The Winter 2025 Anime Preview Guide

FLOWER AND ASURA

On Tonakishima, a small island with a population of 600, lives Hana, a high school girl. She loves recitals and holds regular reading sessions for the island's children. Mizuki, the president of the Broadcasting Club, senses Hana's power to attract people through her reading and invites her to join the club. Hana joins the Broadcasting Club and experiences many firsts with the other members.

FLOWER AND ASURA is based on a manga series by Ayano Takeda and Musshu. The anime series is streaming on HIDIVE on Tuesdays.

There is no better place to recite things than a beach alone and believe me, living on a small island teaches you that very early on. It's such a quintessential piece of my childhood that I can forgive the glaring issue of some random off-islander convincing the ferry captain to change the schedule; no matter how good Mizuki's reason, there's no way islanders would condone that sort of action, least of all a ferry captain. But what is anime if not wish-fulfilling entertainment?

That's very clearly what this series is, in a quiet, low-key way, and it largely works. Hana, the only person her age on the island where she lives, is implied to have grown used to putting her own wishes to the side; even her story hours for the local elementary schoolers are framed as something she does because it makes others happy – any enjoyment she gets out of it is almost secondary. And she does get enjoyment out of it. At an early age, she fell in love with the very 19th-century skill of recitation (reading someone else's work aloud), and story time is the best and only application she can find in her community.

Mizuki notices that immediately. I'm not sure if she came out to the island specifically because she heard about Hana's readings or if she really is the sort of person who just randomly hops on ferries in hopes of recruiting club members, but one thing's for sure: she's got Hana in her sights. And honestly, this is where the episode loses a lot of its appeal for me. While Hana absolutely wants to join the broadcasting club at her new high school, Mizuki's aggressive recruitment tactics, which include taking the last ferry to the island so she'll have to spend the night at Hana's house, are bordering on unacceptable and hit the "uncomfortable" mark. I don't doubt that Hana will flourish in the club, but the method of getting her there really didn't work for me. On the other hand, if we get to hear more dramatic recitations of Kenji Miyazawa pieces, I'm not sure I care.

Hana's recitations are a major highlight of this episode – Minori Fujidera does an outstanding job going between Hana's voices: regular, reciting, and reading. You really get a sense of Hana's various sides, and that's a draw. The pastoral backgrounds are another highlight, particularly the water churning in the wake of the boat, but there is one awkward scene focuses on Mizuki and Hana's knees and thighs while they're sitting that just feels out of place. While I didn't love this episode unconditionally (Mizuki really bugs me), I do think it's got enough going for it to merit checking it out.

“A pretty, tall girl who loves poetry and obsessively recruits you for the school's hipster club because of your incredible recitation skills” sounds eerily like a self-insert romance daydream that I might have scribbled down in one of my notebooks back in high school. In that sense, Flower and Asura presents an occasion where a show's ridiculously niche subject matter aggressively appeals to my very particular interests and biases. This is a good thing, because the anime is otherwise so low-key and wistful that I might have lost interest in it if the characters were all into, like, beach volleyball or gardening. Ostentatious performances of really old poetry that most people probably have never heard of or cared about, though? That is my jam, man.

On the plus side, Flower and Asurahas the character and the presentation to deliver its fairly standard “teenagers learning about life through a school club” story. Is my ability to project onto Hana somewhat and see the alluring appeal of a girl like Mizuki based almost entirely on the fact that I think old poems from different cultures are really neat? Yes, definitely, but I also like the subtle but effective animation used throughout the episode to make the girls feel just a little bit more real. Combine that with the lovely atmosphere of the island of Tonakishima and the soft colors and lighting, and you will have an anime that is positively comfy.

Really, my only real complaint about Flower and Asura is that, given the niche appeal of the whole poetry recitation thing, there isn't a lot else going on in the show that makes it stand out from the competition. It's a nice, relaxing, and artistically enriching watch, but there's no sign yet that it will become a standout title that will stick in the memory. If the cast of characters can establish some real chemistry with each other as Hana grows in her confidence and makes more friends, I could see Flower and Asura blooming into something really special. For now, though, it will have to be content with a slot in my “Pretty Good” tier of picks for the season. I'll be sure to give it another episode or two, though, just in case it ends up going that extra mile.

This is one of those anime premieres that is on the edge of being great but lacks that certain something to get it over the hump. It's got two memorable lead characters, the shy Hana and the outgoing Mizuki—with the latter simply oozing personality. It has a solid setting, a girl from an island attending school on the mainland, which gives the episode its logistical dilemma. It has something unique to introduce the audience to in the form of competitive poetry recitals. And to top everything off, it has fantastic moments of animation where the words of the poems are brought to life in a surreal nature that shows what they mean to our two heroines—and what they are trying to convey to one another.

So, with all this going for it, where is it lacking? Well, in Hana herself. We clearly see there is an inner struggle going on with Hana. There is something about her that makes her unable to both accept and want to follow her dreams. This, more than anything else, is why she refuses to join the Broadcasting Club time and again. (The logistics of the ferry ride are just a convenient excuse.) The poem, recited both to start the episode and at its climax, is about this inner divide—about how she wants to let out her true wants and desires.

The problem is, we never get a satisfactory reason as to why she feels this way—what is it about her life and circumstances that make her feel unable to truly express herself? Logically, there seems to be nothing preventing her from doing so. The island's people enjoy and celebrate her recital skills—even providing events for her to read at.

Her mother says she suspects that Hana's issue has to do with her being the oldest child on the island—the “big sister” to everyone else. Yet, we never see this in action. While she does read to the children occasionally, there is nothing to suggest that she is expected to do this daily or that joining a club would interfere with this. And other than reading to them, we never see her interact with the children in any way. This makes Hana's mother's hypothesis not really fit—even as the story seems to treat it as gospel.

Without understanding the roots behind Hana's issue, the emotional beats of the episode don't hit like they should. Her decision to follow her dreams and join the broadcasting club is great, but without fully understanding her inner conflict, it's hard to be caught up in the triumph of the moment like the episode is clearly striving for.

But to close things out, I want to be clear. This episode is in no way terrible, and it is still worth watching. The series as a whole could very well end up reaching the heights this episode was striving for, even if this episode alone didn't quite manage it. We'll just have to continue watching to find out.