Helen: Taichi Ichinose isn’t too excited about his third year of high school, especially since most of his friends are in completely different classes and the only person he knows sort of well is a childhood friend who he hasn’t kept up with, Toma Mita. Toma is one of the stars of the school: he has the friendliness, energy, and affability of a golden retriever and it’s no surprise that another of Taichi’s classmates, the quiet Futaba Kuze, has fallen for him. Taichi looks at Futaba and seems someone like himself — a background character who’s unable to get started without someone else pushing them on — and so he’s helping her win Toma’s heart, even if this might not be his call to make.
Previously, Blue Flag was one of the titles on MANGA Plus and I had heard great things about it from some friends but alas, I was drowning in grad student work. I finally made some time for it but quite literally THE day I sat down to read it, MANGA Plus announced that instead of having all of the chapters available to read for free they would be removing all but the first three and latest three chapters (unlike VIZ’s Shonen Jump, there are no subscriptions or memberships at MANGA Plus which means that all of those middle chapters simply poofed out of existence). Manga watchers like myself knew that this HAD to mean that the series was licensed, and likely by VIZ Media themselves due to who the publisher was, but VIZ took a while to announce it and of course it took even longer for this first print volume to come out.
Which is to say: I have waited roughly a year to read chapter 4 of Blue Flag and I truly wish I had started the series even one day earlier so that I hadn’t had to go through this wait.
Blue Flag is not a slow-burn romance per-say but as the final pages of volume 1 show (and were hinted at earlier on) there are some misconceptions going into these attempted romances which may take a while to resolve and just might involve a love triangle (or at least, a love polygon which does not follow Euclidean geometry). Taichi thinks that he’s helping out Futaba in every way he can but, as Taichi will easily admit, he’s been rather distant from Toma for a few years now and isn’t able to pick up on his signals as easily as he once could. No reason has been given so far for this distance. Perhaps it was a natural growing apart while they were in different areas of school or perhaps it relates to something deeper; when Taichi does make a sudden visit to Toma’s house his actions seem somber and almost ashamed, so perhaps he feels like he “abandoned” Toma years ago after his parents passed.
Regardless of the reason for that, I’m looking forward to getting to know all of the characters more. Futaba seems to be the “weakest” character of the bunch so far. She seems to struggle to open up to the characters which means that in turn the readers know equally little about her, but Futaba’s friend Itachi, who was introduced towards the end of the volume, looks like she’ll become a major character starting in volume 2. We’ve only just begun this story and I’m already looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
Helen’s rating: 4 out of 5
Krystallina: This first volume of Blue Flag reminds me of manga like School-Live! or Cross Game: those who know about the big reveal are likely going to a different experience than those who don’t.
It’s standard for the blurbs for VIZ manga to be two paragraphs. The first is usually a short overview summary of the series while the second is about that particular volume. I usually try to avoid them since they can tend to be spoilery, but I accidentally saw it.
Since I knew the twist, I had only planned on reading half of it at the time, stopping when the truth is revealed to the audience. I figured that would be a good place to stop. But it takes all of volume 1 to establish the story of Blue Flag: Taichi is an average-to-below-average guy entering his final year of high school. In his class is Toma, Mr. Popular himself and a childhood friend of Taichi, but Toma obviously sees them as still close. Taichi realizes that their shy classmate, Futaba, has a crush on Toma, and while he doesn’t see it working out between them, Taichi agrees to help Futaba. But he reconsiders when Futaba’s friend Masumi is angry at the way Taichi is getting Futaba’s hopes up.
I’d bet any anime adaptation would turn these five chapters into a max of two episodes. It’s not a bad read, but I think people want to see Blue Flag in its full context, not just the typical teenage romance you might think it is.
I will say that while Futaba is the typical waif who is trying to be more outgoing and mentally tougher (she even has the big doe hamster eyes to prove it), I find the dynamic between Taichi and Toma more interesting. Taichi tries to hide it, but he does have a complex toward Toma even if he doesn’t want to admit it. It is likely why he pulled away from his friend. At the same time, Taichi seems to have put up barriers between him and his friend group. So while he seems like a typical nice guy who can pass for Deku’s brother, he has his own issues — ones he is being forced to confront as he serves as the middleman between Futaba and Toma.
Speaking of the art, it reminds me of We Were There with the female lead’s big glossy eyes and sketchbook-like, wispy art. The latter captures the manga’s spirit, but I found Futaba’s eyes distracting. I think KAITO was going for a moe look, but she looks out of place to me.
In the end, while I’d like to continue the series, I don’t see myself rereading volume 1 much. It waits too long to get to the punch once you know it. I think Blue Flag is going to be the kind of series where I’m more interested in the later volumes once all the drama and emotion kick into gear. Slow setups can work, but this one is a little slow even by that standard.
Krystallina’s rating: 3 out of 5