Oh my god Yokoe hold it together, stay strong!!!!!

While I think we can all agree that all the gals in bakarina get pretty routinely sidelined I think Mary might have it the worst.

Maria is the clear front runner and, while I felt like Sophia's depiction in the manga/second season of the anime was pretty lackluster, she at least had a really strong presence in season 1 as her own character separate from Nicole. Mary just hasn't had a chance to shine in the story and it's such a shame. She's literally gotten no focus since they became teenagers and her personality is usually boiled down to "I fight with the boys to keep them away from Katarina".

It just feels wrong that she doesn't try to confess, and seems content to play damage control rather than be proactive about wooing Katarina.

I don't think I could do what Tanaka did there. Jeez I kinda hate it but wow the manga is really doing a good job showing us indirectly what kind of messed up stuff Toda is creating

Birthday angst wooooo

I wonder how long until it'll be until Kurumi realizes she's fallen for Ruriko, I think we all know Ruriko has been head over heels since the beginning but it seems very mutual right now.

This story really reminds me of historical dramas like Matrilocal Marriage where two women get put into an arranged marriage together through some twist of fate and gradually come to love one another and support each other wholeheartedly, without realizing at first that they've already fallen for each other

This is the perfect example of a series that didn’t need there to be an explicit confirmation of romantic feelings and still works perfectly. I think people have gotten used to modern yuri of the last 5-ish years that deal with actual romantic relationships, and I’m really glad we have more of that now, but for most of its history yuri hasn’t been a one-to-one equivalent with "lesbianism." I read yuri because I like seeing stories that explore intimacy between girls, a quality of which is oftentimes its ambiguity and uncertain nature.

This series accomplished exactly what it set out to do and it did so beautifully. I don’t feel any sense of disappointment. I don’t begrudge people for wanting something specific from the manga they read, but I feel like you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. I think a lot of readers would benefit from learning to appreciate different kinds of stories.

I have to disagree. Yuri as a genre is about romantic relationships between women. Subtext still counts as a depiction of romantic relationships in my opinion, and while nowadays its not very common outside of intentionally yuri-bait stories, there's a huge difference between stories with homoerotic subtext and without it. I guess I'm not so much arguing over the tags for this series but your other statements about yuri and queer romances.

You can make stories without that subtext, there are a lot of good series out there that write about relationships between women which are not romantic in any way. "A Place Farther than the Universe" is a great example of a show almost entirely focused on the relationships between its cast of girls, without ever delving into anything resembling subtext.

Good ol gratuitous violence

So they basically remade soup dumplings and called it healthy? Sounds good to me.

Also this chapter (as always) exudes such a strong gay feeling I always find myself expecting them to start making out at any second

I wouldn’t be so quick to sound out the doom of a poly end. I’m just gonna wait and see what happens

What was You-chan about to do if the dad hadn't walked in at that moment hmmmmmm?

I have a sinking suspicion this is just gonna end up like notes from the garden of lilies where the main couple was about to kiss but were interrupted by the mom and never kissed after

Get a room you two

even a single page of winter trees looks beautiful when colored and illustrated by this mangaka

I've read the mandarin one of this but nothing beats the English trans lmao. Thank goodness, I'm still trying to cleanse my eyes from the last season. It's unfair how we get so much geordo and Keith's moments but only yuri baiting with Maria and Mary. I'm so happy doujinshi exists

It’s crazy to me how the anime simultaneously managed to feel biased against the gals in the harem, and yet still gave them all better chemistry with Katarina than the guys

I see it, my eyes are opened to the Yuu/Misha crumbs hidden here

I like how so obviously charmed Claire is when Rei puts her jacket on her, and she has to pretend like she isn’t. Things are really starting to build up now that we know Rei is secretly selling her recipies and saving up money for… something. Loving the multiple loaded statements and glances she’s giving Lene here too. Loooots of great little background moments with Relaire too, I love seeing this little slime kid have a blast on Claire’s head.

Overall I think this chapter felt a little more disjointed than it did in the novel, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, something about the Lene-sensei bit and the creme brulee both felt a little rushed somehow, but I’m really looking forward to the actual cafe/festival scene that should be next chapter (?) Yuu in a dress is critical, I gotta see it

last edited at Sep 25, 2021 12:01PM

At this rate we aren’t gonna see a confession until the heisei era at least

I wonder if the end there is hinting that Wanko got a gig voicing one of the mobage characters.

What if her “big break” ends up with her being the voice of a fan favorite character on a mobile game that suddenly blows up? It kinda reminds me of all the big voice actors who started streaming genshin and play as the character they voice

iirc she said she was done writing yuri at least for the time being but she still planned on including girl-girl couples in her works. Nakatani also has a pretty good track record of not having adults be creepy towards minors so I don't expect any sort of weird age gap thing.

Yeah I remember that, and so I’m thinking that there’s definitely still gonna be plenty of queer people in this series.

I also do have some hope, Nakatani is one of the few artists who pretty solidly avoids being creepy to kids, and I think it definitely shows in Bloom into You that she’s not trying to sexualize the characters for the audience.

Has anyone else heard that she’s starting a new series that comes out next month? According to the tweet I saw about the series it’s

a new sci-fi manga series titled "Kami-sama ga machigaeru" in upcoming Dengeki Daioh issue 12/2021 out Oct 27, 2021. The weird daily life of a middle school boy and the female scientist he's living with in a world filled with bugs.

I’m a little weirded out by the wording and whole “middle school boy and adult woman” thing but I’m willing to give it a shot since she wrote Bloom into You, and my assumption is that it wouldn’t be some weird age gap thing.

I’m a little surprised that she doesn’t seem to be doing yuri this time, although I do remember she did say she never really identified as a “yuri mangaka” per say, and I kinda remember seeing some stuff about her wanting to write a more fantasy/sci fi type story.

My prediction is that even if it’s not specifically a “yuri manga” that it’s still gonna be full to the brim with queer characters and possibly romance subplots, it’s just that the main focus of the story isn’t on the romance.

The thirst is strong with this one but I'm getting red flags from everyone.

I think that might actually be where this is going. I could easily see a twist where it turn out that none of them actually love the protagonist because:

1. Former idol is just unintentionally really flirty because of her past in the entertainment industry and just wants a friend.

2. The teacher seems to do this to all her students (probably as a way to make them keep their grades up).

3. The tomboy is just using her looks to convince women to join her club, and is just "putting on a performance" for both the protagonist and all the other girls she ropes into joining.

4. The kiss demon is probably called that because her personality totally changes when she's sober and she doesn't remember or follow through on any of her promises made while drunk.

5. The roommate seems to like the protag as a bodypillow? But maybe not as a person. (Also did anyone else see her teeth? What if she was a vampire and "liked protag's scent" because of that?)

Of course this might not happen but it seems like most of these women noticed the big lesbian energy and used that to get what they wanted out of her.

I'm glad they've kinda made up some, although watching Tanaka literally retch at the plot twice was hard to read

Okay I gotta wonder, what part of growing up is suffocating? Is she only consenting to sex because she feels like she has to? I’m confused and worried

Wait how did this other person know what they said that night? ....Were their conversations being recorded?

That's creepy.

I think it was a 4th wall break gag? Maybe

You-chan cried this time huh, what a reversal

Uh ohhhhh, ponko got factory reset…

I’m curious though if we’ll get any more info about her past through this, either through her “blank slate” talking about how she’s secretly a war robot or whatever, or if they reset her to the time she spent working as a nurse with the deceased wife… there’s a lot that could happen here

Crazy that we got two different yuri harem series in one day. I think this one is a lot more fun though, since its all college age women or older, we can just revel in the self indulgence without having to think about ages and stuff (looking at you, 12 year old princess knight)

I think if there’s any series that deserves a poly/harem end it’s gotta be this one. This protagonist has all the chaotic horny energy of Arisa with none of the monogamous attraction and I’m so here for it.