The TV Tropes website specifically mentions this manga as an example of the “My Sibling Will Live Through Me” variant of the “Replacement Goldfish” trope, saying,

“Bloom Into You has one [example] that goes into detail about the emotional and mental consequences of this [trope].” (Warning: time sink ahead.)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MySiblingWillLiveThroughMe

Survivor’s guilt is certainly a plausible explanation for at least part Touko’s state of mind. The only trouble with leaning too heavily on it is that we don’t actually have any direct evidence that she even feels particularly guilty (it’s more than reasonable to think that she does, but it’s still just our inference). We do see what she tells Yuu in Chapter 10 along with her memory/thoughts at the end of that chapter, we see her dream/recollection of her sister’s death, and we see her being pensive in the cemetery. (The dream could suggest that she feels some degree of guilt, or it could just be a replay of her most traumatic memory.)

What she does directly say is that a) she couldn’t accept her sister’s death, b) she decided to become like her, and c) she liked the praise she got when she acted like her sister. That is, the loss of her sister opened up a role/niche in the family for her, and she took it, partly for herself and partly to honor her sister’s memory.

Even her discovery of what her sister was really like at school leads her to just say, in a very low-key way, “I have no idea what to do now,” as if a student council plan for some school event has hit an unforeseen snag rather than this new knowledge sparking an emotional/existential crisis.

You may well be right about guilt playing a major part in Touko’s ongoing emotional state; I’d be very surprised if it didn’t have some role. But my point is that, while we as readers almost can’t help reading these events in very dramatic terms, we’re basing that reading on inferences rather than on explicit evidence in the text.

For more of the same cuteness only with a much sharper edge, see this author's "The First Thrill of Excitement."

One of the great yuri endings.

As always, I'm grateful for the thoughtful and well-supported comments on this board. Although it's hard to avoid it completely, I try not to get too heavily invested in specific predictions about what will happen in the story, but I will say that from a storytelling/craft perspective I'm very interested in seeing how the actual performance of the play itself is handled.

As others have said, we've spent an awful lot of story-time building up to this event, and this chapter's confrontations (and Touko's initial response) have already accomplished a bit of what might hypothetically have been caused by the play itself--Touko's realization that her friends were using the play to try to help her, for example.

This story has tended to work by the accumulation of lots of nuanced, relatively low-key scenes rather than by big emotional set-pieces (Chapter 10 being the biggest counter-example); even the pivotal Love in the Shed scene, emotionally significant as we know that to be, to an outside observer was "only" a matter of which person initiated the kisses.

I'm looking forward to seeing if/how the execution of the play can possibly live up to the extensive build-up it's been given.

That collage reminds me, I wonder if Touko will ever get around to making Yuu her cheesecake.

I love the double meaning in your phrasing, since in the last panel of that penultimate page Touko looks like she wants to have Yuu for dessert.

Touko's internal turmoil is the only real conflict that drives the series

You make a plausible case, but I think the above may be rather overstated--we all seem to be taking Yuu's development for granted, but she still hasn't overtly said, even to herself (almost), that what she feels for Touko is romantic love. Sure, it looks to us like we're just one confession away from moonlight and roses (etc.), but even if that's where the story is heading, given the rather tangled emotional/psychological knots involved in the Touko/Yuu relationship, getting our pair to a steamy sleepover while someone's family is out of town may be considerably more complicated than we (and I do include myself in that group) have been assuming lately.

In other words, Yuu herself isn't necessarily a done deal as far as character development goes quite yet.

Granted, all it would take is one thought balloon of Yuu saying, "I want to touch senpai and be touched in previously undreamed-of places" to negate my argument. So there's that.

last edited at Dec 3, 2017 4:30PM

I think that's one of the strengths of this series, developments can be unexpected but well foreshadowed and consistent.

Bloom Into You has become one of my standards for complex characters with "negative" and "positive" traits/moments equally balanced and who make decisions more because of who they are rather than what the plot requires.

Just wanted to say that I think that schuyguy and riverFlower have hit a couple of bullseyes here.

The final English volume of this arrived today. I suppose it could have been even more adorable, although I don’t see how.

I guess I’m just kind of a sucker for Morinaga Milk—that Chapter 15-16 hug scene . . .

Last time, lingerie fluff, this time existential introspection.

I like it.

Back in my days the kouhais had to settle with just a look or a head pat from the onee samas, and they were damn grateful for that!!!

When they started in with all that straightening and re-tying the ties business--that's when it all went to hell! Next thing you know it's tongues down their throats by the shoe lockers. . .

How can you deny her a kiss! Tsk kouhais this days

“No kisses” have been almost as important as kisses in this series—in the storage shed after the sports festival Yuu’s “I won’t kiss you” moment was overshadowed by the ensuing “but I’ll let you kiss me” smoochfest, but it was a crucial point in bringing just a touch of balance to a very asymmetrical relationship.

Yuu should just turn the tables on her—“Do the play the way I want and I’ll reward you by initiating our next makeout session.” :-)

Alright, at this point they're just stalling and dragging it out before we get to the actual play.

This chapter is only "stalling" if you assume that the actual performance of the play needs to be the central event in resolving the story's conflict. Some important things do get done in this chapter, most notably, of course, the "no kisses for Touko" scene on the rooftop, where Yuu puts some (but by no means all) important cards on the table concerning how deeply she cares for Touko, but there's also the confrontation between Touko and Sayaka, where Sayaka definitively declares herself to be a member of the "what Touko needs, not what she wants" party.

Actually "confrontation" is exactly the wrong word for what happens in that scene--it literally means "to go face to face with someone," but the two of them never directly face each other in that scene; Sayaka mostly is talking to Touko's back. Then, after Yuu forces Touko to look right at her while she says her piece on the rooftop, onstage Touko says, "Let's do this," and rather tentatively turns back toward her friend. Excellent staging and use of body language in this chapter.

There's still important work to be done, and the play itself may be the vehicle or catalyst for some or all of it--Touko needs to be able to say, "I want Yuu to love me back," and Yuu needs to be able to say, "I love Touko," first to herself and then to Touko. I want all that to happen, but I'd prefer to see it unfold at a slower pace--as things have been happening all along*-- if the alternative is rushing through it.

*Except for Touko's initial confession to Yuu--that was a lightning strike out of a clear blue sky.

This chapter makes me ridiculously cheerful.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a company in the world that's lenient enough to let you off with adding an extra half hour to your lunch break

Actually, I've worked at a couple of places where the workload would ramp up to a particular deadline (and everybody's going all out almost 24/7), then slack off for a bit--there were still things to do, but nothing particularly pressing. If a group went out with a supervisor, someone might say, "Where did you guys get to?" when they got back, but that's about it.

^
I don’t quite understand why in this reading some of Touko’s characteristics are seen as inherent while others are “contrivances” imposed on her by the author. The world is full of people like Touko who are exceptionally accomplished and who demonstrate sound judgment—except when it comes to solving their own problems and resolving patterns of self-destructive behavior the “natural and healthy way.”

Maybe it’s just an extremely roundabout way of saying “I don’t find the character to be believable,” which is certainly your right. I’m also not sure I understand how changing her hair color would rectify any of the deficiencies that you believe you perceive.

There’s no doubt that the basic setup of the story is “contrived”—whatever the psychological backstory of the characters, having one character who has never fallen in love before fall in love at first sight with a second character because that character seems to be unable to fall in love is quite implausible. Equally implausible is that second character agreeing to be loved rather than saying, “Sorry, I’m not interested.” But for readers who can swallow that, these other supposed contrivances seem rather trivial.

^
This is an excellent recap of the development of Touko’s character up to this point. To emphasize a bit of the positive, however, when she initially reaches out to Yuu in the first place, while the terms she establishes for their relationship are fundamentally unhealthy, the fact that she does it at all suggests (or may suggest) that at some level she’s aware of her need for an alternative to the “fake being your dead sister until you make it” project. (The crisis for that project really becomes acute when the older drama senpai reveals that Mio as student council president was nothing like Touko thought she was.)

In her relationship with Yuu we see a Touko who is shy, vulnerable, affectionate (and horny), as well as desperately self-loathing and emotionally repressed. As a reader I want that cute (and smart and highly competent) Touko to be the “real” one in the end, but she’s been a potential psychological time-bomb from the opening moments of the story.

As an antagonist, Seju is a success.

Thanks, that’s pretty much what I was looking for. I do actually think that (for the purposes of the story dynamic) Seju is overly-developed compared to the main pair. As you say, we do get a pretty clear picture of who she is and why she does what she does, which I don’t think is true of either Sumin (we get a good sense of who she is in relation to Seju, but not much sense of her as a complete personality outside of that) or Sungji—her “perfection” seems to be stipulated rather the outgrowth of a coherent backstory. So, yeah, a love triangle with two blurry protagonists and a vivid antagonist isn’t really a recipe for overall storytelling success.

Looking at Seju in imaginary person (rather than story dynamic) terms, I’ve seen (and slightly experienced) exes who enjoyed throwing hand grenades into the new relationships, so—not my favorite type. But that’s completely separate from Seju in the story.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. Wdtfs is still an enjoyable read (like I said, it has style to burn), despite some serious flaws as a work of art.

Understand the reader and you may understand their reasons.

OK, then—that’s that.

You'd have more luck reading this entire thread to find the answer to that question.

I actually have read most or all of the posts here at one point or another; I was hoping for maybe a condensed now-that-it’s-over-and-the-ships-are-all-in-port version.

last edited at Nov 18, 2017 3:11PM

This isn’t really a preference question, though, and I certainly don’t plan to argue back to anyone. I think that overall this story had a load of style but rather mishandled its characters by not giving the audience enough reasons to be invested in the relationship of the main couple. I’m just interested in why Seju seems to have sparked that degree of audience attachment.

Maybe it’s just that (in terms of the cues I was getting from the narrative) I always assumed all along that Sumin & Sungji were the inevitable couple, while others were reading the triangle as having a different potential resolution.

I have to admit (after a full re-read of the story) that I don’t get all the love for Seju as a character. I do understand the position that Sungji is rather underdeveloped as a protagonist, but Seju seems to me to be a classic needy, manipulative ex who exists to cause trouble for the main pair. Her feelings do seem genuine, even though a real relationship with Sumin is well past its expiration date, and she has a not uninteresting poor-little-rich-girl backstory to explain her present-day behavior, but the reaction here seems to go well beyond “at least she’s cooler than the bland Sungji.”

I don’t mean this as an attack on the character or people who like her—it’s just that a fair number of readers seem to be seeing something about her that I must be missing.

I’m not sure that “husband cheats, yuri ensues” is all that much more trite and predictable than “apparent cheating has innocent explanation”—(Reiichi’s business trip ended early, he wanted to surprise his wife so didn’t tell her, then he ran into Riyako by chance at the station, etc.).

I’d prefer to see the plot driven more by what Uta does than by chance or by the decisions/actions of her brother and sister-in-law, but since Uta seems to avoid actually doing anything at all costs, maybe that’s not this story.

Who is this woman in the top right panel? She is clearly older and Kaoru seems younger than her present self. It could be Kaoru's mom or whoever else, but it also could be Uta's mother. Now, what if Kaoru had some kind of unfaithful relationship with Uta's mum? Probably thanks to the mum initiative since Kaoru was probably in love with Reiichi.

That's not entirely farfetched, but not entirely solid, either (again, until we get more info). My previous post missed the point that not only does Kaoru feel guilty about the divorce, when Reiicchi says it wasn't her fault Kaoru says that in any case she hurt Uta specifically.

So how does Reiichi’s childhood friend/girlfriend contribute to the breakup of the marriage in such a way that Reiichi knows about it, doesn't think she's really to blame, but doesn't treat her feelings of guilt as completely absurd?

Maybe the father coming on to Kaoru was the catalyst for Reiicchi "taking responsibility"? At this point I feel like I'm just writing fanfic, so I dunno.

last edited at Nov 16, 2017 8:49AM

It's really hard to get a solid read on the marriage of Reiichi and Kaoru because there's that big past secret that we know very little about. We do know:

Uta had "serious hardships" and "family issues" in the past which significantly affected her personality.
Kaoru feels partly responsible for the divorce of Uta and Reiichi's parents.

We also know that Reiichi is "not reliable," and Kaoru likes him, or at least is attached to him, more than he is to her.

(As a side note, we have had some slight hints that Kaoru might be pregnant.)

So speculation on where the story is going from here is seriously hindered for the lack of important facts not (yet) in evidence.

The results from a recent survey here make for a decent starter list for exploration. (Caveats: Not all of the works listed are manga and not all are here.) And Citrus in particular tends to get love-it-or-hate-it reactions. But it's a place to start.

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/12810-survey-on-yuri-fandom-demographics-updated-with-results?page=1#forum_post_314095