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REVIEW: The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Volumes 1-3 Manga Review




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Daidan12



Joined: 13 Aug 2024
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:40 am Reply with quote
I don't see how you can give it an A to the story when the plot circles around:
- Teenager overthinks issue (as teenagers do)
- Teenager either escalates a non issue or someone notices that teenager is overthinking
- Friend says: "I will always believe in you/like you" (Insert spread pages of people smiling)
- Teenager smiles back and realizes that everything was in his/her own head all along

I can't really remember if it was in the early volumes or if I managed to speedread them when they properly explain what was the issue:
- Rintarou was bullied because... his parents owned a bakery????
- Hoshina was bullied because... her hair is actually silver????

I can realistically understand Hoshina's because a kid having pink/orange/bright red hair or any other outstanding color would be bullied, but I may be lacking in japanese culture but I think that a baker is a pretty respectful job to had, even as a kid and it's hard for me to believe that a kid won't think a baker is cool.

I like the work a lot but I think the early volumes are very week, it isn't until spoiler[Rintaro and Kaoru actually become a couple and they start developing the secondary cast] that I think the work starts making interesting developments.
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Terraziel



Joined: 01 Jul 2023
Posts: 78
PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:13 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, my biggest problem, if you can call it a problem at least, with this is that everyone is way too emotionally intelligent, especially for teenagers. All problems that arise are swiftly resolved by the involved parties sitting down and talking through it. Basically it reads like it was written by a therapist. Which isn't to say i don't like it, just that it all feels very... clean.
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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2487
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 3:59 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I can't really remember if it was in the early volumes or if I managed to speedread them when they properly explain what was the issue:
- Rintarou was bullied because... his parents owned a bakery????
- Hoshina was bullied because... her hair is actually silver????

I can realistically understand Hoshina's because a kid having pink/orange/bright red hair or any other outstanding color would be bullied, but I may be lacking in japanese culture but I think that a baker is a pretty respectful job to had, even as a kid and it's hard for me to believe that a kid won't think a baker is cool.


People will always look for reasons to bully others, no matter how petty or dumb they are, parents' occupations or hair color being no exception, so the probability of it happening is there.
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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
Posts: 604
Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Wed Oct 30, 2024 12:57 pm Reply with quote
It's fine if you don't like this manga; not every series is for everyone. In my opinion, Fragrant Flower stands out because of its cast being more mature. Just like not every teenager is smart or emotionally stable, not every teenager is bad at communication or overly emotional either. Most series focus on the immaturity of children, so I enjoy this series for showing us a different type of teenager; these ones do listen to each other and pay attention to their surroundings, and they grow so much because of it. These kids are in no way perfect either, but the idea that figuring out a good way to solve issues on their own is too unrealistic is, I think, itself flawed.

If we can have shounen manga about kids with exceptional combat strength, then I say we can also have a teen drama about kids with exceptional emotional awareness.
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