Alright folks, you know it’s time for Bloom Into You. As the season moves towards its endgame, we find ourselves approaching an inevitable clash between the rapidly diverging desires of Yuu and Touko. For Yuu, the last several episodes have seen her undergo a profound shift in how she views both Touko and herself. She can no longer affect the nonchalant, flirtatious person who once effortlessly sparred with Touko – having actually developed strong feelings for her senpai, she is now hyper-aware of Touko’s every movement, and increasingly unsatisfied with their romantic stasis. Meanwhile, challenges to Touko’s desire to replace her sister seem to have only hardened her own resolve. While misinterpreting Yuu’s newfound self-consciousness as a pushback against her own affection, she moves ever closer to fulfilling her sister’s role in the play, and thus completing her last wish. But what comes after she’s already done all the things her sister pursued? And will Yuu’s feelings even remain repressed that long? We’ve got plenty of thorny drama to look forward to as we explore another episode of this terrific show!

Episode 11

We’re greeted by the sound of cicadas as we pan down from a bright blue sky, both choices that emphasize the feeling of summer. I’m guessing the group is meeting over summer break to practice the play?

Even the wide-open nature of this composition implies “freedom.” This is a very loud shot

Yep! Looks like they’re even staying overnight at the student council office

Yuu and Touko haven’t met for ten days, and now they’re going to be trapped in a shed together for three. I’m sure nothing will go wrong!

With Yuu having at least partially gotten in touch with her own feelings, my focus in the OP turns to Touko’s half of the story. “What are you hiding in that locked box” as Sayaka reaches out to her, only for Touko to walk away

“The girl who lost her memories wants to regain her former self.” I appreciate that this play’s narrative only vaguely transposes over Touko’s life story, allowing some room for interpretation. Touko could be afraid that her “true self” is invalid, but at this point, it’s just as likely she feels she has no selfhood beyond the facade of her sister’s personality. She is a person who really has constructed their personality in reverse, taking in criticism from the people around her and building a self designed to answer those critiques

The classmate says “everyone relied on you. You were cheerful and kind to everyone.” The brother says “you were rarely at home, and I can’t remember the last time we had a real conversation.” The lover says “you were never like that in front of others, but with me, you were a crybaby, always looking for my attention.” All three of these seem to describe Touko pretty accurately, and may well form the main faces of her social existence – a polite non-person at home, a shining example at school, a blubbering wreck with Yuu

This show’s psychological inquiry obviously extends far beyond this particular point, but I appreciate how thoroughly the idea that “we all present different selves at different times, and the consequences of this can be painful, but it doesn’t make you strange” is baked into this narrative

“With the day of her hospital release approaching, she decides to choose one of the three selves.” An anxious teenager’s perception of selfhood – this idea that we all have a bunch of diverse yet rigid and disparate potential selves we could grow into, and that we must choose one during our adolescence or risk becoming no one at all. The truth is that we all contain multitudes of partial selves, and also that the process of growing into and reinventing yourself continues throughout your whole life, but when you’re being asked to simultaneously sort out your emotional self-image while also choose your professional life path, it’s understandable that you’d see this situation as incredibly urgent and intimidatingly final

The current ending is “she chooses to be with her girlfriend,” but it’s only a matter of time before that changes. Koyomi is already unhappy with the existing ending

“Unlike your parents or classmates, your girlfriend is someone who chose to be with you, so choosing them in the end seems right.” Trust Yuu to champion the path towards her own dramatic substitute

“Tell us what the next Shakespeare can do.” The downside of using this play’s development as a direct metaphor for Touko’s feelings is it kinda accidentally implies that Koyomi isn’t really able to parse the thematic subtext of her own narrative. “The cast” as a collective need to have trouble arriving at this ending, but Koyomi wrote a script that already implies one clear thematic conclusion

There’s a funny natural disconnect in the way creative writing actually works versus how it’s generally portrayed in fiction. While some writers really do just put one page in front of another until a story is done, that style tends to resolve in shapeless, rambling nonsense. Real writers tend to have a good grasp of a project’s scale and intent from the start, but “figuring out the moral” is something that narratives naturally want to maintain as a final hook, and thus fiction is full of writers who have no idea what they’re writing about until they arrive at the final page

Sayaka starts to freak herself out about the group sharing a bath. It’s nice to see one of these girls getting to stress about genuinely mundane romantic drama for once

Sayaka eventually resolves to come along, but only to make sure the other two aren’t up to no good. Sayaka is adorable

Yuu undresses immediately, seemingly confident, but then we get her internal voice and hear her mentally strategizing on how to get through this. Oh my god these girls

This sequence doesn’t feel like fanservice – when the camera focuses on one or another of them, it’s because one of the other characters is genuinely preoccupied with staring at them. Hurraaaay for engaging with adolescent sexuality in a non-voyeuristic way

A long shot emphasizes how close our leads are within this room, as well as implying a vast and uncomfortable silence surrounding them

Touko Likes Boobs

Some light comedy beats as the girls go to sleep, but this show isn’t really as comfortable with “goofy shenanigans” as it is with its other dramatic modes. The buildup to the teacher opening the door isn’t frenetic enough, and the punchline too minimal

All three of them are basically vibrating with horny energy as they go to bed, but paralyzed by the fact that some third wheel to their respective duo is there. AH, YOUTH

More sunflowers today. Sunflowers and hydrangeas up and down this production

Hakozaki introduces another adult, Ichigaya, who will be helping with rehearsals

He’s actually an alumni of the school from Touko’s sister’s grade. They knew each other well

And Sayaka overhears

“I thought a student council president was someone who orders everyone else around while taking it easy.” Ichigaya neatly and accidentally illustrates the fundamental irony of Touko’s goal. Touko wants to become her sister, because she feels a facade of her sister’s personality is the only way she’ll be accepted, but Touko doesn’t even necessarily know her sister. If her impression of her sister is entirely informed by her worship of an older sibling, she’s clearly not going to be acting like a fully realized person. Touko’s negotiation between multiple potential selves must eventually collapse into the realization that we are all simultaneously multiple selves, and here, Ichigaya is hinting at the reality that even Touko’s sister contained such multitudes

Touko is eager to learn more, but can’t really press him

Music cuts in the leadup to Touko asking him more, and they add the sound of feet crunching over leaves to emphasize the quiet intimacy of the moment. Bloom Into You is generally good about using environmental sound design to enhance its drama

Apparently Touko’s sister Mio actually foisted a ton of work off onto others, and the impression of her being this perfect president was mostly just a consequence of her speeches and public persona. The ideal Touko was emulating was never a real thing

Ooh, beautiful shot of them leaving the school

“She’d always use us as she pleased, yet for some reason, we all liked her.” Touko has become more like her sister by accident than she ever did on purpose

“You may be siblings, but you and Mio aren’t much alike at all.” And it was her very efforts to emulate her sister that drew her further away. Now THIS is some Shakespearean tragedy

Yuu is excited about fireworks, but Touko is busy stewing in existential dread

“I’m afraid I’ll use her kindness until it’s all gone.” This is such a succinct expression of a universal terror – the fear that, as much as your friends are kind and accommodating, there’s always some waiting limit. The fear that your friends simply don’t yet understand what a burden you’ll eventually become, and that their smiling assurances are only made in ignorance

And Yuu sees she’s in pain, and actually wants to reach out to her, but can’t

“It’s difficult to make it go all the way.” “You have to keep still.” Very appropriate that Sayaka is uniquely good at maintaining perfect stillness in order to let this firework undergo its full life cycle, whereas Touko can’t help but move and shatter it

And so Sayaka carefully, carefully asks “is something wrong?”

A very neatly composed scene. I appreciate how well these fireworks emphasize how delicate Sayaka is trying to be in everything she asks Touko

“I’m fine with you knowing. Thanks for worrying.” A great victory for Sayaka!

And Done

Well shit, we’re really in it now. With Yuu having awakened to her own feelings, Sayaka feeling more confident in her pursuit of Touko’s attention, and Touko herself now adrift among a sea of potential selves, the time for lurking around corners and stewing in barely-suppressed longing is apparently ending. After reveling in just a few scenes of classic love triangle drama, this episode shattered our existing paradigm with the revelation that Touko’s sister was nothing like Touko imagined. It was a welcome reveal that fitted naturally into Bloom Into You’s general suspicion regarding the concept of a “true self,” and it resulted in one of the show’s most endearing and well-executed conversations yet, as Sayaka probed Touko with all the precision and sensitivity of a hostage negotiator. I don’t want any of these characters to end up unhappy at this point, and Sayaka in particular deserves far better than this ridiculous situation. I can’t wait to see what catches fire next in our next Bloom Into You!

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