Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
4.5 stars
Really cute. I would've given this 5 stars but honestly some of this is really hard to follow and it switches POV's out of nowhere and it's confusing af.
Really cute. I would've given this 5 stars but honestly some of this is really hard to follow and it switches POV's out of nowhere and it's confusing af.
June 2022. GL manga series about two childhood friends who get reacquainted when one of them moves back to the area for high school. They go to two different all girls high schools and series focuses on them and a large number classmates at each school and a couple teachers.
Overall I liked the series but didn’t love it. It suffers from feeling too unfocused with so many characters, and adds new ones in each volume. I think it could’ve been much stronger with fewer characters to keep track of that get their own plot arcs and side stories.
I did appreciate that it includes lesbian, bi/pan, and straight characters. The lovely art was a strong point and characters were likable.
Got all 4 volumes from Sac library. It was originally 8 smaller volumes in Japan but was published in English as 4 omnibus volumes containing 2 each, so the 4 English language volumes are the full story.
“Sweet Blue Flowers” volume 1 by Takako Shimura.
Overall I liked the series but didn’t love it. It suffers from feeling too unfocused with so many characters, and adds new ones in each volume. I think it could’ve been much stronger with fewer characters to keep track of that get their own plot arcs and side stories.
I did appreciate that it includes lesbian, bi/pan, and straight characters. The lovely art was a strong point and characters were likable.
Got all 4 volumes from Sac library. It was originally 8 smaller volumes in Japan but was published in English as 4 omnibus volumes containing 2 each, so the 4 English language volumes are the full story.
“Sweet Blue Flowers” volume 1 by Takako Shimura.
I liked it, but some of the characters were too alike and I kept confusing them.
I cried at one scene between the two main characters.
I love how sexuality is portrayed, how they actually manage to say the words lesbian and bisexual, how it's complicated, and how the feelings of the characters seem so real to me.
Fumi is so scared of coming across as predatory or gross to Akira but she also has sexual feelings that are so natural and it just feels like a very real, teenage story.
I have always loved [a:Takako Shimura|5456298|Takako Shimura|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1427559883p2/5456298.jpg], ever since I read [b:Wandering Son, Vol. 1|7829373|Wandering Son, Vol. 1|Takako Shimura|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327284489l/7829373._SX50_.jpg|6454458] and watched the animes. After finally reading all of Sweet Blue Flowers, it has probably become one of my favorites.
**minor spoilers**
Only critiques are the weird incest themes, with Akira and her brother and Fumi and her cousin. I interpreted the thing between Fumi and her cousin as an example of a bad and manipulative relationship but that might be just me. Not sure if the incest stuff was an odd translation or something I don't understand about Japanese culture, but idk.
Also as many people have already said, sometimes the characters are very hard to tell apart because of the art style. While I love the art style, especially with the beautiful watercolors, it is true with the background characters and I missed a lot of their storylines because of it.
I love how sexuality is portrayed, how they actually manage to say the words lesbian and bisexual, how it's complicated, and how the feelings of the characters seem so real to me.
Fumi is so scared of coming across as predatory or gross to Akira but she also has sexual feelings that are so natural and it just feels like a very real, teenage story.
I have always loved [a:Takako Shimura|5456298|Takako Shimura|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1427559883p2/5456298.jpg], ever since I read [b:Wandering Son, Vol. 1|7829373|Wandering Son, Vol. 1|Takako Shimura|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327284489l/7829373._SX50_.jpg|6454458] and watched the animes. After finally reading all of Sweet Blue Flowers, it has probably become one of my favorites.
**minor spoilers**
Only critiques are the weird incest themes, with Akira and her brother and Fumi and her cousin. I interpreted the thing between Fumi and her cousin as an example of a bad and manipulative relationship but that might be just me. Not sure if the incest stuff was an odd translation or something I don't understand about Japanese culture, but idk.
Also as many people have already said, sometimes the characters are very hard to tell apart because of the art style. While I love the art style, especially with the beautiful watercolors, it is true with the background characters and I missed a lot of their storylines because of it.
I watched the anime of this years ago, but I remembered a lot of the story. (I was happy to see my favourite scene was there: the dinner with Sugimoto's sisters. Though I found it a lot funnier in the anime, maybe because it was so unexpected.) I'd give it a 3.5 stars, I think. There were a lot of times while reading where I found the myself thinking "Is this bad writing or awkward translation?" I'm looking forward to keeping reading this series since it goes farther than the anime did.
This is on my did not finish list because I couldn't follow the characters at all. 20% of the way through is not very far, but I didn't think spending the rest of the time confused was going to bode well. It's hard getting into a reading mood. That said, I don't want to rate it lower because I'm sure it's a good book for someone. It's not for me. :)
3.5 stars
Status: Complete
Format: Print
I liked this first omnibus more than I thoughts was going to. A quick run down on my thoughts:
Good and bad:
1. The art is simple but enjoyable
2. The connection between characters echos real life by being messy and not totally straight forward but it does slow a reader down trying remember the connections
3. The book is read in the traditional manga way but the translation seems off and they dropped the honorifics which makes things a little confusing at times (and honestly was a little annoying, I didn’t realize how much I rely on those to know relationships
4. It seems that no one bats an eye that female characters are involved romantically which is always nice to bypass in stories
5. In the back there is a mini glossary explaining food and who the characters are referencing when talking about real people.
All in all, had fun reading this and will continue (there are 4 volumes in the omnibus collection.) This would have gotten a full 4 stars is there wasn’t a very creepy and icky bit about Akita’s older brother being obsessed with her. In the first two pages of the first volume has their mother kicking him out of his sister’s bed after having crawled into it to sleep. Akita makes it clear she doesn’t like this. I wish this whole bit wasn’t in the story, I nearly put it down because of it.
I know there is a well liked anime on this but I haven’t seen it or know what story points it includes. Sorry!
Status: Complete
Format: Print
I liked this first omnibus more than I thoughts was going to. A quick run down on my thoughts:
Good and bad:
1. The art is simple but enjoyable
2. The connection between characters echos real life by being messy and not totally straight forward but it does slow a reader down trying remember the connections
3. The book is read in the traditional manga way but the translation seems off and they dropped the honorifics which makes things a little confusing at times (and honestly was a little annoying, I didn’t realize how much I rely on those to know relationships
4. It seems that no one bats an eye that female characters are involved romantically which is always nice to bypass in stories
5. In the back there is a mini glossary explaining food and who the characters are referencing when talking about real people.
All in all, had fun reading this and will continue (there are 4 volumes in the omnibus collection.) This would have gotten a full 4 stars is there wasn’t a very creepy and icky bit about Akita’s older brother being obsessed with her. In the first two pages of the first volume has their mother kicking him out of his sister’s bed after having crawled into it to sleep. Akita makes it clear she doesn’t like this. I wish this whole bit wasn’t in the story, I nearly put it down because of it.
I know there is a well liked anime on this but I haven’t seen it or know what story points it includes. Sorry!
Review & rating stand for the series entire. Childhood friends are reunited when they begin high school, and this follows the social lives and romances of a cast across two high schools, structured loosely around interschool drama productions. Almost everything that can go wrong with this structure does: the cast is difficult to keep track of, sideplots peter out, and the plays take up too many valuable panels. The real culprit is the transitions, which are incredibly abrupt, particularly in the first few volumes and in the timeskip resolution, and which make everything more confusing and therefore distant. But when it clicks, it's subtle and profound and real--this is one of the first realistic depictions of the queer experience that I've encountered in manga, rather than metaphorical or subtextual or tropey or erotic, and that realism is valuable and nuanced: self-interrogative, bittersweet, validating; still funny and sweet, not so navel-gazey as to be irritating, with likable leads. Those aspects grew on me; I just wish the overall narrative were better. The art is beautiful, clean, and consistent, but the simple backgrounds and evolving character designs only exacerbate story issues.
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced