Yagate Kimi ni Naru
Bloom into You

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In general, yuri has had a rather mixed history, and a myriad of series that don’t take themselves seriously and/or suffer from poorly-written characters and narratives have made the rounds in the past few years. Thankfully, Yagate Kimi ni Naru (Bloom into You) avoids these issues, placing well-written characters into an engaging and thoughtfully crafted narrative to create a moving coming-of-age story.

Story (10/10): YagaKimi presents a believable and well-paced narrative that takes readers on an emotional journey of self-discovery as an unlikely friendship blooms into love, while exploring socially important issues such as loss, loneliness, gender roles, and the meaning of love itself. No event ... ever feels out of place or rushed, and each one feels relevant to the overall story. The last few chapters provide a satisfying conclusion.

Art (10/10): The artwork is very well-done overall. Characters are expressive and have unique designs, backgrounds have an appropriate level of detail, and everything is drawn in a very consistent manner. It's a pleasure to look at.

Characters (10/10): YagaKimi's cast, especially its two protagonists, are by far its strongest aspect. Everyone is treated with respect and interactions between them are powerfully and realistically written.

We are initially introduced to Yuu Koito as an average first-year who isn't sure of her life ambitions or what she wants in a relationship, and to Touko Nanami as the ideal student council president who falls in love with her kouhai. However, over time it becomes clear that there are many more layers to both protagonists than is initially apparent. Their desires, backgrounds, and mental states are thoroughly developed and examined over the course of the story, and this allows their interactions to transform from something rather standard into a truly special and unique relationship. These reveals are highly engaging and moving. Because its protagonists’ goals and ideals change as they learn more about what they want from themselves and each other, YagaKimi feels more like a coming-of-age series than a romance at times, and this is more than welcome.

Overall (10/10): YagaKimi is a masterpiece that all fans of romance and coming-of-age series, regardless of their opinion on yuri, should read. Its well-developed characters and narrative provide an emotionally rich experience that respectfully depicts lesbian youth in a way few prior series have managed to accomplish. An equally good anime adaptation of the first half has already been produced and I sincerely hope a second season will be made to cover the rest of the story. This is easily the best manga I have ever read, and it is not to be missed.

There is a certain thing I do when I want to be sure I'm judging shoujo-ai or shounen-ai fairly - I think about wheter I would rate it the same if the story was about a heterosexual couple. And by that I mean examining whether the character depth and relationship developement is interesting by itself or whether those are replaced by just being gay and the romance itself is shallow. In other words, it's removing fetishizing of yuri or yaoi from the lenses of judgement - "Is it good because they are the same sex, or is it good because they are actually interesting characters?"

Did ... Yagate Kimi ni Naru stand the test of this defluffing method? Not really, no.

Well, not like this worked for me even as a shoujo-ai an away. Most of the volumes is padded with annoying "I love you but I don't love you and you love me but you also can't love me" bullshitting. I knew how this was going to end, you knew it, we all knew it and yet you still have to drag through 7 volumes to get to the expected ending. To be fair, the last volume is actually nice. If the filler between the introduction and the finale was removed with more content added after the finale this would have been much better. But there just isn't anything really interesting happening there. Nothing really caught my attention as the story progressed. Nothing when I said to myself "now this is where it gets good". Up until the end I still struggle to understand the overwhelmingly positive reception of this manga, as it doesn't do much outside from what the average shoujo-ai manga does. Actually, the scenario of the theatre play within the story sounded significantly more interesting than the story itself. Just do that as a story instead, please?

The characters don't offer anything interesting either. One half of the duo of protagonists is the "I must be like my sister" trope which is definitely nothing new while the personality of the other half is not really more than "being in love with that girl".

The art is fine, definitely the best part of this manga but then again that isn't saying much. I really dig those colored page spreads at the start of the volumes.

Overall, you could skip most of this manga and your experience would be pretty much unchanged. Or maybe even changed for better, as more compact story might would have been preferable over this.

TLDR Review at the bottom. Hopefully, that helped, thank you for reading it in advance.

To put it simply, Bloom Into You is heavily overrated. 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.


Story - 3:
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. So, the story at that point is probably at it's most interesting in the manga, but what makes it worse you say? Well, it just falls into being generic.

The manga is supposed to come across as a relationship of manipulation and how selfish people can be, 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 then you get the most useless part of the story which is the student council play. Now, the play in itself is ironical, it 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 7.5/10. It was basic, but the characters where 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 too, 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 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 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.

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 anime/manga. 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 regular situation. Honestly speaking, this is the best part of the entire manga. But there isn't much to say from it other than, you have seen this before if you are familiar with the genre, 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.


Art - 6:
Well, the art is pretty normal. There wasn't anything 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 everything even feels into the average category, nothing bad, but nothing good either. It was pretty to be fair even along the average side of things.


Characters - 4:
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 she didn't have to act for. 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 way anyway.

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 in that when she becomes a much smarter person. She does not once take into account:

1. She is being selfish, yes, that is her entire character base but for someone smart as her, what is the point, if she wanted to become the same as the person she desired, who mind you, I don't believe was selfish anyway, already failing her task. What was the point of being so selfish?

2. Why? Why do this to yourself, no one said she had to be this way but she did anyway. Just a simple question that in her 7 years of doing her change to a false identity she did not once think to ask herself. How does anyone expect to buy that kind of character?

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 is presented as a character. The same is for Sayaka, she too is a self conflicted person, but she 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 the wills to do as they please, but it is because they are normal and have reasoning, that I feel as if they are better than the main cast. It's a shame they are not developed.

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.


Enjoyment - 7:
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.


Overall - 4.83 (5)


TLDR Review:
Story - 3: Useless plot device that takes up half of the story, as well as the entire story not bring anything new for the romance mix.
Art - 6: Fairly decent and pretty art, has it's random bursts of good art now and then.
Characters - 4: Nanami is extremely indecipherable, almost coming across as dumb due to various contradictions. Though other characters make up for her, by no means in a special way, however. Also has quite a few yuri relationships
Enjoyment - 7: Has its wholesome moments, and it is sweet when the right times appear.
Overall - 4.83 (5)


So for my first Shoujo Ai manga, this doesn't leave a good first impression but that doesn't matter for me, I will still read Shoujo Ai. I just think that Bloom Into you is way too ambitious for it's kind and try to reach heights it ultimately cannot. You just keep asking "Why?" every time something confusing happens. It is annoying but that is what the author wanted I guess. It is quite a shame, but it is what it is.

Anyways, I believe I did point out stories that are similar to this, so here are a few I can think of, all I think are in some shape or form better than Bloom Into You:

Somewhat manipulating relationships:
- Say "I Love You".
- Maid-sama!

One-sided relationships:
- Toradora!
- Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun
- Kimi ni Todoke
- Orange

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Edited 20/3/2021
Recalculated score: 4.83
Original score: 5.0