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This first episode is pretty, well paced, and just nicely executed and yet I found myself just a little bit bored by the midway point. It is another case of a story that will probably be excellent but just really doesn’t interest me. That said, I am going to give Bloom Into You at least one more episode before I decide because what is presented here is very nice.
Yuu is probably my biggest problem with the show so far and that isn’t actually because there’s anything wrong with her as a protagonist. It is more that she’s exactly the kind of female character I just do not connect with. She’s indecisive and easily lead, slow to react and generally pushed around at the pace of other characters. We meet her as she’s brimming with indecision about how to tell the boy who confessed to her a month ago that she doesn’t want to date him (that decision at least she’d made). But she’s also dithering about what club if any to join at school or whether to talk to her friends about her love life. It’s all just very much not the kind of female character I enjoy watching.
At the suggestion of her teacher she agrees to go check out the student council and there she meets Nanami. Yuu catches Nanami getting confessed to and sees how easily she turns the guy down and is somehow impressed that someone can express an opinion. That said, it isn’t insta-love as we then see Yuu’s growing respect for Nanami before she asks for advice on how to deal with the boy she needs to reject. And it isn’t Yuu who ends up falling in love but Nanami who confesses to Yuu leading to a whole new round of indecisive confusion, though at least it seems kind of warranted.
Actually, none of Yuu’s indecision would have bothered me as much except that in the flash back we get of Yuu talking to the boy when they were still just friends, she’s like an entirely different person. How her friends haven’t noticed that somehow her personality has completely changed course in the last month is beyond me and if it hasn’t, then that flash back was pretty misleading.
That said, it is an interesting enough set up to explore the idea of love in general and love between girls. There’s plenty of potential here and I’ve already read quite a lot of positive first impressions from people who have read the source so this one is probably going to have quite a following this season. I’ll see how I’m feeling about it after episode 2 but it just isn’t my kind of thing so far.
- Episode 1: It’s Very Pink
- Episode 2: First Impressions Wilting
- Episode 3: Digging Deeper
- Episode 4: Flowers and Butterflies
- Episode 5: To Choose and Be Chosen
- Episodes 6 + 7: The Jealous Girls’ Resolve in the Face of Love
- Episode 8: A Curious Case: Asking a Question With No Answer
- Episode 9: Who Else Felt Their Hearts Shatter At Yuu’s Denial of Love?
- Episode 10: The Empty Wishes and the Empty Girl
- Episode 11: The Disillusioned Girl and The Dream of Simpler Times
- Episode 12: How Did Love Help Yuu Overcome Her Fear of Inaction
- Episode 13: The Fleeting Life of a Flower in Bloom
Well, I canceled my subscription after Devil’s Line burned me so I don’t know yet if I’m wiling to renew for this anime. So far it doesn’t look too worth it.
Yeah, HiDive only seems to have four simulcasts this season. I keep the subscription to catch up a few older shows and because it gets titles that neither Crunchyroll or animelab were getting. I haven’t felt the need to renew my animelab subscription after letting is expire and when I went to look at what they had this season there was nothing I couldn’t access across my other subscriptions yet so I don’t think I’ll be picking it back up. That said, I’ll check back and see if they do get anything interesting.
I was so mad to see Devil’s Line on Hulu this last week. So maybe this show will go there after it is over.
That is the problem with all these different streaming services. I can’t access Hulu at all and there’s a few services that get thrown around that don’t stream in Australia (or have such a limited selection it isn’t worth the effort). I really wish we could get rid of regional restrictions and just pay a reasonably price to watch anime. That would be nice.
YES!
I wouldn’t pay extra when Amazon strike was a thing but I have prime just because I order so much for school. So I get lucky that I can see those shows which generally have been very good.
Even I am not big fan of characters like that…. sometimes these kind of characters drag the whole story down especially when the entire anime depends on those particular characters….I only hope this doesn’t end like that. But I am definitely going to stick with this till the end….
I loved the show, though I felt it to be a little slow paced… could have picked it up a hair.
There was certainly a lot to like in this episode. Whether I end up sticking with it or not, I hope it maintains this kind of quality (though the pace picking up a little would help me stick with it).
I’ll be covering this one, since I’m just a fan of shoujo in general. Sappy stuff is my jam.
I’m pretty sure a lot of bloggers will pick this one up. Not really my thing but I did appreciate some elements of this first episode. I’ll give it another episode because it was a pretty solid start but depending on my watch list I might end up just giving this one a miss.
Hm, on the one hand this doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, and on the other hand I’m quite intrigued by it. Guess I will wait to see what you have to say about the second episode before I go and check this one out 😊
It was a very well done first episode. Just not my sort of thing. I’ll give it another episode but it isn’t a high priority for me and I’m certain a lot of other bloggers will cover this one even if I don’t.