Ah, so when you mean yes, no, depends, you mean in regards to whether or not yuri has themes of purity? There's also the school trip for the 2nd years (Touko and Sayaka) where Sayaka finally confesses to Touko. the story and characters here are excellent, and while it may seem like your typical high-school yuri romance, I was surprised several times throughout. Oh gosh, there's so much more in this volume I want to talk about but there would be too many spoilers and I want you to enjoy reading this yourself.

But the author wrote the scene very well, I believe that this was one of the best scenes of rejection in a yuri manga that I have read. All the teenage heartbreak is broken up by a sweet flashback chapter to the start of the love story for two of the adults in the series. I "get" why Touko didn't want Yuu getting attached before the play, the whole: "I'm not really me, but my sister, so don't fall in love with a fake pretend thing.

After Yuu's confession in the last volume, we see both Yuu and Touko struggling with the aftermath and their true feelings. While this Nanami thinks about how she has changed and how the people around her is changing, growing and evolving. You have me wondering what specific thing you mean about the translation (though I have my suspicions — there’s a moment that I think captures Sayaka’s voice perfectly). It highlights some authenticity to their relationship as well as some of the challenges gay and bi people face, worrying that people they meet are only exploring.

And as long as there is "the true essence" of the other that made her fall in love first, changes will not represent the end of her feeling. Every other choice makes a woman “unpure” which is why I loathe the concept of purity as a value of a woman’s worth that is still prevalent in this world. Nice melodramatic teenage angst, like: the very first person I said "I love you" to didn't love me back so now there is no chance of me ever having love in my life, you know, EVER, even over the next 60+ years.Touko, sad about Yuu, actually shows that she's sad to others, and admits that she's depressed when they ask. For anyone that’s looking for a good romance comic that defies expectations and is relatively chaste, Bloom Into You is a good choice. When Yuu protests that criticism and says she's the same as Maki, he says they aren't playing for the same team. I love how determined Sayaka was in confessing her feelings to Touko and didn’t react any differently to Touko after getting a response to her confession.

This was a very well written moment by the author and the way she wrote the scene was very thoughtful and sensitive. Even with the eventual outcome more than likely being a happy ending, the characters (and reader) are put through the wringer and it might be the isolation talking but it really moved me. The characters need this time to look around how everyone else has changed and how they have changed. Despite a lot of concern and criticism with Yuu finally confessing to Touko at the end of volume 6 and the "inevitability" of their relationship by the time the series ends in volume 8, I still think Yuu provides that representation, which I'll discuss later in this review. Also, since we've been talking about quality depictions of teenagers, I know that Touko has sexual desire for Yuu, that's been clear throughout the series.

Without spoilers though for some really wonderful scenes, I do want to highlight some of their dialogue. To be honest, I was quite surprised by how much I liked this volume, and it totally held up on a second reading as well. Sayaka just laughs at how cute they are together (in the middle of Hakozaki-sensei berating Miyako) and Hakozaki-sensei gets all flustered. I also love that Hakozaki's somewhat authoritarian personality was consistently portrayed in her younger days too. It’s almost like they needed this brief separation to see just how much they truly do need each other in their lives.

It’s really nice to spend more time with the two of them (and have the story present actual brief mentions of prejudices that a lesbian couple might face, however brief).Just what changes can someone accept, even if they don't want those changes, but still adore the person?