Flower and Asura

Episodes 1-2

Is competitive speech also a thing in Japan? Regardless, Flower and Asura is probably going to be the closest we'll ever get to a competitive speech anime, and being someone who was on a competitive speech team back in high school, I'm absolutely here for it. Our protagonist is Hana, an islander who loves to read stories and poems to other people, and the newest member of her high school's broadcast club thanks to the persistence of her senpai, Mizuki, with whom Hana has palpable romantic chemistry (that, unfortunately, I'm not getting my hopes up about going anywhere. Still, I'd love to be proved wrong!). Now a fully fledged member of the club, this series looks like it's going to follow Hana as she learns more about recitation, probably at least partially through its more competitive side, seemingly to her dismay.

I actually really like that Hana doesn't seem terribly interested in turning her love of recitation into a competitive thing—that she seems hesitant to participate in the tournament everyone else in the club seems to be gearing up toward. The anime landscape is full of stories about the highs and lows of competition. So it's refreshing to have a protagonist who, despite being surrounded by competitively-minded club members, doesn't seem terribly interested in that. She's just here to hone her craft.

Hana stands in contrast to Anne, who seems like the hyper-competitive member of the team. Well, I say “seems,” but it's pretty apparent, what with how she spoke about not wanting to lose again. And it sounds like she gave up recitation—her preferred category—in favor of announcing because her voice naturally lends itself to that category better. This seems to frustrate her, as she's very clearly jealous of Hana, who seems so effortlessly good at recitation, despite not being particularly interested in any competitive aspects of it. I'm glad we have a character like Anne in the series, because frankly, there's plenty of people like Anne out there—both in and outside of competitive speech and adjacent hobbies like broadcast club. Which is to say, people who like doing one thing, but do another because that's the one they're better at for whatever reason, and they either want or need to optimize their chances of winning. And I think that exploring that tension—being at odds between a desire to do what you want, and the desire to win or otherwise achieve success—can make for a really compelling story, especially when it's framed in such a way where it's clear that the person can't and won't excel if they do what they want. And personal speculation aside, whether or not Flower and Asura will do that with Anne is yet unclear.

I like the note that the second episode closed off on—with the person from the drama club trying to recruit members of the broadcast club. At least anecdotally, I can say that a lot of people who do competitive speech also are involved in their school's drama program in one way or another, and it's easy to see why. I imagine that the broadcast club would have a lot of crossover interest for similar reasons. I've always wondered why anime characters can never be a member of two clubs—if schools in Japan, perhaps, have stricter rules about club attendance than schools in the States do. And this has once again made me curious about that. Still, I'm interested in where this is going to lead.

In case it wasn't already obvious, I'm enjoying Flower and Asura a lot so far. It's too early into the season to be calling anything my favorite anime of the season yet, but as far as premieres go, while this one wasn't quite my favorite, it's certainly up there—and I feel confident saying that it has a lot of potential to be my favorite depending on how things go. It tickles my former-high-school-speech-kid heart that we're getting a competitive speech-adjacent anime, of course, and especially one with such an interesting group of characters. If I find out that they have to wear suits for the tournaments, I might not even call it competitive speech “adjacent” anymore—and also, I might faint from joy. Do you have any idea how little media there is out there that even mentions competitive speech, let alone is about what's more or less it? I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is the closest I've ever seen literally any piece of media get to being about competitive speech, so you'll have to forgive me if I seem a bit to obsessed with that specific aspect of this anime, because frankly, I am and I'm not apologizing for that. More competitive speech or competitive speech-adjacent stories out there, please.

Still, while that's obviously a huge selling point for me, it's not like that's all that this series has going for it. Again: we have a solid cast of characters, and a distinct possibility that this anime might explore some widely overlooked aspects of balancing competition and a desire to win, with a desire to hone your craft and do what you like because it's fun. So in short: a very strong premiere, and I'm excited to see more from this anime.

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