Bloom Into You has given us some truly exceptional direction and visuals, as well as a powerful story of youth and growing up and navigating the thorny path of romance. What is doesn’t really give us is an ending or a resolution. Now, the more open minded part of me would like to say that this is because life goes on, but the realist in me knows that it is because they ran out of episodes and this is where we got up to. Still, how is this final episode?
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After seemingly being content to passively watch and be dragged along for most of the series, Yuu finally admits at least to herself that she likes Nanami and that she wants to help her overcome her baggage. It takes a bit to get to this point but once Yuu has committed, she moves quickly. This is the most active we’ve seen Yuu all season in terms of pursuing the relationship herself…
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Here we are at Day 5 of the 12 Days of Anime. Moving on from Elias and the Ancient Magus’ Bride, today we turn our attention firmly to the grounded realities of being the unrequited love in a high school romance and handling it with as much grace and poise as a character can possibly muster.
Yes, I am looking at Sayaka from Bloom Into You today and I must admit I’m pretty happy to look at her even if her story is ongoing and she is continuing to evolve.
Sayaka was a character who at first was seemingly very easy to overlook. She was the one who walked behind or beside Nanami Touko and it seemed like she was just going to be the token friend of the main love interest so that it didn’t look like she had no friends. That was severely underestimating both Sayaka and the narrative Bloom Into You was trying to tell.
Instead of just remaining the friend, we learn fairly early on that Sayaka is interested in Nanami and wants to be more than friends, but she’s been gently put to the side by Nanami. For Sayaka, that’s an acceptable position, by Nanami’s side, because nobody else has Nanami’s heart either. However, after Yuu enters the picture we begin to see Sayaka first become a little jealous of this first year gaining too much of Nanami’s attention, and then we see Sayaka actually having to come to terms with her feelings and the understanding that they are not going to be reciprocated.
This is kind of hard position for anyone to be in, but high schoolers are fairly emotionally ill-equipped to deal with heart break. Still, in Sayaka’s case, she isn’t so much heart-broken as second guessing herself. Should she have made a more aggressive move on Nanami earlier before Yuu entered the picture? If Nanami was okay with two girls, why couldn’t it be her?
It is watching Nanami process these ideas and feelings that she really began to shine. The whole time she continued to work admirably on the student council and interact with the others in a fairly natural manner. While there was a small verbal confrontation with Yuu, the two mostly just aired where they were sitting in relation to Nanami and then continued to work together, at times joining forces to reign in Nanami’s enthusiasm.
Sayaka is a great character. She doesn’t go to extremes, she has a clear goal and motivation but she understands that just wanting it doesn’t mean she can achieve it. She deals with disappointment and while that doesn’t stop her wanting, it does allow us to see a character not succeed and still continue on.
I really loved meeting Sayaka this season and part of me wants a spin-off story where she does find her true love and gets her own happily ever after.
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Bloom Into You has defied all of my expectations. It is a stunningly beautiful anime with incredible directing most episodes. The characters feel believable and as though they have real depth and complexity, and the story has been kept simple so there never feels like unnecessary clutter.
But…
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Karandi James
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A lot happened in this week’s episode, which is true of most of these episodes even though the languid pace and general calmness of each scene might not really give that impression. Still, when there is so much meaning packed into every single sidelong glance it is kind of inevitable that you can get to the end of the episode, start thinking back, and realise there’s a mountain to address…
This is an excerpt of a post written for patrons. To see the full post please consider becoming a patron. For $1 a month you will gain access to all patron only reviews. For existing patrons, the full post can be accessed here and if you need the password, it is available on my patreon site. A huge thanks to everyone who supports the blog.
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