Forum › Composing Spring in This Room Where Cherry Blossoms Bloom discussion

joined Aug 21, 2017

This feels like cresting the top of a roller coaster. We haven't dropped yet, but I know we will.

20220125_003513
joined Jan 30, 2013

God this is gonna hurt so much when it ends

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joined Mar 25, 2020

Really hyped for this series, because it definitely plays to what I'd consider my favorite aspect of Tokuwo Tsumu's excellent body of work- their ability to blur genre lines, to complicate and challenge the implicit divisions we deploy between gentle fluff and hard drama by uniting them within the same topos as the products of private spheres and naturalized norms, of the rafts we build for ourselves to navigate tumultuous worlds, which are sometimes solid and stable enough to make us feel we're on solid ground, only for the swell of a wave or the bugle of a larger ship to remind us that we've always been at sea. You see this floating, numbing darkness lapping intermittently around the edges of Shuuden, gurgling up menacingly in the last chapters of Ise and Shima, and sluicing down the gaps between timeframes and bodies across Tsuki to Koi, jerking the characters out of the genres they've taken as the norms of the world, their comfort zones shored up by shared umwelts. And yet so much of the warmth of Tsumu's stories comes from the ways in which their characters face this encroachment-that-was-always-there, this already-ending, and strive to push it back with moments and memories, seeking utopia in not some faraway paradise, but in the recollection of days where they were allowed to be quotidian, when nothing happened and everything was, those neat, calming rows of times both fixed and fillable like the ones we see laid across Sakura's diary, packed with the potential for both infinity and emptiness.

In this story too, the challenge comes in writing the unspeakable, of penning the repressed, of connecting the fragments of Haru's scattered self, because a missing link invalidates the entire chain, and she can ironically only move on, move forth, if the path winding down her life, lending it its shape and form in bliss and misery, is reconstructed to allow her passage again. To write, to read, to fill out a diary is to traverse a life, to chart and cross the ocean of her memories, letting her find and trace Sakura among the entries already present, and to perhaps reinterpret her as something more than a gap, an absence, a wound once she fills everything out. To avoid engaging with a tragedy is to avoid catharsis, because the purging of pain, misery and dread is found in the journey across a path we know well, in the tracing of a closed circle, in an acquaintance with what has already happened, but this time with out feet fixed and our hearts set, letting ourselves feel everything again, not so that we'd be empty at the end, but so we could fill with emotion anew- a new spring, a new opportunity, a new journal, a reclamation of the present. It is in the embrace of the quotidian that the traces to Haru reside, the key to purging the venom and filling herself with spring, with Sakura again, to constitute her love for her as something other than a lack, to fill the pages and make them more than paper. It's going to be difficult and heartbreaking and slow, but if she lets time move again, then spring- Sakura- shall also arrive, just as she arrives at the end of the chapter, representing perhaps Haru's subconscious desire to move on, to achieve some sort of final catharsis and completion. And then, at the end of her journey across herself, when she's brought herself to chart the geography of her soul and confirmed there's still places to go, can Haru finally resurrect Sakura in the truest sense- not as a void, not as a corpse, but as spring, as life, and the promise of a hundred springs more, finding a memory that convinces her to live on with love and hope, a past that connects her to her future and to herself.

(Also, I love how Early Haru looks like an Amano Shuninta character, what with the fangs and the scrunkly energy, because Tsumu and Shuninta are two of my favorite creators in the tangerine scene [obligatory sobbing for I Wouldn't Mind Being Loved to update])

holy jesus

Eri
joined Aug 30, 2020

Ooo, this looks like it's leading up how I expect it. Which isn't bad.

Owo
joined Jun 17, 2018

Wait, why am I crying?

joined May 3, 2014

God this is gonna hurt so much when it ends

don’t even wanna think of the pain :/

I
joined Mar 3, 2022

This feels like cresting the top of a roller coaster. We haven't dropped yet, but I know we will.

That’s a perfect description. Just for the fun of it, I’ll try and enumerate the ways in which it could go:

  • Ascension end: Haruki finishes the diary and gets closure, Sakura peacefully ascends
  • SeaBed end: Sakura is just a hallucination by Haruki, but she gets closure either way
  • Impostor end: Sakura turns out to be some kind of spirit who managed to steal Sakura’s memories
  • Supernatural end: Haruki has powers to creäte illusions and unintentionally creäted a false Sakura
  • Sciënce end: She turns out to be a test subject for some necromancy experiment

Most of these seem quite unlikely, but I’ll be pleased if I can predict it lol

Shiro
joined Oct 12, 2020

This feels like cresting the top of a roller coaster. We haven't dropped yet, but I know we will.

That’s a perfect description. Just for the fun of it, I’ll try and enumerate the ways in which it could go:

  • Ascension end: Haruki finishes the diary and gets closure, Sakura peacefully ascends
  • SeaBed end: Sakura is just a hallucination by Haruki, but she gets closure either way
  • Impostor end: Sakura turns out to be some kind of spirit who managed to steal Sakura’s memories
  • Supernatural end: Haruki has powers to creäte illusions and unintentionally creäted a false Sakura
  • Sciënce end: She turns out to be a test subject for some necromancy experiment

Most of these seem quite unlikely, but I’ll be pleased if I can predict it lol

Maybe it’s just the lost twin sister hahaha
Haha

Oh, this is going to hurt

Ykn1
joined Dec 20, 2018

This feels like cresting the top of a roller coaster. We haven't dropped yet, but I know we will.

That’s a perfect description. Just for the fun of it, I’ll try and enumerate the ways in which it could go:

  • Ascension end: Haruki finishes the diary and gets closure, Sakura peacefully ascends
  • SeaBed end: Sakura is just a hallucination by Haruki, but she gets closure either way
  • Impostor end: Sakura turns out to be some kind of spirit who managed to steal Sakura’s memories
  • Supernatural end: Haruki has powers to creäte illusions and unintentionally creäted a false Sakura
  • Sciënce end: She turns out to be a test subject for some necromancy experiment

Most of these seem quite unlikely, but I’ll be pleased if I can predict it lol

Ascension seems the most likely option, especially considering how the first chapter started.

Nobody
joined Aug 17, 2019

I don't know about you all... but this is scaring me.
Like, something ominous is on the distance yet I can't make it out.

Of course ti could have a regular, feel good end... but still.

Capture
joined Apr 16, 2020

I'm late to the party but this is the same author who made me have a crush on a 2D character for the first time in my life with her character Kanoko! They definitely have that talent. I'm so happy they have another manga.

But the story is making me feel awfully dreadful already. I can already see how Sakura can only be there for a year to finish the diary and help Haruki get back on her feet. I hope I'm dead wrong since this scenario is very predictable and that those hints thus far are merely red herring.

Palucina1
joined May 26, 2020

Haruki's thinness scares me. I'm starting to think Sakura only came back to convince her to live. Haruki is way too thin! I hink she's punishing herself for not dying. She's not eating, doesn't go out, even for work, and there's been a sinking feeling in my chest he entire time!

45b4e36d555ca184502130f8249354c2--flcl-furi-kuri2
joined Jul 19, 2018

Something bittersweet this way comes,

Onee2
joined Apr 28, 2022

Oh god I'm crying already... Part of me doesn't want to read this the other part can't look away @_@. Many tears are going to be shed for this series I can already tell and must prepare myself...

joined Apr 29, 2018

i don't see how this can have a good ending unless there is some kind of supernatural resurection spell this will end poorly with the garbage, "just forget her and move on, it's easy." this should be tagged as depressing as fuck seeing how it starts .

last edited at Aug 5, 2022 12:12PM

The_argent_god_100px_avatar
joined Jul 28, 2019

A number of people here are really expecting this to be some ghost or hallucination, but really with the type of story this seems to be it's probably more that she's just in Haruki's imagination, something she's given herself to help her through the stages of grief. And I can imagine that's going to be what this is about, and it will end with her accepting Sakura's death.

"This here is for you to die again (Haruki coming to terms with Sakura's death and accepting it) and for me to live once again (Haruki moving on with the memory of Sakura in her heart. or something. Wording it is hard)."

I imagine it as though the grief has her in a rut. She's pacing the same circle, over and over. This Sakura, the Sakura that "came back to life" through the journal, is her pulling herself out of that rut, only in the end to understand that Sakura would not have wanted her to simply waste away after her death in a perpetual state of grievance and despair. I can already see the "Thank you, Sakura. I'll be fine from now on" at the end. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy the ride in the meantime.

It's going to be bittersweet, but I bet it'll be fulfilling.

Want to bring this comment back up since after reading chapter 2 this is exactly how I feel. Haru's doing all this, but imagining that Sakura is here with her, to give herself something to do besides waste away. She's remembering Sakura's warmth, but at the same time running the mental exercises of "how would a dead person feel coming back after time gone" like with the streaming service.

The store trip is an indulgence in pretend, the ghost that can't interact with anything, despite "cooking" for Haru, she doesn't need a toothbrush, because Haru knows she isn't there, looping back to Haru doing this all herself. It's part of the fantasy.

starlighthanabi
21
joined Jan 13, 2021

Well, I am already crying at chapter 2.

riverFlower Uploader
The Golden Orchid
joined Jan 19, 2017

Read chapter one. Excellent start.

joined Aug 21, 2017

fuck my shit up

Img_20201022_045044
joined Oct 24, 2018

Gouma Den is doing god's work again
Seriously though, I would eat anything that came from Tokuwo Tsumu. They're just so good

last edited at Jul 3, 2023 11:30PM

0ee2c60a-7956-404b-9118-b3d2a41bdeae
joined Dec 7, 2020

This is going to destroy me

Capture
joined Apr 16, 2020

I love this author but I hate that this manga is so good. Why do I want to rip my heart out while reading this every time? But I would still though urghhhh

38074
joined Jan 11, 2022

I really love fiction that rips at my heart (How do we relationship I'm looking at you)

I'm on the "Haruki is dead" train, this is going to be so sad :(((

The_argent_god_100px_avatar
joined Jul 28, 2019

OH? OH HOHO?! Is she actually a ghost and not just a coping mechanism?

10374935_1517148091919036_8454058064875083431_n
joined Apr 7, 2021

I guess afterall Sakura image is just all in Haruki's head. And I think she's going to relive the moment that Sakura dies by finally remembering the cause...

But something seems off to me, Haruki said she's going to be 33 years old, and her meeting with Sakura was in the college's entrance day - which means she could have been 18-19 years old at that time.
If placing 10 years back according to Sakura's diary that is 2011 - their first time meeting, that wouldn't make sense...
Sakura dying at 28 years old should mark the 10th year of them...

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