asked her out at the end of middle school, careful paneling keeps older student Touko

out of frame, aside from a somewhat solemn shot of her glancing at Yuu.

Instead of showcasing the upperclassman, attention is paid to Yuu's body language as she tenses

up while rejecting him before calming down after he accepts it, shown on the next page

so as to provide a sense of catharsis upon flipping.

This leads into an uneasy page composition wherein we as viewers are only able to see

Touko's grasping arm, while Yuu expresses concern at the face which is hidden from us.

Suddenly, this face is made visible as she asks the pivotal question, implying her own

interest.

Yuu, attempting to avoid her comprehension of Touko's question, grows increasingly

uncomfortable, and once again her facial expression is hidden.

This continues until she brings Yuu to her face, forcibly confessing and denying her

the chance to avoid engaging with the situation.

This expert sequence is something that could only be done in a manga, one made by an expert

of the craft at that.

It was one of many that I thought the anime would fail to live up to.

However, the voice acting of the anime's version fully communicates Yuu's tension,

relief, and then plunging back into anxiety.

The excellent cut of Yuu pulling her arm back only for Touko to yank it forwards works together

with the ripple that the motion creates, the aforementioned voice acting, and the stellar

music to not only communicate the manga's core in this scene, but to elevate it.

In effect, it transfers the original's beautiful charm while adding its own understanding of

these characters.

This scene's conclusion, of Yuu seeing their clasped hands in Touko's eye, is not present

in the manga, and demonstrates this expertly.

It's rare to see an anime so clearly understand its source.

It's far rarer for that to lead to one of the most important queer works in the entire

medium.

But this start may have been a bit abrupt.

Allow me take a step back before we begin in earnest, as the backstory here really is

quite important.

As I argued in my video on Fall of 2018 a week or so ago, yuri anime is in a great place.

Anime fandom has always been an important space for queer fans, one where gender-deviant

expression is normalized far beyond where it is in broader society.

The presence of queer works, yuri being a big part of that, has been a boon to young

gays for well over 2 decades now.

I'm confident in saying that I would not have discovered my identity were anime not

around, and that's something that can be said by tens if not hundreds of thousands

around this planet.

Yet in all this time, we have not been blessed with what we need.

For all the wonderful queer works that exist as manga, few manage to make their way into

anime.

This isn't to deny the existence of important, excellent works; Oniisama e, Aoi Hana, Yuri

Kuma Arashi, Doukyuusei, Wandering Son, Flip Flappers, all of these are worthwhile watches.

And of course, we can't ignore the key role played by decades of trash.

Godawful, intensely problematic works had and have their own roles to play in allowing

people to peek at potential identities in a safer and easier to justify way.

However, for those who've made it beyond that hill of self-discovery, these works are

often disappointing, and it can scarcely be denied that young, burgeoning queers deserve

some wonderful works as well.

Enter Bloom into You.

It's fairly well known at this point that I am anime youtube's chief expert on the

yuri genre.

As the one sitting on that not-so-respected throne, I consider it my sworn duty to educate

the world as to what we get every season.

Without a doubt, there's always gay content.

However, quite infrequently do we get romantic works as such.

This year has had plenty of excellent yuri anime, from Comic Girls to Revue Starlight,

but for as inarguable as the queerness is in these works, it is not the focus of any

of them.

Aside from the admittedly excellent Kase-san OVA and Liz and the Blue Bird, the only straightforward

queer female romantic comedy or drama prior to Fall was Citrus.

I'm sure Citrus has had a positive impact on the lives of many, as I said, trash can

be important, but it is trash, though I won't relitigate my complaints given that there's

already a 30 minute video where I do so.

It's very fortunate, then, that we got an adaptation of what is, without a doubt, one

of the most beloved yuri manga ever penned.

Written and drawn by the fantastic Nakatani Nio, the manga which is referred to in Japan

as Yagate Kimi ni Naru or Eventually, I Will Become You has risen up the charts, placing

on the Weekly Manga “Oricon” lists, something no series in the genre had accomplished beforehand.

This sterling feat is no shock given the series' background.

Nakatani Nio did not, of course, get her start on Bloom into You, though it is her first

serialized manga.

Like many in the industry, she started out her “career” as a Touhou doujinshi artist,

though even with her early, 2010-era works, skill is self-evident.

While many of these were considered yuri by her fans, and likely would be classified as

such by most of the viewers of this video, she herself didn't think of them that way.

As she says in an interview, “I was hesitant to call my work yuri because I never intended

to narrate a love story.”

In spite of this, it's clear that the groundwork for Bloom into You was laid at this point.

The way she portrays relationships has hardly shifted; she's deeply invested in the messy,

complicated aspect of our feelings.

This, in itself, is important.

Much of the reason trashy works continue to be beloved among some sides of queer fandom

is the fact that they often, in being problematic, deal with complicated situations, though perhaps

not in an ideal manner.

Real human feelings are hardly straightforward, something only made more true when you exist

within a society that views you as “different” at best and sinful at worst.

Queer is, after all, a term that means weird, and to most of us, our feelings on gender,

romance, and sex count as such.

Nakatani's intense focus on these was, as a result, bound to be relatable to a great

many.

Of course, complex emotions have one other benefit; they simply make for a good story.

It's far from guaranteed of course, and a well-learned writer is necessary to bring

the potential in a complex story like Bloom to the forefront, but were the actual story

not enough for you, the way Nakatani makes use of Koyomi, the resident writer character,

should more than establish that this woman understands the craft, a topic we'll return

to with time.

After submitting another messy love-story of sorts to Dengeki Daioh for a contest, one

which she happened to win, Nakatani got the chance to debut as a part of the professional

mangaka world.

Fortunately for her, this came at the perfect time.

Dengeki Daioh is a seinen magazine, one published primarily for adult men, and traditionally,

non-fetishistic yuri has not had much luck in those publications.

However, the genre has been fast expanding, and Bloom's appearance in Dengeki Daioh

marked a major turn of the tides, showcasing that yuri manga could now appear anywhere.

Nakatani's new editor asked her to be the one to introduce a yuri work to this magazine,

a timely request given that at the time she wanted to make a work where, unlike her doujinshi,

“No matter how you look at it, it's yuri.”

And so, Bloom into You began its warpath, acting as one of the vanguards for the genre

which has, over the last 3-to-4 years, virtually expanded by a scale of magnitude.

The announcement of it getting an anime this year was long-awaited, and served as solace

to fans afraid that the wonderful world of lilies was being stained by the adaptation

of works such as Netsuzou Trap and Citrus.

However, there was some nervousness about the project, and for good reason.

The manga is simply fantastic, and unlike many works, this quality is heavily derived

from its usage of the medium it's in.

This series was conceptualized as a manga through-and-through, elevated by the fact

that Nakatani's understanding of how comics function is on a level far above that of most

other mangaka.

Any given chapter is full of expertly-composed pages.

Her use of moment-to-moment transitions, a decision that allows a creator to showcase

the precise movements and expressions of characters so as to communicate in full their feelings,

would take cinematography and animation rarely seen outside the works of KyoAni.

Yet, with the assistance of Nakatani's relatively involved participation in the production,

it's turned into a satisfying work that somehow does manage to convey everything the

original did and more.

It's hard to say which is a superior work, yet in spite of being a fairly direct adaptation,

neither is invalidated by the other.

Even Nakatani herself says, “I think it's rare for an anime to reflect the original

author's intention to this extent.

I would tell them in detail, “This scene was drawn with this intention,” “This

character is like this,” so that there shouldn't be a difference in interpretation between

the original work and the anime.”

As she adds, “The anime staff was also very careful with it.”

I, and I believe the yuri community at large, could not be more pleased with this work.

But simply talking about Nakatani does not do it justice.

It's now time to return to where we started, looking at what it is that makes this work

so special and what it is that makes it so important.

As with all true masterpieces, Bloom into You is greater than the sum of its parts,

and talking about any individual aspects as if those are what truly make the show amazing

would do a disservice to how it all comes together.

However, it's nigh-impossible to structure a piece of this size without doing so to some

extent, so please forgive me as I break this into multiple sections.

Part 1: How The Anime Adapts the Manga The excerpt I began this video with, while

a particularly important one, is an excellent demonstration of the skill that director Makoto

Katou has brought to this series.

Of course, directors are far from the only staff involved in anime production, and many

people have played important roles in bringing this series to life and allowing it to dance

on the small screen, but as the leader of the project and storyboarder of the first

three episodes, it's inarguable that he set the tone for the series.

Katou brought a number of new elements to the work, ones which assist its transference

to an audio-visual medium.

Take the use of water.

It's far from original as a way to represent both coldness and a feeling of suffocation

but it feels so natural as a metaphor for Yuu's feelings that it's almost surprising

Nakatani didn't come up with it herself.

Take the first shot of the entire series.

As Yuu narrates about her interest in fictional romance, dazzled by it, with the image of

hand-holding stuck in her eyes — an element which, as you may remember, will return as