Centroid Of The Triangle/Lit Fuse/Suddenly Suffocating
What They Say:
Yuu has always loved shoujo manga and awaits the day she gets a love confession that sends her heart aflutter with bubbles and blushes, and yet when a junior high classmate confesses his feelings to her...she feels nothing. Disappointed and confused, Yuu enters high school still unsure how to respond. That's when Yuu sees the beautiful student council president Nanami turn down a suitor with such maturity that she's inspired to ask her for help. But when the next person to confess to Yuu is Nanami herself. Has her shoujo romance finally begun?
The Review:
Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review will contain spoilers)
First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for the double review. In three years with the site, I think I've only had to do that once before. But now that a plethora of unforeseen health issues are out of the way, I'm ready to get back into the swing of things and spend some more quality time with our favorites lesbians of the season. Well- one lesbian. The other one is still up in the air. But that's another subject for discussion entirely.
When we last left off, the student council was about to set off on a death march of a training camp in order to perfect a play for the upcoming school festival. With only summer break separating them from this final showdown, tensions are a bit higher than usual, to say the least. That's not stopping Touko from powering through, however, as she inches closer and closer to becoming her sister with each passing moment. Well, at least that's what she thought until an unexpected figure from her past walks back into the picture.
No, I'm not saying her sister comes back from the dead (Despite how crazy that would be). Instead, another member from the same student council her sister spearheaded winds up working as a training-camp instructor at the behest of Riko-sensei. But this seemingly normal coincidence flips everything on its head when he comes out and tells Touko that her sister actually...well, she kind of sucked. Mio was by no means the perfect, organized girl Touko had seen her as. Instead, she was a spastic procrastinator who, very often, pushed her responsibilities onto everyone else. As you can imagine, this shatters Touko's worldview, making everything that she had worked for over the last seven years almost meaningless. If she had been working toward becoming the mirror image of a now false version of her sister, who exactly was she? What was all of that work for?
The question burdens her greatly, just as it would to us if we were the ones in her position. Luckily, she can vent in the form of a conveniently coincidental script that, somehow, manages to retell her exact story up to this point. The play is no longer just her sister's legacy- it is the story of Touko trying, and failing, to become her. The worst part of it all is that the ending is already written. Not knowing what else to do, Touko falls into line and simply believes that she must now choose a new identity to assume, not giving any thought into the possibility of creating one of her own. That is, until Yuu has a say in the matter.
With episode eleven focusing almost entirely on Touko, episode twelve shows us how Yuu perceives the world (Touko) unravelling around her. And with the object of her affection becoming increasingly unstable, Yuu knows that now more than ever, she needs to do something. And while her gut instinct is to wrap her arms around Touko and profess her love, the constant reminder of how she can't do that is nearly beaten into her with every kiss. (Sidenote: there are a lot of kisses in this episode. 10/10). At the end of the day, she finally decides to do something for herself and begs Kano to rewrite the ending. Kano obliges because the ending song has already started playing and, voila, we've got ourselves a new ballgame, ladies and gentlemen. In the coming finale, Touko will likely learn a new route for her life- one that will allow her to achieve happiness through her own ideals, rather than those of a girl who pretty much never existed to begin with.
But will Touko's ending give Yuu the window of opportunity she needs to tie the knot? We'll just have to wait and see.
In Summary:
While episode eleven does not offer much other than a plot twist and some highlight reel acting from Minako Kotobuki, episode twelve becomes the best one since the halfway point of the series. Filled with emotional intensity and the sudden deterioration of Touko's mental state, Bloom Into You kicks itself into hyperdrive as everything begins to take on a new sense of urgency. And while it pains me to say that we only have one episode left, I do admit that I am incredibly excited for the finale. I'd be fine with watching these two for the rest of my life. I just hope that their ending is one they deserve.
Episode 11 Grade: B
Episode 12 Grade: A
Streamed By: HIDIVE
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