Shimura Blogging part 1: Sweet Blue Flowers/Aoi Hana

I've been a fan of Takako Shimura's manga since reading the first chapters of Aoi Hana/Sweet Blue Flowers back in high school and have read a decent number of her professionally published works, mostly through scans. Shimura is a pretty consistent author in terms of her strengths, preferred narrative beats, and sensibilities. Her settings are usually contemporary, her narratives are often romances, and her character writing is unusually excellent, both within the genre and in the wider world of manga.

It was really exciting going through the last twenty years of Shimura's works. Her art and writing are great in the early days, and they get better as she continues iterating on similar themes and concerns over the years. The pacing of her works is pretty neat when you read them all at once… it's also pretty rewarding going back through someone's work and going, Oh, I get what you're doing here now!!! … I'm better at reading things… thank god I'm smarter than high school me…

The Sweet Blue Flowers review wound up being 2,000 words, so the Shimura blogging will continue at a later date. Please look forward to it!
 
Sweet Blue Flowers/Aoi Hana, 2004-2013 - Looking back on this series, I'm really impressed by how fucking dire Fumi's situation is at the start of the manga… oh, so you've moved back to Kamakura, you've been in a secret relationship with Chizu, your older female cousin, and you find out you've been dumped when your mom buys a cake wishing her a happy marriage?? In chapter one?? No wonder she's crying all the time.

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