Yagate Kimi ni Naru Episode 1: I Can’t Reach the Star [First Impression]

To give a little background, I’ve never really been a fan of yaoi/yuri or shounen-ai/shoujo-ai. Not because I’m uncomfortable with homosexual romances because that is very much not the case. The reason why I never got into these genres is because of how these romances are treated. There always seems to be gross situations like incest, sexual assault, or pedophilia in these stories in order to form romances. It’s disgusting and creepy that so many stories are like this and are deemed “romantic”, that I just stay away from the drama. This year’s Citrus was like that so I didn’t even bother.

All I want is a sweet romance. Whether it’s between a male and female, male and male, female and female, I don’t care. I just want something cute and sweet! No gimmicks, no disgusting or violent situations, just a normal romance. Why is that so hard? Specifically, why is that so hard with same-sex romances?

Thankfully, Yagate Kimi ni Naru, or Bloom Into You, seems just that. Sweet and fluffy. The story follows a first-year high school student, Koito Yuu. Yuu has always been fascinated with shoujo manga and love songs because of the sparkly, bubbly, cute feelings they give off. She’s always imagined her first time falling in love to be that way, so special and warm that it’ll make her fly off her feet with joy! It’s what she’s always wanted, but when a close friend from middle school confesses to her on the day of their graduation, she feels nothing. She’s confused and disappointed as her feet stayed on the ground without all the warm feelings she imagined she’d get. So, she starts high school. We meet with her friends and they start talking about clubs and Yuu is indecisive. One of the teachers approaches her and convinces her to check out the student council, but then she kinda gets roped in to really get involved with helping them out rather than just observing them. But, she has nothing else to do so she goes ahead. While she tries to find the clubroom, she accidentally walks by a guy confessing to someone! And who is it?

Nanami Touko, a beautiful second-year student. She turns the guy down and she meets Yuu after she appeared out from her hiding spot. She takes Yuu to the student council clubroom, which is a wooden cabin in the back of the school and introduces herself. Nanami comes off as a sweet and friendly girl. Usually the dark-haired student council girls are cold and quiet but Nanami is the opposite of that, so I really like her. Yuu herself is quite cute herself. There’s lots of romance talk this episode among Yuu’s friends and in the student council room. Apparently many people, about 10, have confessed to Nanami, both male and female. Nanami always turns them down, simply because none of them make her heart flutter. This goes back to Yuu and the guy who confessed to her. I liked the visual representation they showed of Yuu in class feeling so lonely and apart from her friends. As they talked about boys and their preferences, Yuu was far apart from them as things weighed on her mind. When it comes to the boy that confessed to her, she actually never gave him an answer. This poor guy has been waiting a month for an answer! Geez…

Problem, for some reason, Yuu can’t even talk about this to her friends but she was able to confide in Nanami. I enjoyed their talk in the council room because they both feel the same way, they were confessed to but didn’t share the same feelings. They talk about how potentially strange they are in not being in love but the struggles of dating someone you don’t even love, just because it seems normal to go out with someone. That’s a really interesting point and I think people of all types can feel that way. There’s lot of pressure when it comes to romance.

But in the end, Nanami gives Yuu to confidence to speak with her friend and she gives him her answer. Honestly, I think the guy knew her answer would be no. I mean, if you have to wait a whole month for her to say something, 99% it’s going to be a no. 😛

The whole time, Nanami was holding Yuu’s hand. And suddenly, Nanami holds Yuu close, looks into her eyes, and tells her that she may be falling in love with her. And in that moment, I think Yuu felt those shoujo emotions she was waiting for. The credits roll, but we get an after-credits scene of the whole student council together and it looks like Yuu is going to help Nanami with her campaign activities. Nothing has happened between them since then, but that’s probably going to change soon.

The episode was pretty nice. The colors of the show are bright and pretty, and some of the background art is gorgeous. One thing that stood out to me was the wood cabin. The wood really stands out and it’s so nice to look at. There were lots of first-person POV shots which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. Sometimes they looked a little clunky and weird, like if a robot were the one walking. The girls are cute, and I don’t know why but I find Yuu’s tiny pigtails to be adorable. The sound so far is nice and calming with its piano music. So far, this was a nice first episode but the only thing that I found very odd was that Nanami fell in love with Yuu already? They’ve only known each other for a few days so I find it really strange that Nanami developed romantic feelings for Yuu already. Yuu seems to find Nanami appealing, but I don’t think it’s romantic. At least not yet. That was probably the most jarring part of the episode because it honestly felt really forced and unnatural, but I hope the romance from now on won’t be like that.

I really liked this episode and have high hopes that this will actually be a good shoujo-ai. It’s really sweet and cute right now, and I’d like to check out the rest. The thing is that Fridays seem to have a lot of shows that I want to check out. Jojo Fridays are back, so to pile on more along with this might be really tough for me. I don’t think I’d want to do more than two shows in one day but I’ll see. Either way, a good start!

Possibility of watching: Guaranteed

Possibility of blogging: Tentative (High)