Dynasty Reader » Forum › Bloom Into You discussion

Forum › Bloom Into You discussion

BugDevil

November 1, 2018 9:39PM

joined Aug 26, 2018

Where is the definitive proof? Your interpretation doesn't count, I need something better :P This is a manga so it has only pictures and dialogues, most of what's happening is inferred.

Your inferences are based on the "model" of the characters you have in your head. That's based on your internal models of how people work. And your models are largely based on how you work. Which is why people are often reluctant to accept someone else's interpretations about anything and see stuff the way they want to see.

In my way of interpreting the story -- taking a specific scene as example -- when Yuu was kissed by Touko in ep 3 she totally felt the physical attraction pull to do it (the scene in the anime even focuses on her eye changing to one of desire, her pupil dilates), even if she is not in love with Touko yet. And Touko totally catches on to that even before the kiss, that she felt flustered about Touko being so close to her and looking at her like that, which is why she teases Yuu. But Yuu is not going to reply "oh yeah I wanted to do it, this feels nice", because it would be awkward and in a way "losing" to Touko who has been obviously trying to win over her affections. In the story, in my opinion, she is simultaneously curious about falling in love and reluctant to let her feelings flow and actually fall in love.

Oh man... Well, as long as I don't say anything veering from pure objectivity, I may be forgiven for this. Don't kill me mods.

Your interpretation could be seen as legitimate, if the manga didn't clearly show how it really is.

Your interpretation is lacking in way too many aspects. That scene in episode 3 doesn't necessarily have anything to do with desire (pupils dilate from pretty much anything, including surprise/stress, light shifting etc.).
Touko teases Yuu, because she said she has no interest in her and doesn't understand love, but still goes along with something so ridiculous. So she infers (most likely jokingly) that Yuu might be into it after all. What Yuu is flustered about is not the kiss and we know that because when she was kissed the first time she wasn't flustered in the slightest. I don't see how you can retroactively change that in your headcanon. If Yuu really liked the sensation of kissing so much, why did she not feel anything from the first one?

Yuu is pretty direct about how she feels about anything, except when it comes to the promise later on that she won't fall in love, form then onward she doesn't say what she really thinks concerning their relationship. But at this point there is no reason to assume she was fronting. I think I already explained previously that the reason Yuu is evasive and agreed to Touko's request in the first place is that she hopes to feel something from it, not that she actually does. In a way she is using Touko's affection to test herself. Doesn't work though. The chapter title wasn't "A kiss is just a kiss" for no reason.
PS: Yuu was not the least bit flustered after the kiss.

Now let's go to the flipside. Yuu is almost constantly thinking about Touko, in many aspects, even about how she is cute, how she's admirable, how she feels special for being the only one she shows her weakness to etc. I don't really feel like picking out all the pages, because... that would be several every chapter.

The sports festival scene quite clearly shows how just watching Touko do her best and shine brightly makes her heart race and space out. And only after that, the proverbial "Starting shot" to her falling in love, did her heart start to race during kisses. Only then she finally felt something.

So yes, to me it is quite clear what the order of things was. Both work in tandem, but feelings came first, physical excitement later. As it usually goes in romance stories and manga, physical intimacy only reflects the degree of love/closeness. Starting from here they did get more touchy-feely of course (when Touko stayed over for sure).
The only sign of Yuu having a physical interest before she realized she had fallen that I can think of is when she played with Touko's hair before the speech. Maybe that she apparently mentioned to her mom that her senpai is pretty, but that's like, an objective statement almost.

last edited at Nov 1, 2018 9:40PM

Blastaar