Sweet Blue Flowers Omnibus, Vol. 1

Sweet Blue Flowers Omnibus #1

by Takako Shimura

Akira Okudaira is starting high school and is ready for exciting new experiences. And on the first day of school, she runs into her best friend from kindergarten at the train station! Now Akira and Fumi have the chance to rekindle their friendship, but life has gotten a lot more complicated since they were kids…

Fumi is glad Akira is back in her life. Even in kindergarten, Akira knew how to stand up for herself, and she was always willing to stand up for Fumi too. But Fumi’s first love recently got married, and Fumi is grappling with a broken heart and the fact that her sweetheart was another woman… Can Akira’s open heart help dispel the gloom Fumi has been caught up in?

Genres: Manga, Romance, LGBT, Yuri, Queer, Graphic Novels, Comics

382 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 2017

About the author

Takako Shimura (native name: 志村貴子) is a manga artist primarily known for her manga works published in Japan which feature LGBT (especially about lesbian and transgender) topics. Originally from Kanagawa, she now resides in Tokyo.

Reviews

[Alexa · Rating 1 out of 5]

The flow and plot of the book felt disjointed and I couldn't really understand the characters. Also, what is with Japanese mangaka and writing incest? One of the main characters has the hots for her cousin, another series called "Honey So Sweet" has the main female in love with her uncle for a while...sorry, can't do incest. I know it is legal in Japan for cousins to marry, but science, specifically biology, has proven that cousin mating still causes genetic issues, not mention the fact that they are so closely related to you and you probably grew up with them...I just...no.

[Rod Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, sweet is the perfect word for this little story of romance and friendship at two neighboring all-girls schools. I really love the lead characters. I wish I had the second volume right now.

p.s. I didn't realize this was by the same creator as Wandering Son, Vol. 1 until I read the other reviews here after writing my own. I liked that series a lot, and this one is even better!

[tasneem · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a really sweet story! Takako Shimura writes (and illustrates!) LGBT+ fiction without the fetishization and concept of "sinfulness" that permeates the yaoi and yuri genres. The main characters are kids, and they act as kids would. They're unsure of themselves and have a hard time managing their emotions. Plus, the art style is really nice!

[Momo · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF wtf why does every other sapphic manga have incest :(

[a · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was cute, but the plot was disjointed and it made it hard to follow. I might pick up the next volume- I don't know...

[Kayla (onthefritz) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread: February 7, 2022 - 5 Stars

Originally Read: July 6, 2021 - 5 Stars

Oh my heart.

This story follows a bunch of high school girls in 2 different schools. All the angst, and all the unrequited love, heartbreak, first love, and friendship. Feels like it is going to be a love square of some sorts.

Fumi moved back to the area. She's very shy, quiet, and cries at anything. She is heartbroken over her recent love getting married.

Akira is loud and outgoing, was the childhood friend and security blanket for Fumi. She has a very overprotective brother (odd at times)

Yasuko is the heartthrob of the area, and captain of the basketball team. Has an interesting past with the other school. Very forward and blunt with her affections, cute at first but then becomes demanding and selfish.

Kyoko is love sick over Yasuko. She's also "engaged" to this dude, who is in college and has feelings for Akira.

This story sucked me in. The romance and heartbreaks are very sweet and innocent. Then there are some ??? moments that I'm not sure is a translation thing or cultural thing. We have a character who is in love with her cousin. I've seen thing before, so idk if this means "close family friend" or legit cousins. The kids go to a "singles night" party which just felt odd? There were college aged kids there and it just read like fish in a barrel. Now I hung out with college kids when I was in high school, but idk this just felt odd, maybe because I'm an old lady. The older brother also gave off some weird vibes as well. Regardless, still enjoyed the heck out of this

TW: Groping by strangers on the train. Not visually on page, but happens and talked about how it happens often on the train.

[Dubzor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this was kind of a mess for me. They really didn't do a good job explaining at first that there were two different high schools, which made things confusing. To make matters worse, there are A LOT of characters to keep track of, who they like, etc. Then there's the really creepy stuff...

Like, these girls are just starting high school and you've got parents joking around about how they've probably already gone "all the way." One girl is engaged already to an abusive creep. Another has a brother that is getting up on some real incestuous behavior. And a third that hinting towards further incest and possible molestation.

Yeah...so...me no likey.

[S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointingly boring. One girl's defining characteristic is that she cries. (Really?) I feel like I can't tell all of the characters apart, and the plot just feels... pointless. A part of me wants to continue reading the series, for reasons even I can't identify. The other wanted to DNF this book at chapter 3/4, and is just happy I finished this book. How I proceed remains to be seen. 1.7*

[Boujee · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's cute! a little boring for my tastes tho.

[♪ PYWPYRZZ !! · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf at 75% bc this was an absolute mess to me ☹️ it was really confusing and the incest um… !!

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

Sweet Blue Flowers is a gentle slice of life following two main characters: Fumi (shy, emotional) and Akira (outgoing, kind). The girls were friends in kindergarten, separated for 12 years, and have had the opportunity to meet again thanks to the families being in the same town again. Both attend girls schools in Kamakura and both are about to embark on the twisted path of teen love - both requited and unrequited.

Fumi is very emotional, cries often, and unsure of herself. She is coming off the heartbreak of her former girlfriend leaving her to get married - and she feels that she was toyed with by that person. When a fellow student at her new school asks her on a date, she is happy to find herself in a relationship again. But does her new girlfriend Sugimoto still hold a candle for someone else?

Akira is brash and outgoing, from a loud family. Short and somewhat childish looking, she is well loved by the people at her prestigious new school. She is at first very happy to walk to school with Fumi every morning; after all, when they were little, Akira always took care of Fumi. Soon, she becomes embroiled in Fumi's love life, respecting her friend's choices and being there as support.

The book features a cast of side characters and there is a lot of 'x loves y but y loves z' type of love triangles. Author Shimura's gentle take on adolescence is never harsh and nearly always bittersweet in the heartbreaks of love and life. Akira's exuberance, offset by Fumi's shyness, creates an interesting dynamic among the groups they interact.

Sweet Blue Flowers isn't sensationalist or melodramatic. There are little if any stigmas to the unusual relationships that perhaps would raise far more eyebrows in the West. The artwork is clean and emotive and easy to follow. The story is a slow burn and Shimura is quite happy to let it unwind by itself amidst day-to-day life in Kamakura. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, melancholy high school manga

The art is absolutely gorgeous , the characters are all distinctly drawn and well written. The write captures the feel of school girl friendships, crushes and first loves.

[Taylor Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read all of the series but only marking this one as complete so as not to spam. So many girls to keep track of and they kept changing their hair. I had no idea who any one was 75% of the time. But I think it really captures the awkwardness your first queer romance.

[Elaine L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5星
這部難怪會被視為百合經典作，的確是格局相當寬闊包容的很厲害的寫實作品，在依海的鎌倉，生活裡片段的故事，裡面對照著各色各樣一對對不完美的感情。故事繞了幾年，逐漸聚焦在主角富美與小明對於友情/愛情的摸索。不怎麼喜歡富美的軟塌塌個性，但俐落的小明則很讓人心安溫暖。我覺得這兩人還是當朋友比較好。然後水彩風的封面也太美了，但其實故事並非那麼輕快的。

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh heck, I don't know what's come over me, but I'm reading manga all over again. (And to be fair, they're all so very short and easy to binge on)

Sweet Blue Flowers I immediately jumped on, because, hello YURI!! (Alright more shoujo-ai, but we'll get to that). Back in my day, those stories were so far and few in-between, but it seems like more f/f stories are coming out more. Or maybe I'm just optimistic? Still, the stories revolve around high school, and I'm starting to feel too old to treat into those stories.

This manga is a whole lot of drama that may only feel unique because of the f/f storylines. So complicated, you might need to draw a map on who likes who to follow the story. I think there's also a bit of cleverness hiding in it, because these stories revolve around the concept of first loves, going so far as to center a Wuthering Heights play. So maybe this is just a story that's going to take a while to come together.

There's some frustration on how none of the kisses are depicted, merely implied, when every m/m story involves gratuitous fan service. Except one scene with Yumi and her first love (also heavily implied), there's very little fan service. Okay, Yasuko's existence might be fan service enough, but ya'll get the point.

There's actually very little art depicted in this story with entire pages of empty backgrounds and simplified faces, so maybe the lack of kiss drawings are lack of talent, laziness, or a tight schedule. So who knows. Yasuko might be dreamy, and there's nothing anatomically wrong with the art, but it's so... boring visually.

Finally, the most interesting part of the entire story was only mentioned once throughout the series, so I hope it does get revisited: Yumi's first relationship. That story could go in so many directions, but it was only mentioned a few times.

So all in all, not the best I've ever read/seen, but we get the f/f content we can. So.

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Kathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

> Love the f/f rep / love present in this graphic novel

BUT

> I honestly think graphic novels / manga isn't my thing because I regularly end up finding them so very confusing.. I have no clue whether I'm doing something wrong or am not focused enough or just.. I don't know! I always end up being so confused regarding the storyline and the characters and the jumps happening. Then I find myself being all frustrated and start flying through the pages to get it over and done with. Ugh.

[Bee (BacchusVines) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yuri manga! WxW!

This was so cute!! I love Akira so much!! And Fumi is more like me than any of the other characters. And I love how open Sugimoto's family was to her dating. I expect nothing less from the author of The Wandering Son! c:

[Loz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this and it is very queer, but it had some issues that I can't tell whether it is me disliking a character or me disliking the craft. I will most likely read more. Art is gentle and pretty. There are some real cute and touching scenes.

[Cal · Rating 3 out of 5]

TW: incest, age gap, potential pedophilia.

Giving this a 3.5 because I did enjoy a lot of aspects of it. I thought the messy and flighty nature of the relationships made sense for high school students, and that it was very bittersweet. I really liked Akira, her character was great.
That being said, like a lot of others have also stated it can be hard to follow are certain points. I still am not sure of the entire timeline.

There's also some more serious content that's sitting weird with me. Fumi having a relationship with her much older (I'm assuming? she's getting married) cousin definitely deserves an incest warning and honestly also an age gap warning. I have no idea when they started fooling around but Fumi is a 1st year here and it seemed like it had been going on a while. I might have had a little grace for it because it's over by the time the manga starts and abuse like that does happen. But I feel like it's very glossed over in a lot of ways and not treated very seriously. I wish it was treated a more of a bad thing? Like people acknowledge that it's messed up but then the story immediately moves on. That whole situation is very weird tonally. But I also got very strong Mawaru Penguindrum vibes from Akira's older brother, so that kind of adds to my hesitation to give it any wiggle room. I really can't tell if it's just a weird overprotective brother trope or if he has feelings for his sister. I don't like either option, honestly.

There's a lot of very blurred lines with age throughout the whole manga honestly. I don't think the situation with Yasuko is on the same level as some the other stuff because (as far as we know) the teacher does not reciprocate her feelings at all. There seems to be a solid boundary there at least. But, we also have Ko who is a college student. Who likes Akira, who is a 1st year who has expressed discomfort with him being older. If they become a thing I'll be extremely exhausted.
So there's that, the pining student/teacher thing and Fumi's cousin. All of that together makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

Circling back to Yasuko, I know the prince trope is a thing but god do I not like it lmao. I'm really tired of the more "butch" or butch characters being the ones who are more promiscuous, unfaithful, flirty, and aggressive. It's something I've read a lot recently and I'm just tired. There's the added aspect of her being in love with a man while all her admirers are girls which is also something I don't like. I'm bi. I love seeing bi rep. This isn't good bi rep. It's also not confirmed what her sexuality is at all during this issue so I'm not gonna speculate on it further.

Ultimately, despite everything above I do like parts of it and wished I could like it more. I think that messy high school stories are fine, it's a good thing for it not to be all sunny and perfect. I think a lot of teens relate to that and it's good to have stories that express hard feelings. But there's too many orange and red flags here for me to be comfortable recommending it to people or giving it any endorsement.

[Sucre · Rating 5 out of 5]

sweet and simple, this series felt more honest to my own high school life than any other high school yuri I've read. the girls of Fujigaya and Matsuoka High are refreshing in their realness and in the relationships they build with each other. while there are a number of inappropriate relationships (incest, adult/student), in these volumes they are depicted as one-sided and not glorified. it feels like the work is simply showing the feelings many teen girls have for people not available to them instead of romanticizing relationships where teen girls are groomed and abused.

it was also nice seeing the words lesbian and bisexual on the page. a lot of high school yuri is afraid to use these terms or they only come up in derogatory remarks, so seeing them used casually and accurately is a nice change of pace.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely adorable coming of age story. I really enjoyed that the romantic aspect of the story focused on the developing of a crush and the dating. My favorite part of this book though is the friendship between the two main characters. I wasn’t expecting that because when I initially bought this I thought the romance was going to be with them. So, I love cute romances and good friendships and this book delivered both of those. Will definitely be acquiring the other volumes!

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super cute! I love the characters & the art, but the story is a little weird? It's just slice o life, but the transitions to different scenes was confusing and some of the characters' motivations are unclear. It does have a dreamy nostalgic feel that reminds me of early adolescence, so some of the confusion seems warranted. Idk. It's cute and gay, so I'm gonna read more!

[Jasper Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

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. :)

[Sans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet, slow, and a little childish. Very much a shoujo manga with a yuri twist.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crying real tears over this book

[Cecelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'M OBSESSED THIS IS THE CUTEST

[mary ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.

Cute, but it felt a bit all over the place and unfocused, I'm interested in reading the next volume though, mostly because I love Akira.

[Nori Fitchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Such a sweet story full of gay panic 😆