I think lust definitely has it's place in a romantic relationship
I also think there is for sure a whole lotta lust between Yuu x Touko

I’m not saying I don’t want lust in the manga or that’s it doesn’t have a place necessarily. What I’m saying is when there’s a cute moment like what happened in this chapter, some dummy wants to be like “OOH THEY GONNA FUCK NOW” and while sex scenes are welcomed and even appreciated from time to time, I hate people acting like horny teenagers over these fictional characters that I value dearly. If sex is to happen in this manga, I want it to be a good ass setting and not seem like it would be horribly out of place.

Wait... Did they fuck??

Get the fuck out, dude. There’s more to romance stories than just fucking.

The truth has been spoken!
Seriously though, what's with people on this site and their fixation on sex in innocent romance manga or polyamorous ships that don't even make any sense.

Beats me. Can anyone who has such fixations explain it to us, please?

Some people don't believe in romance without lust.

Well, Touko's and Yuu's lust for each other has been shown before, especially in chapters 16 & 20. It's not like they are asexual. Whether the last volume will actually feature a sex scene or not, no one can really tell. Nakatani has said more than once that she enjoys drawing lewd, but whether she actually wants to draw it in her story and whether her editor will allow it, that's a whole different story. This manga doesn't need sex anyways, but after seeing Miyako and Riko cuddling in bed together, I wanna see something like with Touko and Yuu too (it happened in ch 22, but now as couple)

I’m just glad there’s sensible people who replied to what I said to be honest haha, I wasn’t expecting it.

Notice that there's almost nothing about the sister in the wake of the play, no return to the gravesite to tell Mio that her quest has finally been fulfilled or any other "putting the guilt to rest" scene, etc.--it's all about Touko going forward.

While this is true, it is hard to tell whether it's because there was no quest in the first place, or because of the change in Touko's way of thinking thanks to Yuu. And then there's the simple fact that the grave seems to be far enough away that she only really goes there when visiting the grandparents - we may still see her go there later, possibly with Yuu.

I have been re-watching the anime adaptation, one episode per day, for over a week now. Today, I watched episode 9, which y'all may remember as the sports day episode. Today, it was sports day at my school. When I decided to rewatch YagaKimi, I carefully calculated that in advance so I could watch the sports day episode on sports day. Am I a madlad, or what?

I have been re-watching the anime adaptation, one episode per day, for over a week now. Today, I watched episode 9, which y'all may remember as the sports day episode. Today, it was sports day at my school. When I decided to rewatch YagaKimi, I carefully calculated that in advance so I could watch the sports day episode on sports day. Am I a madlad, or what?

Yes, BV, you are indeed.

YESS s MY BABYS ARE TOGETHER IM CRYING

In any case, I made that comment before catching up with all the posts made in the last 6 or so hours. Now I am cought up.

First off, when it comes to the (to me, at least) less important of the two ongoing conversations in this thread, the one about a hypothetical sex scene:

I’m not saying I don’t want lust in the manga or that’s it doesn’t have a place necessarily. What I’m saying is when there’s a cute moment like what happened in this chapter, some dummy wants to be like “OOH THEY GONNA FUCK NOW” and while sex scenes are welcomed and even appreciated from time to time, I hate people acting like horny teenagers over these fictional characters that I value dearly. If sex is to happen in this manga, I want it to be a good ass setting and not seem like it would be horribly out of place.

.

Well, Touko's and Yuu's lust for each other has been shown before, especially in chapters 16 & 20. It's not like they are asexual. Whether the last volume will actually feature a sex scene or not, no one can really tell. Nakatani has said more than once that she enjoys drawing lewd, but whether she actually wants to draw it in her story and whether her editor will allow it, that's a whole different story. This manga doesn't need sex anyways, but after seeing Miyako and Riko cuddling in bed together, I wanna see something like with Touko and Yuu too (it happened in ch 22, but now as couple)

Both of these quoted bits are things I could get back behind.

As for the more important, but also longer conversation (that I'm, unfortunately, too lazy to quote), the one about if/when and how will the MCs' families accept their relationship, I must say that the likes of @BugDevil, @Blastaar and @heavensrun have a lot of good points added since I've last checked the conversation (and very briefly participated in, with only a little to add). This is certainly not the first time others in this thread have influenced my opinion of the situation with their posts. Basically, even though the way I think this will play out in the Koito family may be similar how to Rei predicted, and though I think that the Nanami family will be accepting of it, I have come around that it is uncertain and that things may play in an unexpected way. About how someone (I forgot who) here mentioned how people are homophobic unless it's their children, or how others are supportive of the LGBTQ+ movement unless it's their children actually kinda reminded me of (I think) the only Odds1Out video I watched, where he had this adult friend and they always said "there's nothing wrong with being gay", until that adult disowned his son for said son being gay. So, if that kinda thing happens here, it'd be really crappy.

Still, it goes without saying that I'm rather curious where this goes now.

Except Touko also states that she is doing the play for herself and because she wants to. This isn't just about Mio, but about Touko learning more about herself and about someone who was and is incredibly important to her. She even makes it a point to ask what her sister was like, not simply relying on what other's have already said and her own conclusions. In a way, the play and build up to the play functions as her grieving process, because she never really got to due to the expectations of others. She wanted to know more about her sister, and that's not a bad thing.

The whole point, or a main point, to the play was to accept that another person's view of you does not wholly define you. And to find yourself, to act on your own interests, even if what comes next is unknown and scary. Touko is still scared, still uncertain as her hand shakes while accepting and reciprocating Yuu's love, but her experiences lead her to discovering herself more and to gaining the ability to act or make the "choice".

You are quite right about this for the most part, but a lot of this are also changes that emerge long after she decides to do the play. You are absolutely right about the point of the play, but this from the standpoint of the story itself, not from Touko's. Touko does go into this with her original plan of simply accomplishing what her sister couldn't. The changes to how she views both the play and her sister come from Yuu's advice and from discovering that her sister was not as perfect as she always thought. The latter is also why she starts asking more about her sister, it would not have happened without being told how different they were.

WE HAVE BEEN WAITING ALMOST THREE YEARS FOR THIS TOO HAPPEN

WE HAVE BEEN WAITING ALMOST THREE YEARS FOR THIS TOO HAPPEN

^4 years

Have read CH40 five times now, and it just gets better with each reading. It must be made out of solid heavy kawaii metal feels! Ms Nakatani has said that Bloom will end in November. She has been putting out a chapter per month, so perhaps 6 more chapters to the finish. Many loose ends to tie together. Poor Sayaka. While she has Rich Girl syndrome especially in talking down to Yuu, she is a remarkable character, pure, steadfast and true, devoted to her love. I hope Ms Nakatani gives her the happiness that she deserves. Now rumors in Bloom Fandom put (Suguru Doujima X Koyomi Kanou) together. If Doujima so much as puts a little finger on my girl Koyomi, I propose we put together a posse, sit down with Mr. Doujima, and make him an offer he can't refuse.

Nakatani-sensei has an amazing ability to end her dramas in a good note, Sayaka's confession had me tearing, this chapter was absolutely beautiful, definitely some authors out there should take notes (Am I looking at you Saburouta?)

Now rumors in Bloom Fandom put (Suguru Doujima X Koyomi Kanou) together. If Doujima so much as puts a little finger on my girl Koyomi, I propose we put together a posse, sit down with Mr. Doujima, and make him an offer he can't refuse.

Based on what? they barely had any interaction, as far as I'm concerned Koyomi-chan has that fiction writer, Renma Hayashi

No, I would agree with you, (Renma Hayashi X Koyomi Kanou) would be a wonderful pairing! Its just that I would be sad to lose her.

Now rumors in Bloom Fandom put (Suguru Doujima X Koyomi Kanou) together. If Doujima so much as puts a little finger on my girl Koyomi, I propose we put together a posse, sit down with Mr. Doujima, and make him an offer he can't refuse.

Based on what? they barely had any interaction, as far as I'm concerned Koyomi-chan has that fiction writer, Renma Hayashi

Didn't I say that as a joke some time back?

If I accidentally started a Koyomi x Dickhead rumor in YagaKimi fandom I'll never forgive myself . . .

If I accidentally started a Koyomi x Dickhead rumor in YagaKimi fandom I'll never forgive myself . . .

Should we persecute you now? Just in case? I mean, I like getting things done ahead of schedule.
#SaveAkariSaveKoyomi

Given that I was trying to think of the most horrifying development that will never happen, I feel confident that our darling Koyomi is safe.

It's more likely that Touko will suddenly run off with that girl who sent her the confession letter way back when, which is to say: completely impossible.

I'm not looking to wholesale blame people.

At the funeral, those attending literally tell her to live as her sister. They say to her "Live on in your sister's place" and this is repeated in her memory of another person saying "live on as your sister...". It is also said to her to "be a good person like Mio-chan was" -- "sister's place" and "good person" are in bold emphasizing what Touko understood from what she was being told and of what was being projected onto her by others. It's not unreasonable -- especially for a young child with limited life experiences who was emotionally dependent on her sister -- to develop the belief that the only way for her to be a good person, to be worthy of love or at least praise, is to be someone else.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/bloom_into_you_ch10#34
Except that is not what they "literally" said.
"Live on in your sister's place" and "live on as your sister" are fundamentally different things. Plenty of people are "a good person" and Touko clearly knew that too.
Touko misinterpreted their words in a way that fit her guilty conscience and perception of how perfect her sister was. You even acknowledge this right after making the opposite point...

She internalized that you can be loved and praised being like Mio, but the belief that she has to replace her was all her own.

Touko doesn't "stomp away" from her father. She gets up abruptly, clears her dishes, and calmly explains that she's going to finish her studies as she leaves. Her father meant well, likely aware of what was said to Touko prior and on how she's been living her life from what he's been able to see of it, but Touko's view of the play and desire to perform isn't just about living on as Mio. She wants to do this play for herself. Her father, unfortunately, doesn't realize that his concern perpetuates what had made it so difficult for Touko to be confident in her own choices -- what Touko has a hard time saying is that she is also doing this play for herself.

While I didn't make the "stomp away" argument, it is very clear that Touko is upset here and ran from the conversation.
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/bloom_into_you_ch19#21
She is far from calm. Her parents definitely know this and it only implies that this is not the first time they tried to talk to her and she just fled.

Except it was for Mio's sake. She kept telling herself that she was doing it for her own sake as well, but that's so obviously a lie. She does it to finally become Mio. To make up for what Mio has lost. Only later did Yuu snap her out of that bad mindset and thanks to that she discovered her love for acting (ironic isn't it?).
It's pretty ignorant to call the parents out for doing the right thing. She is doing all of this for the wrong reasons, so even if it benefits her (which it wouldn't have had if Yuu wasnt there to intefere), it's not a good thing.

Her father on the other hand made the discussion about Mio, not Touko. That said, even if her father said what Yuu said, that doesn't mean she'd listen, because it is hard for Touko to trust family.

He made it about Mio, because that's what Touko made it about. Touko keeps her distance, so he has no way of getting to the core of the matter.

What people do and say to us can and do have profound impacts on our self-view and our "choices". It is unfair to say that everything Touko has suffered is all her fault, out of the projected expectation of her to have a skill she was never truly able to develop nor begin to develop until she was able to accept herself.

I am a huge advocate for choice and consequence. A person can make any choice they want, no matter how bad, but they have to accept the consequences. Touko has extenuating circumstances and it is not quite fair, but these choices she made are hers. They were not forced on her by anyone. Her basic misunderstanding of what love and happiness should be are informed by her surroundings... but then she wilfully ignored all counter-evidence. Because she felt guilty on one hand and much safer in her Mio shell.
I think it would take away Touko's independence to claim this was not build on her bad choices.

And sometimes it is better to support someone than to question them at all, which is what Yuu does.

Yuu absolutely questioned Touko's worldview. She was just subtle enough to change it without being direct about.

Touko was lead to believe that being perfect was the only way people would appreciate her. She is further being hurt, but that's not something to tell her is solely, completely, and only her fault. She is afraid to be herself because she was taught that being herself was not a good thing. And as time went on, as she continues to wear this mask, it became harder and harder for her to face herself.

She has never been taught that. She was told something vaguely like it at a pivotal moment in her development and that's the most you can claim. To pretend Touko was taught or raised to be this way is simply wrong. It's something she taught herself wrongly.
I do agree that she found it harder and harder to drop the mask. That is exactly how we got here.

Except Touko also states that she is doing the play for herself and because she wants to. This isn't just about Mio, but about Touko learning more about herself and about someone who was and is incredibly important to her. She even makes it a point to ask what her sister was like, not simply relying on what other's have already said and her own conclusions. In a way, the play and build up to the play functions as her grieving process, because she never really got to due to the expectations of others. She wanted to know more about her sister, and that's not a bad thing.

The whole point, or a main point, to the play was to accept that another person's view of you does not wholly define you. And to find yourself, to act on your own interests, even if what comes next is unknown and scary. Touko is still scared, still uncertain as her hand shakes while accepting and reciprocating Yuu's love, but her experiences lead her to discovering herself more and to gaining the ability to act or make the "choice".

That is a meta perspective, not the pespective of the character. You are absolutely right about the play's function, but that is not what Touko perceives it as.
By saying she is "also doing it for herself" she never implied she did it to form her own self-indentity or because she enjoyed it. Those are results she had no influence over. What she tried to achieve by doing the play was quite clearly only to become Mio and make up for that lost time. Thanks to Yuu's meddling, it instead turned into some sort of acted out therapy lol

last edited at May 4, 2019 2:30AM

Now rumors in Bloom Fandom put (Suguru Doujima X Koyomi Kanou) together. If Doujima so much as puts a little finger on my girl Koyomi, I propose we put together a posse, sit down with Mr. Doujima, and make him an offer he can't refuse.

Wait, what? Doujima has only ever been shown to have interest in Akari, as far as I can tell...

Yes, the play is meta for the higher analysis, but Touko is also consciously aware of the meaning of the play. She says Koyomi is "scary" in how accurately Koyomi captured Touko's experiences, and what appears to be almost grudgingly, accepts the alternate ending that reflects her true desire.

Once again, though, these are changes brought on long after she decides to put on the play and do not reflect her original reasons for doing so.

last edited at May 4, 2019 6:36AM

We’ve seen plenty of manga families with repeated scenes where a young character is under constant pressure to be or to act a certain way, where they get no positive reinforcement except by adhering to a very narrow role.

This isn’t presented as that story. Here we get a few panels of interior monologue from the character herself, and the overall effect (to me) of those very few panels is that Touko’s adoption of the “fake Mio” role is primarily her own choice and that she continues it because she prefers the response she gets from everyone around her for acting that way as compared to the average-student scaredy-cat she was before her sister’s death. But the cognitive dissonance of projecting one image while seeing herself as “really” being unworthy of it forces her into a kind of psychological stasis—hence the bizarre interpretation of what “love” means.

As to the play itself, there’s no way it could have literally been a fulfillment of the “negative expectations” of others, since Touko is the only one who even remembers that such a thing existed until she reminds them.

Welp.
Guess I'll throw my reply in the trash then where it belongs. Sorry for walling this place again.

last edited at May 4, 2019 7:28AM

No, because you're twisting a lot of what I'm saying to meet your own ends.

All I can do is take the words you write at face value. When you directly contradict something I see as right or wrong, I will give a counter-point. If that's not what you meant, you clarify etc etc.

The topic has kinda been entirely based around a mere difference in interpretation of a single scene. Everything else just dominoes from there.

I copied this quotes from the physical, official English translation and provided the citation for it. If you have a problem with this translation, take it up with Kadokawa and Seven Seas, not me.

I don't have an issue with the translation. It just literally isn't supporting your claim.

last edited at May 4, 2019 7:41AM

I don't have an issue with the translation. It just literally isn't supporting your claim.

Well you do. What I posted is the translation, but you just argued that it isn't. In fact you called it a fan translation.

And none of those lines are what you claimed. They are all variations of what the fan translations said aka not an appeal to become her sister. Bold or not, the actual context is not that. It's just what Touko misinterpreted. For and Be are not the same thing.

We can go back to the meaning of it, but right here you're twisting the issue you take with the translation I posted to counter my argument. You even try some argument about the differences between For and Be yet two quoted lines tell Touko to take her sister's place without using either of those words. This is what I'm working with with you. You're making up things on the spot.

....seriously?
Okay, let's get this clarified then. No, I did not say what you posted is a fan translation. The sentence "They are all variations of what the fan translations said aka not an appeal to become her sister." only means that the meaning of the sentences is exactly the same as the fan translation. There is no difference, so posting the official translation didn't help your original point.

I didn't think it would be this basic but... "Live as your sister" does not mean "become your sister". If you based your entire argument around that, then sorry, that was a bad call.

If the conversation is going to continue (as it has every right to do), could one or both of you give a one-or-two sentence clarification of what the basic issue in dispute is, and what the consequences of it are for our understanding of the work as a whole?

Because I’m not seeing such a huge difference in the positions to account for the length and vigor of the dispute (probably because I’m not reading carefully enough, and therefore could use some help).

If the conversation is going to continue (as it has every right to do), could one or both of you give a one-or-two sentence clarification of what the basic issue in dispute is, and what the consequences of it are for our understanding of the work as a whole?

Because I’m not seeing such a huge difference in the positions to account for the length and vigor of the dispute (probably because I’m not reading carefully enough, and therefore could use some help).

Ahem... as the conversation officially doesn't exist anymore apparently... now it may be pointless, but here is how I saw this ex-discussion.

My point was that Touko made the choice to become Mio on her own and while her surroundings influenced her views, the blame for the outcome lies with her. She was inflicitng self-harm by the way she acts out of grief and a need to overcome her weak self.
It's all pro responsibility and choice for me.

My point was that Touko made the choice to become Mio on her own and while her surroundings influenced her views, the blame for the outcome lies with her. She was inflicitng self-harm by the way she acts out of grief and a need to overcome her weak self.
It's all pro responsibility and choice for me.

OK, thanks BugDevil. I would only qualify that by saying that “blame” is probably not so relevant a descriptor in that we’re all a combination of outside influences and our own choices and therefore ultimately to “blame” for whatever we are. I’d agree that those outside influences on Touko were strong but not dispositive in making her who she was.

I’d also add that in my view the text itself emphasizes her rejection of her former weak self more than it does her grief or guilt about her sister’s death (which again, she certainly does feel to some extent).