new tropes have definitely been codified.
Honestly I don't think this is true at all. Bloom Into You is a well written and deep series but it doesn't do anything thematically that other series haven't done in the past. What it does is tie a lot of those preexisting themes together and does them well in the span of a single narrative. This is not a bad thing, stories do not need to be unique to be good and/or enjoyable. Indeed, they don't even need to be well executed either.
i'm not talking about themes really. i agree, bloom into you doesn't like, revolutionize storytelling with its themes or anything. i think at its core the themes are pretty clear and straightforward, and i think the way they're executed on is what makes the story so good, is what gives it such complexity and depth. it's those tropes that i'm talking about, the sayaka character, a watchful best-friend who's one leg of the love triangle and whose love is doomed to go unrequited. the touko and yuu characters, they have an uncertain dynamic for most of the story--and sure that's common enough, this is literally a staple of romance stories. but they're specific in that it's a senpai/kohai relationship, there's love at first sight (basically), one of them doesn't really understand love, and the other has trauma and doesn't want her love to be reciprocated. those last two are the barrier to their relationship, that's where their character arcs are.
my issue is that it feels like a lot of the stories i've read recently have main characters with the tropes of touko and yuu without really understanding why they worked so well in bloom into you. it just feels surface level, like a pale imitation. the main one i'm thinking of here is whispering you a love song, which i admittedly haven't been keeping up with lately. from the first chapters of that story all i could think of was how similar those main characters are to touko and yuu. (and there's a sayaka character too.) and then the story just... didn't seem to really get it. it just felt like it took those tropes to try to tell a story similar to bloom into you without understanding that tropes are only surface level.
i'm not trying to say that all of the yuri that's been taking inspiration from bloom into you is bad or that taking inspiration is bad. there are some that i really like, actually. it doesn't feel like come rain or shine takes many of those obvious touko, yuu, or sayaka tropes, but it still reminds me of bloom into you, because i think arata iri gets what made it so good (she definitely read it)--it's the fundamental stuff that's key to romance stories, the themes and complimentary character arcs. the rest is window dressing.
and on the other hand, a monster wants to eat me feels like it more obviously takes from the bloom into you character tropes, but i've still been thoroughly enjoying it. maybe it's because of the beauty and the beast factor and the monsters, or maybe it's because it gets it--right now it's a bit too early to tell.
but yeah, this is just something i've been noticing in yuri (the yuri that gets translated at least) and i felt like commenting on it this time. like, this story is taking from the obvious character tropes AND rushing all the way to the play arc within the first 3 chapters. it's taking so much from bloom and just speeding it up. i don't even know these people yet. it makes me worried that it doesn't understand that it's the broader strokes that actually matter. it's obviously still too early to tell right now, but i just felt like talking about it.
i dunno, maybe my head is up my ass--i'm a philosophy major, that's par for the course for us.
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