Welp, I’m convinced. For once in my entire life, I feel completely justified in buying a premium box set Blu-Ray edition of anything. Sentai Filmworks’ Bloom Into You Premium Box Set was totally worth the money I paid for it.

Bloom Into You is based on the manga of the same name by Nakatani Nio, which is available in English from Seven Seas. The story follows first-year highschooler Koito Yuu as she becomes involved in Student Council activities and involved in an intense, and sometimes confusing, relationship with the Student Council President, Nanami Touko.

Yuu becomes interested in Touko initially over a perceived shared inability/unwillingness/lack of desire in regards to romance, but almost immediately Touko confesses that she has fallen in love with Yuu. How Yuu feels about Touko is the main part of the story, but by no means is it the only thing going on.  Council Vice President Sayaka has her own feelings about Touko to deal with.

You may remember I spoke to the fine folks at Sentai Filmworks at AnimeNYC 2019. We had a terrific conversation and while I was there, I bought this for myself as a present. When Bloom Into You anime streamed on HIDIVE last winter, I subscribed just to be able to watch it. And generally, I found it to be worth it, with a few small exceptions. Those exceptions became relevant once again…as they have, very unusually, been addressed.

It was inexplicable to me that the animation for the scene in which Touko confesses to Yuu be so seriously lacking. This moment, which comes early on, is one of two key scenes of the entire first disk. For it to have been so flat and lifeless was intolerable. Imagine my surprise then, when that scene was done beautifully for this disk. I was beginning to think I had imagined it, but an episode or two later, when Yuu reminisces about the moment, the flashback was not corrected and it was, as I had remembered, cheaply done. It was gratifying to see both the scene fixed and that my memory in this regard was not wrong. ^_^

The higher definition visuals also mean the backgrounds look breathtakingly detailed and if the character animation had not been improved it would have made them look just that much worse. There are still scenes that distinctly look like the B-Team did the art, sometimes, merely an angle or a part of a scene, and it can be a little bit disconcerting. But overall the art is much improved. So that all gets a big thumbs up from me.

The second change of note was the eyes. We spend a *lot* of time in hyper close-up in anime these days, which is really just a waste, since eyes are rarely animated that well. In this anime in particular I remember bitching about the eyes being so oddly drawn. That too has been corrected for the Blu-ray. We still spend way too much time staring at eyeballs, but at least they look better.

Disk 1 contains episodes 1-9 of this 13 episode series, in dub and sub. I have not yet watched the dub, but plan on doing so for Disk 2. Disk 1 contains the episode where Miyako tags Sayaka, she confides in the older woman and we get insight into the VP of the Student Council. I wanted to watch that in original, before I gave the American VA a chance. ^_^

But what really makes this set stand out are the physical extras.

To begin with, the box the set comes in is nice enough, although I have always felt that on their own collector’s boxes are not worth a jacked up price. What sets this set apart is that it has a pleasant assortment of physical extras. The physical extras include a booklet of storyboards for the OP and ED, an attractive booklet of key animation scenes, character references, interviews with staff and cast. It’s a book I actually want to read. Extras include some double-sided art cards, the script for the Student Council Play and Yuu’s older sister’s cheesecake recipe, which I will be making this year for my wife’s family Christmas get-together, in the interest of a complete review. I’ll let you know how it goes. ^_^ Both the recipe and the DVD come in an inner box with series art.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Visibly better when its better!
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3 especially towards the end as Touko is more aggressive physically
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

A really nice variety of physical extras, sub and dub of an anime series that improves upon the manga in a number of ways and a better visual experience over the streaming version, all of which justify putting this set on your wish list!