^ Missed ya, Heavensrun. Missed you a whole fucking lot . . .

Not sure if sarcasms. <_<

I think not.

Yeah, but playful self-depracation is one of my things when I'm not being boorishly arrogant.

Actually, -several- crackships cropped up out of nowhere here in the past couple days.

Not to mention somewhat of a war of words between @HayaH and @BugDevil, although, from what I saw, @HayaH was the one doing the war for the most part, while @BugDevil didn't really give a shit about it for the most part.
@HayaH
@BugDevil
Correct me if I was wrong in that part I redacted.

Yeah, not planning to step into that.

^ Missed ya, Heavensrun. Missed you a whole fucking lot . . .

Not sure if sarcasms. <_<

^^^ Her name is Akari, btw. And is there anyone who ships Akari x Sayaka? It's the first time I've ever seen this crackship mentioned anywhere. I have seen Koyomi x Sayaka shippers, though...

AAAAGH. Fixed that. I normally catch things like that. but my brain just fritzed out on that one. Thanks.

It's just something that got mentioned as a possibility in the last few pages. Actually, -several- crackships cropped up out of nowhere here in the past couple days.

last edited at Jan 5, 2019 6:27PM

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Reached that part of your post, and literally had to pause reading it, just comment how hilarious I found that pun.

I'm pleased it amused you, but I can't take credit. It's a kind of common phrase. You will enounter it again in the future. ;p

The only consistent motivation for Touko to enter a romantic relationship with Sayaka would be for Touko to have accepted a fundamental change in her own attitude toward love (this part is entirely possible and indeed what the whole series has been building toward) AND to discover that her true emotional bond is with Sayaka, not with Yuu.

None of that really matters when it comes to a rebound. But after 37 it seems pretty likely that Touko very much knew Sayaka was harboring feelings for her for some time now, so if Touko does feel anything for Sayaka it'll come back to that.

She might have suspected, but I don't think she put 2x2 together until Sayaka went out of her way to drag her off to a secluded, romantic spot for a one-on-one confrontation.

But Touko is not a thoughtless person, either. Even if she felt something for Sayaka, she -knows- she feels something for Yuu, and she knows that she just hurt Yuu. Even if she wanted to get together with Sayaka, they all have to be in StuCo together, and she'd have to reconcile not only opening herself up to Sayaka, but doing so while simultaneously leaving Yuu high and dry. My guess? Sayaka just provided Touko with the missing understanding of love (the element of acceptance) that helps her get over her fear of being with Yuu. Yuu also has to grow a bit more, but mostly I think This went a long way to putting Touko where she needs to be.

It is very likely that Sayaka just put herself into checkmate without realizing it.

“None of that matters” when it comes to readers having fantasies about which imaginary people “belong” together in some imaginary reality show; it matters a great deal when looking at a work of art as a technical construction by an artist who knows what they’re doing.

In this case, the author has clearly been telling one story, and shows no real signs of suddenly swerving to tell a different one, especially one that makes a complete thematic hash of everything that has gone before.

This is the most important thing, I think. Well-told stories have structure and a focus, It is not impossible for an author to buck expectations, but it works best when they do it in a way that audiences can metabolize. Touko ending up with Sayaka runs contrary to basically all of the manga's built up structure and themes so far. If Nakatani-sensei wanted this to be about Touko and Sayaka ending up together, she could have started the story with their meeting and brought Yuu in as a side rival character. If she wanted it to be a love triangle with an open question at the end, she could have spent the first few issues setting up the triangle, but she didn't. She set up Touko x Yuu and -then- introduced Sayaka as a rival side character with an unrequited love.

Geez, I fell into Dragon's Dogma for like two days and this thread just went freaking nuts in the meantime.

So I have some specific things I want to respond to, but some broad strokes first:

Edit: JESUS this was longer than it felt when I was typing! TLDR version:

Miyako/Sayaka: NOPE.
Yuu, Touko, and/or Sayaka being ace: Signs point to no.
Touko/Sayaka/Yuu: Uh-uh, sorry.
Sayaka/Akari: Unlikely and needs setup to happen, but eh, sure.
Sayaka/Touko: Sorry, Sayaka. You are a precious cinnamon bun, but this is not going to go well for you.

(We now return to our regularly scheduled wall of text.)

Miyako x Sayaka:

So when this was first suggested, there was a misunderstanding that MiyakoxSayakaxRiko was being suggested, which it actually wasn't, and that distracted from the original suggestion and nobody ever really hit the fundamental problem with it (unless I missed a post, there are a lot of them) The original suggestion was that Miyako and Riko had problems, and that Riko wasn't fully committed.

That is straight up wrong. Miyako and Riko are rock solid. That is what a healthy, functioning relationship looks like. Anybody who thinks these two aren't growing old together has failed at reading comprehension.

Yes, Riko said she's not really into women, but she also affirmed Miyako is an exception to that, and that she is fully committed to their relationship. When she says she's "still testing this out", that's a -joke-, and they both know it. Miyako has shown that she is making plans for the future with Riko as a foregone conclusion. That's -why- Sayaka enjoys being around them. They are a living "it gets better" poster for her. "Yeah, your sempai was an idiot and your heart got broken and your best friend might not ever return your feelings, but look! It's possible, so don't give up!" The literal entire point of them as a narrative element in the story is to show that yes, two women can have a happy fulfilling long term romantic relationship into adulthood.

That said, I'd give good odds that Sayaka ends up working at the cafe at some point, either part time or as a manager after graduation. (if Miyako follows through on her desire to make a chain) So while Miyako is not a romantic prospect for Sayaka, that friendship/mentorship is going to be long lasting.

Yuu, Touko, and/or Sayaka being Ace:

How someone identifies as a label is up to them, but my experience is that people who identify as ace are generally so desperate for representation, they end up seeing things that aren't there. I don't see how anybody can read this manga (or watch the anime) and think Touko is ace. That girl is -thirsty-. She wants to do all the things to Yuu, but she holds herself back because she doesn't want to alienate her. Her struggles to control her urges towards Yuu were a major plot point!

Yuu seems closer, but she was definitely into that makeout session in the equipment shed. "This heartbeat must be Sempai's" my ass. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. You could make an argument that Yuu is demiromantic, maybe, or just slow to fall in love, but she invited Touko back to her bedroom to make out, and she did that because -she- wanted to.

For Sayaka, I mean, there's absolutely no reason to think she's ace? She's definitely into Touko, physically and emotionally, and she was into Idiot-sempai. She definitely seems to identify as lesbian.

If you actually want ace representation, though, you don't have to go anywhere. Maki is like, textbook asexual.

Touko x Sayaka x Yuu:

Nope. Nope nope nope nope. Listen, I don't have a problem with polyamory, but it's a tricky balance under the best circumstances, and these aren't those. People who are wanting this want it because they want all their babies to be happy, and I get it, but that isn't realistic. Sayaka and Yuu have a decent sempai/kohai relationship, but there's no emotional intimacy there, and they don't really seem like they'd be compatible. At best, they'd end up sharing Touko, which isn't a balanced relationship. There's also no indication that anyone involved -wants- a poly relationship or would be satisfied with that. Is it impossible? Eh, there might be a way to get there, but it'd take a lot longer and we would have had to have -some- indication that Sayaka and Yuu are into each other in any way. That flag has not been raised yet. Outside of that, it's just wishful thinking.

Sayaka x Akari: This one takes some serious yuri goggles. Don't get me wrong, they'd be adorable together, they're different in all the right ways to have a fun dynamic, and I'm not gonna just blindly assume that Akari is straight just because we've only seen her crush on a guy, but they've never really even interacted, and it would really be out of left field at any point in the near future. I'd have an easier time believing Sayaka x Koyomi. I'd need some groundwork to believe it, and meanwhile it definitely looks like Akari x Doujima is in the cards. But I mean, shippers gonna ship, knock yourselves out. It's not implausible anyway.

And finally, Sayaka x Touko:

Look, Sayaka is an excellently developed character, her confession was smooth as fuck, and it would not be surprising if Touko is swayed by that, and it wouldn't be unrealistic for them to end up together. But the story is framed around Yuu and Touko's relationship. People have mentioned it'd seem like she used her as a stepping stone, and that's true. Others have mentioned that if the story had started with Touko and Sayaka meeting, Yuu would become the rival side character and -would- more or less just be something Touko had to go through to grow into the person she needs to be to end up with Sayaka. That is also true.

That is not, however, the way the series started. It started with Yuu meeting Touko. And there is a reason that Nakatani-sensei started there. Because that is the relationship that this story is about.

Besides which, Touko clearly is in love with Yuu. She misses her, she wants to be with her, but she's afraid. She has to get over that fear to move forward as a character. Now, people make bad decisions sometimes, so I can't rule out the possibility that somehow, a sequence of events in the short term ends up with her dating Sayaka for a bit, but I can't see that working out long term. I mean, unless the question of the series: "What is love?" is one that Nakatani wants to answer with "Love is bullshit", because that's the lesson our protagonist would learn if Touko ended up with Sayaka.

"I wish I could fall in love!"
"I fell in love!"
"Oh, she...dumped me because I loved her back and then immediately hooked up with somebody else that loves her back."
"Well this is all fucking bullshit, I'm just going to burn my CD collection and retreat into an emotional prison for the rest of my sad and lonely life."

But maybe that's just me projecting. ;p

last edited at Jan 5, 2019 6:11PM

Finally a kiss <3

They've kissed repeatedly.

Are people even -reading- this series?

None of this is evidence that Touko was actually “contemplating suicide,” and as it turns out, some people at the time (no doubt influenced by the long tradition of Tragic Lesbians in popular culture generally and yuri manga specifically) were indeed overreacting, but there’s certainly enough death/finality verbal and visual imagery to be a bit unsettling.

They say that “two may be coincidence, three is a pattern,” and IIRC, we don’t have three. So readers at the time may have been overreacting to Touko’s personal crisis, but they weren’t making things up out of whole cloth either.

I was going to go through this point by point addressing why each one of these doesn't mean what some people took them to mean, but I feel like that wouldn't really fairly address your point. Yeah, I can understand why people read it that way. I still think they were wrong about their interpretations of those things, and when you take them within the larger context and tone of the manga, I think it's silly to harbor any actual fear of Nakatani sensei going there. NOW I think there's no real justification for being wary about a suicide ending. Touko is more stable and healthy than she's ever been, she has goals and interests beyond Yuu and emulating her sister, she's closer to finding herself, she just hasn't figured out romance yet.

I also think western culture is way too enamored with suicide as a component in romance. Romeo and Juliet was not a romance, dammit!

I did want to address some cultural points in this one, though:

• Chapter 23: opens with Touko standing in a graveyard, and the first scene ends with her question, “And then . . .where can I go?”

The last scene begins with Touko smelling the obon incense just as she enters the train station, and then she repeats her previous question, “But what happens after the play is over? . . . Where . . Can I go?” (A rather more bleak formulation than, for example, “What should I do then?”) And visually there’s both the blank space in the distance and the sign reading, “Non stop to final destination.”

Chapter 23 is very much about Touko's uncertainty about what she's going to do after the play, But that isn't about thoughts of suicide, we're inside her thoughts throughout that chapter, and "what then?" is always framed as an open question. She's on a path, that path is close to it's end, and she doesn't know what she's going to do then. Her relationship with her dead sister is foremost in her actions through all of this, so it starts with her visiting her sister's grave, Hence the graveyard scene) and is bookended near the end with Mio visiting her (The smell of incense, after the time spent reminiscing about her with Sayaka) Her ruminations about what to do after the play are then interrupted by the text from Yuu, which symbolizes that Yuu is her way out of the quagmire. (This itself is later bookended by Yuu's "it's time to change trains". When you reach the end of the line? You change trains. Goddamn I love this series.)

I doubt any actual japanese person would interpret these cues in any way that hints at Touko having thoughts of suicide. Trains are a common part of everyday life, and Obon is a part of their culture and a regular ritual for reconnecting with and remembering passed loved ones.

last edited at Jan 5, 2019 8:40PM

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/bloom_into_you_volume_6_extras#11

Huh, Sayaka and I share a birthday.

But just to play devil's advocate here, assume the story was less simplistic than it is. What if at this phase of Touko's life, the drive to be perfect was actually useful no matter the source of it? Maybe without it, she would be just some ordinary girl who doesn't study and is shy and lazy, which would have repercussions for her future. One cannot deny that hating herself has caused her at least two good consequences: she pushed her shyness as a child aside and became a super competent person who is a student council president, and now is also good at acting which is something she genuinely likes.

So I'm not saying Yuu didn't have good intentions, but I separate between intentions, consequences and timing. If Yuu had met Touko earlier, ironically she might well have ruined the awesome person Touko became. We like Yuu because she changed Touko from being self-hating at the right time, but still, I can't help but feel uneasy about the fact she tried to change Touko at all.

Funny thing is, Touko's Onee-chan Mio really was a bit lazy and averse to studying, so the real Touko is closer to the real Mio than she initially thought. And this fake perfect mask Touko put on... well, she didn't know Mio's fake perfect mask was a fake perfect mask, so even though she's faking it and Mio faked it, Touko ended up being like Mio in more ways than she initially knew. I guess it's why the series' Japanese title "Yagate, Kimi ni Naru" can be translated "eventually, you will become yourself".

However! After seeing the last episode, I think Nakatani's implying Touko would've killed herself after the play if Yuu never showed up. I can't be sure about this, but the way she says "I'll finish this play... and then what?" and then the shot of the dead cicada wings, combined with Touko stepping in front of that train and the "to the final destination" sign... I'm not sure Touko successfully becomes awesome and perfect whether Yuu appears or not.

Not this again.

There is no indication that Touko was ever contemplating or had any inclinations toward suicide. People are reading way too much into that.

The train and final destination imagery symbolize the dead end of her path. It doesn't mean she's literally going to deaden her end with the play.

Most people, at some point in their lives, face that moment where they don't know what's going to come after a certain milestone. Treating that like a recipe for suicide sends an unhealthy message to people.

What comes next? I dunno. Something. You'll figure it out. That's literally the entire point of that whole arc.

last edited at Jan 3, 2019 2:22PM

(YMMV).

English, please.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/ymmv

Dammit, I was going to start an herb garden, but I can't grow anything with all this shade around here.

So is anybody else disappointed that Koma-Sensei never made a move on Miyaji? I kinda ship 'em.

The only problem I see is the sentence "You are the only girl I'd ever go for..."

I took that as something akin to "you're my one and only." Not so much about "I'm straight but for you (although that happens sometimes) but more about "I don't want to be with any other girls".

Which makes it another case of "If it's you, it's okay". So, you know... she's not gay. If Fujimaki gave her the okay, she'd drop the lesbian relationship.

That's not really fair. She has feelings for Fujimaki, but she also has feelings (serious ones!) for Yukimori.

It's a pretty underhanded way to water the gay down.

As someone that is bi, I kinda gotta say, bite me?

They didn't "water the gay down". She's bi. Or straight with an exception. That's valid and doesn't undermine their relationship or the fact that they ended up together.

It really irritates me when somebody acts like being interested in the opposite sex somehow demeans or invalidates same-sex romantic relationships. I've been in love with girls, I've been in love with guys. All of those relationships were important and meaningful to me.

Things like this just make me roll my eyes. I mean, I get it, this is what you wish had happened, but it just feels so pointedly out of character.

I mean c'mon, they're going to end up together anyway, so this isn't just out of character, it's -unnecessary-.

I'm kinda disappointed with that ending on the anime, they cut it on the middle part of the manga ( 一一)

I want a season 2 (..)_

I want season 2 but I wouldn't say the ending was disappointing lol. Ep 13, is satisfyingly good. The way they ended it is brilliant, I would say. They really did a good job adapting both ch 23 and ch 24 and extra chapters, plus additional scenes. Nakatani herself was so impressed how Katou divide each scenes with great result. I do think it's the best to ended it that way, and to that part of the manga rather than pushing to the play that would only make the anime mess up, and the pace they did from the start would going nonsense. They already foreshadowing scenes that would might be happen next, and ended it metaphorically which is "We need to change trains now." If you didn't watch it analytically, or try to delve on it's meaningful ending, then you only find yourself being disappointed.

It's clear they were trying to find a way to massage the chapter ending so that it would work for the end of the series if they don't get a season 2, but I'm also more certain than ever that they were really banking on having a second season.

As I was concerned about, I've already seen people griping about the ending, about not getting to see the play, about cutting off in the middle of the story, etc. There's people that are vocally disappointed by the ending, ("Aoi Hana all over again") people that are being dissuaded by other people's vocal disappointment, and that's a serious shame. Of course, I've also seen people who are happy with the faithfulness to the pace of the manga and such, but I still think it's going to be a shame if this never gets finished. The manga is expected to end in 2019/2020, probably somewhere around chapter 45, so it's going to be at least a couple years before we are likely to get a second season, by which time interest may have waned?

On the other hand, maybe they could weave the material from Sayaka's spin-off novels into S2 and get an early start on it.

I think it'll be a serious shame if the series never gets properly finished. It's modestly popular, so I have some hope, but it's pretty uncertain.

That said, we really did get an absolutely gorgeous half of a series. I still go back and watch the track scene, and this episode had some gorgeous visuals as well. Yuu is adorbs as always, and the scene in the tunnel was very sweet, as was the train ride at the end.

I'm sorry, "think" was the wrong word there and it came out a lot more extreme than I meant, you're quite right to call it out. My English is worse than I think. What I was thinking about there is just that for all we know the inspiration for the story is one of those thoughts you get while showering or waiting for an elevator. "How would my career play out if I was gay?" and by the time she's got her hair dried she has a lesbian idol romance scenario that's personal but not at all confessional.

Yeah, I think if that was the case, though, she'd take more steps to distance it from herself, lest she give people the wrong idea.

It's possible that she's an ally, and this is her "I am Spartacus" moment of showing support, or it could even be that it's a publicity stunt to stir up controversy or something to drum up interest or support from less conservative young people.

But I think the most likely and simplest explanation is "she named this character after herself to make a statement about herself."

It's better than them rushing to the play and mess up the pacing IMO. I'd rather have a disappointing ending but, a good adaptation than a bad adaptation with a conclusive ending.

I second that.

I disagree that changing the pacing or the story automaticaly means a "bad adaptation". In fact I think a story that clearly stops in the middle IS in a sense a "bad adaptation". Slavishly sticking to the pace of the original and ending up with a visibly unfinished product is, well, it's at least unfortunate.

Kagami just seems like a molster, maiden=bitch, it's just a matter of time until Indou accepts the molestation, "what a sweet story" <== MASSIVE SARCASM.

"Molestation" is an unreasonable term. They're like, two years apart, tops. There is definitely an unbalanced power dynamic at play, which makes a relationship problematic, but they're also both kids, which changes the calculus on whether it's fair to accuse either of them of wrongdoing.

They're ending on chapter 24 (Episode 13 "To the Terminal Station / Lighthouse")
http://yagakimi.com/story/

Which is an incredibly unsatisfying place to leave it. If they can't line up a second season, this is going to be dissapointing for a lot of viewers.

And each blu ray is $80

They separate the season into 4 blu ray 'volumes'. This is just episodes 1-3, I think.

heartattack

Seriously, when I saw that 80$ price tag I was like: Nah, they've got the price wrong->They have the dollar-yen exchange rate wrong?->Maybe that's just the price of importing->ARE YOU F#*@ING KIDDING M-

last edited at Dec 28, 2018 9:14AM by Nezchan

Question: why instead of selling blu-rays, or rather than only that, producers don't release the episodes subbed behind a paywall?

https://www.hidive.com/tv/bloom-into-you

They....did?

You are missing the point.

Which is?

Why do people like to criticize without pointing out what the actual problem is? If I'm wrong I'm wrong, but I'd like to know why and about what then ^^;

It depends on what you were saying "Might not happen" Were you talking about the mutual romantic intentions? Because anybody who at any point in the entire history of this thing ever thought they weren't ultimately going to end up together just wasn't paying attention. There are several flash-forwards to after they are definitely a couple. They end up together. They were never not going to, it was never even questionable, because the author released images of them as an adult couple waaaaay back when they were still in the earliest stages of flirting.

If you mean that this specific kiss at this specific moment might not happen, then sure, that's possible.

Are people reading different comics?? It's pretty obvious that this is very different from the one-shot, specifically in how Saeko feels about the relationship. Also, Saeko wasn't a bad person in the one-shot--both she and Miwa are simply having difficulties navigating a heteronormative world. Which is sort of the point: the theme of both the serial and one-shot is "queer dating is hard, so you have to do it in good faith".

PS - To be clear, what I mean wrt Saeko is that just because they broke up in the one-shot doesn't mean they'll break up in the serial. It's pretty clear that serial!Saeko is smitten with Miwa and has been holding back because she though Miwa was straight, compared to oneshot!Saeko who wanted to date Miwa out of mutual convenience (which isn't a criticism of Saeko, just an observation of different motivations).

Eh, I think we're getting a closer look at what Saeko and Miwa actually went through in the one shot. It's possible they might not break up in this, or it's possible that them breaking up isn't actually the end of their story. But I got the sense from the one-shot that Saeko was in the process of moving on because she felt like Miwa never really had faith in the relationship.

Either way, it's about the journey, not the destination, and I'm just enjoying the way these characters bounce off each other.

There's no reason to think it's autobiographical and not a flight of fantasy...

(Edit to cut me being an asshole. Sorry if you already saw it, sometimes my inner snark takes over.)

If you wanted to say "we can't be sure it's autobiographical", I would be willing to grant that, but "there's no reason to think" it is? She named the main character after herself. That is a strong indicator that there is some measure of personal statement here.

last edited at Dec 24, 2018 8:18PM