thinking ahead to how traditional for the genre the ending may get. In some ways, I can reflect on my own difficulty with reading romantic connections into fictional characters even faced with others embroidering what might seem the slightest of links, and if I'm putting a weight on Yuu that's just another variant of "since there's no representation of this in media, I'll put it there myself!" Contemplations that maybe this volume would be the one where everything would become familiar and I'd run out of things to say, though, didn't come to pass, although in saying things I can wonder if I'm about to give something away.
As the third volume got under way, a casual visit to a local cafe (as Yuu and Touko Nanami work towards getting on a first-name basis) just happened to establish (for the reader alone) that one of their teachers is living in a same-sex relationship with the cafe's owner. After that, we learn that Sayaka, one of the other girls on the student council that gives Touko and Yuu more casual time together, has a general attraction towards girls that turns specific about Touko. After a while, though, this didn't seem like it was beginning to "overload" the story in any way; the suggestion that this story was taking steps away from the certain kind of safety in "it could be just a phase" was satisfying enough.
Too, the story didn't spend too long seeming to have all its characters in the dark about each other; Sayaka manages to talk to the cafe owner about what she's picked up on, and later on Yuu talks to Maki, the boy who in the previous volume had taken a "I'm fine just watching other relationships" viewpoint. He starts to wonder if Yuu is really like him, though, and by the end of the volume Yuu really could be getting to a sort of more familiar "I don't want to admit what's happening with me" place. This could, in turn, mean the story's not going to slow down continuing to introduce variations on a theme, as much as I can keep wondering how my reactions to its own possible changes might change in turn, and if this will amount to wrapping up things to say.
As the third volume got under way, a casual visit to a local cafe (as Yuu and Touko Nanami work towards getting on a first-name basis) just happened to establish (for the reader alone) that one of their teachers is living in a same-sex relationship with the cafe's owner. After that, we learn that Sayaka, one of the other girls on the student council that gives Touko and Yuu more casual time together, has a general attraction towards girls that turns specific about Touko. After a while, though, this didn't seem like it was beginning to "overload" the story in any way; the suggestion that this story was taking steps away from the certain kind of safety in "it could be just a phase" was satisfying enough.
Too, the story didn't spend too long seeming to have all its characters in the dark about each other; Sayaka manages to talk to the cafe owner about what she's picked up on, and later on Yuu talks to Maki, the boy who in the previous volume had taken a "I'm fine just watching other relationships" viewpoint. He starts to wonder if Yuu is really like him, though, and by the end of the volume Yuu really could be getting to a sort of more familiar "I don't want to admit what's happening with me" place. This could, in turn, mean the story's not going to slow down continuing to introduce variations on a theme, as much as I can keep wondering how my reactions to its own possible changes might change in turn, and if this will amount to wrapping up things to say.