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 have to ask. Where in the almighty hells did you manage to get the idea that Yori has trauma and doesn’t want her love to be reciprocated in Whispering You A Love Song? That’s not the case at all. Yeah, Himari is immature and doesn’t really get what love is (and has an impressively dubious grasp on her native language), but she’s not thinking she might be aromantic like Yuu. About all they have as parallels to Bloom Into You is the sempai/kohai dynamic and that’s almost a standard trope for school girl yuri. The best friend who’s secretly in love with one of the protagonists but will never admit it is also a very common trope that predates Bloom Into You. You’re being very shallow in how you look at things if you’re just automatically assigning Bloom Into You roles to characters in every yuri manga you come across.
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.
Jeez, man. We get it. You like Bloom Into You. But that doesn’t mean every ofher yuri author out there writing school girl yuri has read it or was inspired by it. Come Rain or Shine doesn’t even have the Sayaka like character!
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.
A Monster Wants To Eat Me also doesn’t have senpai/kohai dynamics. Or other pertinent tropes that I won’t mention to avoid spoilers for recent chapters.
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.
Dude, seriously, just because there are vague similarities to another manga doesn’t mean it was inspired by that other manga. There are tons of school girl yuri manga out there. Not all of them take inspiration from Bloom Into You. And the ones you seem to think do take inspiration involve some Olympic record long jump type leaps and mental gymnastics that would put a gold medal floor routine to shame.