Bloom Into You has undeniably had a pretty big impact on the current Yuri audience, with the original manga, light novels, anime and an official comic anthology in the space of the last few years. Even with the series finished and everyone living happily-ever-after, there’s always room to play a little.
Yagate Kimi ni Naru Koushiki Comic Anthology, Volume 2 (やがて君になる 公式コミックアンソロジー) spends some extra time with characters fans have grown to love by a variety of creators, from folks you know well, like Canno and series creator Nakatani Nio as well as popular anthology contributors like Kumosuzume, Yodogawa and others.
It will come as no surprise whatsoever, that my favorite stories center Sayaka. Yodogawa’s” 6-nen Ato mo Anata no Tonari de” in which Miyako spends a little time teasing Sayaka and they have a heart to heart about what relationships mean. I’m always so happy when I see the two of them being given a little time to just..talk.
But I especially loved the opening story by Fuyu Yutaka, in which Sayaka has something in her eye and Yuu helps her find her way around the school, while rumors fly around them. ^_^ It’s just goofy fun.
Ratings:
Overall – 8
If you love the characters of this series, you won’t have to be convinced to spend more time with them, If you don’t, you won’t miss anything critical. But it’s always fun seeing an official anthology of a good series. I only wish Maria-sama ga Miteru had come out now….imagine what we might have seen! I mean, there were tons of unofficial anthologies for that series, but what an awesome thing an official series might have been. ^_^
I’m wondering what Nio-sensei’s next work will be like. I don’t know if Bloom into you’s deconstruction was intentional or not, but I was absolutely fascinated by her style of writing realistic yuri and exposing the stereotypes that the ideal genre story should take place in sterile all-female fantasy.
I wonder if we say it’s now the Golden Age of Yuri? There are so many yuri titles than ever before, including OL yuri (but it’s still not enough). And I also agree with you about Marimite. It’s a shame. It was that title that got me hooked into yuri. I look forward to the anthology!
I meant that given how many unofficial anthologies and how many official goods there were for Marimite – a series that itself could be considered part of a grand age of Yuri – imagine how overwhelmed we might be with *stuff* if it came out now. ^_^
Well, given the current trend on reboot of many classic titles and the fact, as far as I remember, that MariMitte was not fully adapted, maybe we get something along with the theoretical reboot of the MariMite anime?
Modern yuri is a fairly young genre, so I don’t know if there is anything else to talk about. Maybe we are on the verge of even greater rise of the genre, who knows?