Animehouse

In a world of media with so many choices, so many opportunities and interpretations of similar ideas, it’s very easy to make a decision before getting a good grip on things. With that in mind, to The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity volume 2, I owe you an apology. I wasn’t really familiar with your game. It doesn’t immediately mend all the concerns I had with its debut volume, but it’s a very safe bet to make that a picture arrives with this volume that is much clearer, and has a much stronger sense of purpose and direction.

I think a lot of that is afforded by the much slower pace of this volume. We’re not establishing connections, creating bonds then attempting to break them apart, and inserting drama all within a single volume. This second volume has a much better focus where it follows the conflict that arises from Subaru talking to Rintaro. You get to really digest the characters and their interactions here, and come to a better understanding through a lot of dialogue that can pile up and contribute to that bigger picture.

Still, I think Subaru’s character can suffer a bit from trying a little too hard to be an antagonist. I don’t necessarily think that their antagonistic nature is bad or wrong, but more so that what follows in the wake of that is a little too theatric. Acting as an (aggressive) shield for Kaoruko works perfectly fine, and I really love their self-degrading nature… but it takes up a bit more of The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity volume 2 than I’d really like to see. Admonishing yourself is fine and dandy, and can work really well in a lot of cases, but at a certain point the continual dumping of that sort of monologue can become an awkward weight.

For example, putting someone with such self-hatred in between two of the kindest characters in (your) world is really great for allowing her the room and space to grow and shed those thoughts. Similarly, it gives Rintaro the ability to make use of his emotional backbone in a way that isn’t just scaring people. She’s really a great character used for reflection and juxtaposition, so if you tip the scales too far in her favor, the work that you get back out of her becomes equally skewed. The way she begins to drown in her own thoughts with Kaoruko is a good idea, but it skews too far to her side of things, which weakens the effect of Kaoruko pulling her out of those depths. It’s still effective, and with the reassurance from Rintaro later on in the volume you get a much clearer picture- but it could be just that much better if there wasn’t as much melodrama bleeding out of Subaru.

To that end, a great example of effective balance in The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity volume 2 comes from Rintaro’s friends. Boys will always be boys, and I feel like they got a rather strong read on that sentiment here. Their heart to hearts are awkward and stumbling, their excitement very literal and openly expressed- but equally so are their challenges. Things get aggressive- but just in the right concentration- and the dynamic of the friend group helps smooth things over a good bit, where possible. Additionally, I think Mikami does a great job of conveying how passive Rintaro is as part of the friend group, and how that leads to a lot of the struggles in his interactions. It’s a solid B plot in the volume that gets set up for a quick little fight in the next volume. There’s not much that Mikami could learn from here that applies well to Subaru… but at the minimum it proves their ability to effectively grasp certain dynamics- like Rintaro worrying about leaving Kaoruko on read. Anyways, I should show some art because this is getting kind of wordy, isn’t it?

Mikami’s talent as an artist- and a freshman at that– is very hard to understate. While their visual expression is typically limited to characters, it’s very hard to say that they don’t brilliantly excel with them. Though, I do wish they’d experiment more with their panelling and backgrounds. When used, it can really elevate their characters a great deal. With Subaru in the cafe, the panel that includes a shot of the outdoors works wonders to balance the scene and effectively fill space. Similarly, beneath the table you can just barely see her hands digging into her pants, helping to sell the anxiety and worry she expresses for Kaoruko- but is something that Rintaro can’t see. Similarly, I really love how Mikami uses a piece of the environment to (partially) convey a change in scenery. They also make use of slight changes to the presentation of the boys in the above image, but the hedge is still the primary and immediate visual cue to explain the change.

I do also just plain like how they use characters as framing to explain to readers that the world extends past the panels on each page. It’s one of my favorite things to see in manga, so I’m glad that The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity volume 2 is so willing to make use of it. The only problem is that it drives home just how empty a lot of Mikami’s panels are, and how many flashbacks are inserts of previous panels. In a sense, I’m not surprised, considering the fidelity of the art and all that- it’s a weekly series, after all. It just makes me wish that Mikami could make more use of their artistic talent than they are currently able to.

Of course, that’s just me whining that I can’t have my cake and eat it too with The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity volume 2. As a visual work, it’s really just excellent the majority of the time. Sure, Mikami can struggle a bit with filling a page and using backgrounds and whatnot, but choosing between environment art and character art…. I’m going to choose character art nine times out of ten. The real bonus with this second volume is the considerable improvements to both story and characters. It’s a bit funny, but removing Kaoruko from Rintaro so quickly has helped a great deal. It gives Subaru some space to be expressed as a character where we get to see her dynamic with Kaoruko, and we get to see more of how Rintaro operates as a person and how Kaoruko has already affected him.

I’m very thankful that Mikami pumped the breaks with this volume, as the series really needed it. Comparing how far we get in The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity volume 2 versus how far we get in the debut volume, I’d probably say the debut is moving at least twice as fast. It brings in so much in such a small time frame that nothing gets to really set. Here, we get a nice and breezy pace that gives Mikami a lot of room to breathe for expressing everything they want to. Scores hardly mean much, but on a vague point scale with an undetermined maximum, I feel like this volume has improved the series’ score by quite a few points. Maybe, just maybe, the people that were following this series before its print release were right about it being good. Still, it’s only the second volume, so there’s a lot more of it left to see if those words ring true.