Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today we’re embarking on another new anime journey, as we explore the first episode of the ongoing Bloom Into You. I actually reviewed this episode once before for the ANN Preview Guide, but those pieces are designed mostly just to be a “is this worth checking out” snapshot, so today I’m happy to revisit it. As I mentioned in that post, my outside knowledge of Bloom Into You is fairly limited – I know it’s a generally well-regarded yuri romance known for its slow pacing and uncommonly sensitive emotional insights, but that’s about it. That’s more than enough for me, to be honest – I’m a sucker for romance and stories that respect and celebrate all our small emotional turns, so I’m very on board for a gentle love story.

As for this anime production, my only experience with director Makoto Katou is 2015’s Beautiful Bones. That show was certainly pretty, but I often felt its use of rainbow and pastel colors essentially overwhelmed the screen, saturating our perspective in a manner that felt more overbearing than evocative. Still, most of Beautiful Bones’ issues were more reflective of its source material than its visual execution, and with a well-regarded manga and veteran composer Jukki Hanada (Love Live!, A Place Further than the Universe, maybe half of KyoAni’s recent productions) handling series composition, I’m excited to see what Katou can really do. Let’s dive right into Bloom Into You!

Episode 1

Light piano keys, and a white background transitioning into soft pastels, as our heroine talks about how in “shoujo manga and songs,” love is so blinding to her. A cohesive aesthetic expression of the gentle yet vividly intense vision of love presented in adolescent narratives. These stories trend towards being fairly reserved in terms of their actual narrative turns, but fascinated by the outsized emotional ripples those turns can affect. This statement of purpose leaves me wondering where Bloom into You intends to echo such stories, or simply to acknowledge how these fanciful, idealized romances often inform what young people think romance is “supposed” to be like

“No matter what I do, I can’t reach it.” Some very nice animation for this first pan across our heroine, as we embrace the easy metaphor of emotional turmoil and an unreachable goal being represented as drowning in a deep sea. This line seems to already confirm that our heroine thinks romance in the real world is meant to echo romance as portrayed in fiction

Even as we return to the real world, the light saturation and pastels continue. I suppose this might be characteristic of Katou’s work, but it feels very appropriate for a show that both echoes and comments on shoujo manga

“It’s something that’ll never be mine”

We open not with the usual cherry blossoms, but with an outright declaration that the cherry blossoms have faded to green. The most common icon of a new high school year thus inverted to imply how high school has already become a mundane experience

“There’s still one thing I left back in junior high…” Our heroine Yuu focuses on a text message, “I’m still waiting for your reply.” This episode’s framing device, which gives us both a sense of narrative consequence and also naturally echoes Yuu’s general discomfort directly engaging with romance

Yuu’s friends pop up and ask her what club she’s joining. We hang in a Yuu-based perspective shot for much of this conversation, which enhances the sense of being personally interrogated

Yuu Koito is her full name

In spite of her feelings on romance, Yuu doesn’t seem abnormally shy. Her conversation with her friends feels very natural

Yuu gets roped into helping the student council with elections

Another perspective shot for Yuu walking past the school, this time a more ambitious one – it’s movement into depth, so it requires constantly shifting the relative focus of the undergrowth here. This sequence abuses the separated line of plants along the wall’s edge to convincingly illustrate Yuu’s forward movement

And she stumbles across a confession. Extremely close shots now, keeping us trapped in Yuu’s perspective. Nothing evokes the uncomfortable intimacy of high school like these claustrophobic shots

Yuu sees the girl being confessed to, and her eyes sparkle. It’s a similar effect to what Beautiful Bones used for its biggest setpieces – a rainbow filter briefly suffuses everything. I appreciate that it’s used more lightly here

The girl confidently says that she “doesn’t intend to go out with anyone,” which seems to speak to Yuu

That’s really a lot of the high school experience – much of the overt concern over “I don’t understand these feelings” stems from lacking the confidence to believe “I feel this way, and this is an okay way to feel”

The show is able to slip in some light comedy based in Yuu’s mannerisms without any overt jokes

Yeah, Yuu moves like a startled animal. It’s pretty cute

Lovely forest backgrounds

Lots of partial face and body closeups over this conversation, implying how Yuu’s focus is concentrated on this new girl’s physical presence even as she carries on an idle conversation

Touko Nanami’s formal introduction is accompanied by a gust of leaves. It’s a true shoujo meeting

Yuu says she met a “cool senpai,” and has to clarify that it was a girl

“People often choose high schools because they’re chasing boys, huh?” Establishing the assumed social expectation of boy-girl relationships

Her friend Akari frames talking about boys as “finally getting to have some girl talk.” She doesn’t mean anything by it, but her words frame interest in boys as what makes a girl really a girl. Yuu looks away

Now we get that flashback to her junior high confession, which literally takes place beneath a blooming cherry tree, and basically embodies what “romance is supposed to be like” according to stories

Her inability to relate to her friends’ feelings sends her back underwater, until she remembers Touko’s confidence in saying “I won’t date anyone”

I like how outside of Touko, this show has largely skipped character introductions, and jumped straight to scenes of Yuu naturally interacting with her classmates

The student council’s little house in the woods feels like a natural way to emphasize how this world is a sanctuary for Yuu and her feelings

Yuu asking “is there anyone you’ve enjoyed spending time with” is accompanied by a steady shot straight down at the tea being poured, quietly underlining how Yuu is intentionally avoiding eye contact here. Only when the shot ends do we realize this was a perspective shot

Touko’s “it’s never made my heart flutter” seems to speak directly to Yuu’s experience

I like this show’s consistently piano-driven soundtrack. It lends a sense of cohesiveness and clear tone to Yuu’s experience

Yuu literally flees from her friends to the sanctuary of the student council building

I’m liking how consistently this episode illustrates the disconnect between Yuu’s words and feelings. It’s been doing it visually all throughout, and now we get the first direct contrast of her spoken words against her internal voice

Touko realizes Yuu has something on her mind. We really don’t know a thing about Touko yet – we see her as Yuu sees her, this perfectly composed inspiration

I like this very brief snippet of Yuu being comfortable with this boy in a platonic relationship. It’s really, specifically romance that trips her up

“I’m just a little slower than others when it comes to sprouting wings.” Lovey-dovey media has left Yuu with some pretty unfortunate preconceptions. She sees not immediately responding to this fiction-happy setup with rapturous feelings to be a personal failing, not just a reflection of not feeling that way about this boy

The soft focus on Yuu as she explains her anxiety is a nice indicator that we’ve shifted from Yuu to Touko’s perspective. Yuu is somewhat idealized in this moment

“You’re fine the way you are.” Exactly what Yuu needed to hear

Lovely amber colors for this whole scene. Katou’s color work is always very aggressive, but it’s working here

Touko draws Yuu into her arms. Damnit Touko, you just got finished inspiring Yuu, this is no time to fall in love with her!

“I think I’m falling in love with you.” This is a very unfair thing for Touko to say right now, but I mean, they’re both anxious teenagers. Touko doesn’t actually have her shit together, Yuu just imagined she did

Dang, that’s a really early cut to credits. An interesting choice, to use them as such an early dramatic partition. The credit cut is an often underused dramatic instrument

Looks like Touko immediately backed down after that moment. It was an important breakthrough for her, but she quickly realized it was uncomfortable for Yuu

They seed Touko potentially running for student council president

Aaand she asks Yuu to be her campaign manager. DAMNIT TOUKO

And Done

Welp, that episode was just as strong a second time through. I’m a big fan of this show’s highly active direction, and like how it makes a number of choices that set it apart from similarly visually driven productions. The heavy focus on perspective shots adds an appropriate sense of emotional claustrophobia and consequence, while the rich colors counterbalance that by echoing the fiction-based preconceptions Yuu keeps obsessing over. Yuu is already a solidly sketched character, and Touko looks to be an engaging mix of strengths and major flaws as well. Bloom Into You opens with a visually striking and emotionally engaging statement of purpose. I’m ready for the next one!

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