Thoughts and Opinions: Bloom Into You Vol.1

This is another one that I ended up leaving off my recommended reading list. It was not left off because it an on-going series nor was it because I couldn't get a feel for it. The reason is because after reading the first volume I forgot this series existed even though I own the second volume as well. The only reason I even remembered about this series is because I found both volumes while looking through my manga collection. Without further delay let's get started.  

Bloom Into You is a yuri manga written and drawn by Nakatani Nio and published by Seven Seas Entertainment. The story follows Yuu Koito, a young girl who loves romance manga and looks forward to the day that someone will confess their love to her in a way that will make her heart flutter. However when a classmate from her junior high does confess to her she feels absolutely nothing. Naturally she is disappointed by this. Flash-forward to high school where she meets Nanami Touko, a member of the student counsel. It just so happens that Nanami is in a similar situation to Yuu as even though many people have confessed to her she felt nothing for anyone... That is until she met Yuu. After making her own confession it is revealed that while she is attracted to Yuu, Yuu herself  feels nothing for her. 

After re-reading the first volume I can honestly say I feel bad that I forgot about this series. The plot is decent enough as its a story of unrequited love with the notable aspect being that both sides acknowledge it and are seemingly alright with it.  It serves it's purpose of introducing the characters and setting up character traits. The artwork itself is is passable though somewhat generic. The characters it introduces are portrayed well enough to were I can get a little bit of a feel for them. Out of the two main characters Nanami is the one that stands out in this volume. To me she is a very sympathetic character as she knows her feelings might never be returned and resigns herself to thinking that just loving Yuu is enough. Despite that she still makes an attempt to be close to Yuu even going as far as asking her to help run her campaign for student counsel president so they can spend more time together. As stated before I like reading stories in which one or more of the people involved are open with their feelings or openly pursuing the other. Yuu is also decently developed as well. While she isn't in love with Nanami she is shown to have a bit of remorse for not being able to return her feelings. She also wants to be there for her and to help support her emotionally. She even goes as far as telling her that she doesn't have to be anything special for her. Overall all the story is actually good. It does a good job of introducing the main cast and laying the ground work for later volumes to build off of.  As of the time of this post I have yet to finish the second volume or even purchase the third. If asked my for my honest opinion on this series I would recommend checking it out. As stated before I feel kind of bad that I forgot about this series as it would have at least gotten an honorary mention on my recommended reading list for 2017 (link here). Honestly I want to see where the story goes from here.

In the introduction I stated that I had forgotten this story existed. Some of you may be wondering why I did a post on this series even though I completely forgot about it. The reason is because in order to do these posts I usually have to go back and re-read books in question. Doing so allows me to refresh my memory of them and helps me pick up on things I missed during the first reading. Why is this important you may ask? Well it makes it so that my first impression is not the one I base these posts on. That is almost what happened here. I was ready to give this one a negative review and it really doesn't deserve it. This post was supposed to be out at the beginning of the month. The reason it is late is because after re-reading this volume I decided to completely rewrite it and give it a fair review. The reason I forgot about it may not have anything to do with the book itself. I was reading at least four other series at the time so it's likely that it just slipped my mind.

At the time of this post there are at least three volumes available for purchase. I will eventually get around to finishing volume two as I already own a copy.

I really don't have an idea for the next post. I am leaning towards either a post on my thoughts of NTR: Netsuzou Trap or doing something unrelated to yuri manga. I also plan on doing two reviews for romance series that are near and dear to me though I have no clue when those will be finished.

My Hero Academia Seasons 1 and 2 Review

Lets start the new year off on a positive note. I was seeing really good press for this show before my laptop went down and since I had time to kill when it went down, I decided to check it out. Man, this thing was right up my alley. At first I was afraid this was gonna be show one of those shows that was all hype and no substance like Attack on Titan. I got so engrossed with this thing. Normally I'd give a recommendation at the end of the review but before I go into detail I'll just say this: Give it a watch, you'll probably like it.

I've seen two other superhero anime, those two being Tiger & Bunny and One-Punch Man. This one differs from the other two in that superpowers are incredibly common in this world, roughly 80% of the human population has some sort of special ability (known as Quirks). Naturally, powers being that common leads to villains misusing their powers and heroes rising up to stop them. The show centers around Izuku Midoriya, a boy who grew up idolizing heroes and wanted to become one himself. Sadly, he was born without a Quirk which is almost unheard of at this point. That all changes when he runs into his hero All Might. After seeing Izuku's drive to become a hero and seeing his heroic nature, he decides to pass his Quirk One For All on to him so Izuku can achieve his dream. From there the show follows Izuku's life at U.A.

Before I get to the characters and other stuff, I want to talk about the Quirks themselves. I love how the show handles them. They're all unique and memorable. Some of them are extremely powerful but they also have some interesting downsides. There are a ton of Quirks so I'll just talk about some of my favorites. Tokoyami's Dark Shadow gets stronger in darkness and weaker in the light. There is a guy in the festival arc whose body can turn to metal and his downside is that he has to eat a lot of iron or the metal gets weaker. My favorite downside is Denki's. He can generate massive amounts of electricity but if he generates too much, his brain short-circuits and he becomes an idiot for a while. Heck, even though Midoriya has One For All, he can't bring out his full power without shattering his bones on impact. They go into so much detail about how the Quirks work that they actually manage to make characters who would normally be outright broken appear on the same level as everyone else. Whether is a flaw in the Quirk or the person using it, everyone has a weak-point no matter how powerful they are. Considering its in a genre known for being all about broken protagonists just wrecking every opponent, that is an amazing feat.

The characters are fine and enjoyable, I have no complaints about most of them so far. My favorite character is probably Deku since I tend to enjoy that type of character a lot. He is definitely my kind of protagonist. Todoroki is definitely a close second. Erasure Head is probably my favorite of the teachers since he is tough but also knows when to cut someone some slack. His Quirk is also really interesting along with how he fights. With that being said, there is one character that annoys me: Bakugo. Characters like Bakugo are normally fine with me but if this wasn't a show about kids learning to be heroes, I'd be treating Bakugo like a villain. His personality doesn't read like someone who would be a hero in any other context. He classmates even joked about him sounding like a villain at one point. Its an odd thing for me to harp on but he just feels out of place compared to everyone else. With that being said, he doesn't actually make me angry, just annoyed at him when he shoots his mouth off. I know he'll probably get better down the road so I won't hold him against the show itself.

I love that Izuku still has to think strategically even though All For One is technically the strongest Quirk in the show right now. Its sort of refreshing to see that level of power have that big of a downside for him. He is able to come up with so many work-arounds like focusing the power into his fingertips so he can stay in the fight. The dude even has detailed notebooks filled with info on the other students/teachers and their Quirks. He can figure out how an opponent's Quirk works and adapts pretty fast. That resourcefulness and level of analysis is something you'd expect from an admitted superhero fanboy who grew up idolizing heroes without a Quirk of his own. Seeing him train and learn to make One For All his own while learning to control it has been great.

What more can I say? Its a show that has definitely gone beyond my expectations and has a ton of charm to it. I highly recommend it to any of my readers who are fans of anime, tokusatsu, and superheroes in general. There is so much thought put into the show that I can honestly say it deserves every single bit of praise I've seen it get. Its a fantastic show and I can't recommend it enough. This is without a doubt the best show I saw in 2017. Thats pretty much all I've got to say so I'll leave you all with this: Go beyond...PLUS ULTRA!!!