Review of “Blue Flag Volumes 1-8” by KAITO
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Volume 1
Like previous manga like this, I was looking for something mostly cute and fluffy.
The story is fairly simple. Futaba Kuze has a crush on Toma Mita, the attractive star athlete in their class. However, she’s shy, and so she ends up turning to Taichi Ichinose for help. Taichi unintentionally gets dragged into things, but he feels sorry for her and so even though he doesn’t think she’s Toma’s type, he tries to help set her up with him.
Toma misinterprets Taichi and Futaba hanging out as Taichi having a crush on her.
And I won’t get too much more into the plot to avoid spoilers, even if they aren’t necessarily unusual for this type of book.
Going into this I was concerned it would suffer from the usual hectic pace a lot of first volumes do. On the first pages I got lost in all the names and characters being introduced – I wasn’t sure who all the names went to at times because people were yelling names all over the place in the background and such. There were also a few other moments where a lot was squished together.
However, in general for the most of it the pacing was pretty good. Some pages allowed the artwork to do the heavy pulling instead of shoving blocks of text in it. It was easy enough to follow what was happening. The artwork was well-done and it was easy to tell the characters apart.
There was nothing plot-wise about the story that isn’t easy to find in a lot of other manga, but it took its time building up the characters and their personalities and let them all interact. I enjoyed it well enough and, at the end, I didn’t think it was quite a five star but I wasn’t sure it was four, either, so I’d probably place it in between. For the type of story it’s telling, it’s done quite well even if it’s rather cliché overall.
If you’re looking for a “high school crush” and “secret love triangle” type of manga, it’s worth giving it a try. The characters are likeable and the story allows the plot enough breathing room to enjoy it.
Volume 2
Whereas I thought the pacing of volume 1 was good, I thought volume 2 started to drag a bit and get too slow. For example, it brings up the point that Toma isn’t planning to go to college so the upcoming games are going to be the last time for him to enjoy school events. Taichi wonders about this, because it’s different than what Toma said he wanted to do before.
This gets brought up several times during the volume and Taichi never asks. This is something that a friend might normally ask about, so it doesn’t make much sense to me that he wouldn’t ask Toma if something happened or he changed his mind. It’s not really that big of a deal to ask someone why their plans changed.
It brings it up several times so it’s obviously a point the manga is hitting on, but it’s dragging it out way more than necessary, and even by the end of the volume it hasn’t addressed it.
Another issue is between Taichi and Masumi (Futaba’s best friend). Masumi has a crush on Futaba and that’s fine. The only one who knows is Toma.
However, during this volume Masumi asks Taichi what he would think if she told him she was in love with Futaba. Then she goes on and on asking what love feels like because she’s been with boyfriend after boyfriend and could never make herself fall in love with them.
Afterwards, Taichi is like, “I wonder what that was all about”. It’s really a situation where the character is way too dense. It gets annoying when something is slapping a character in the face and they don’t get it. She literally asks him about what he’d say if she said she loved Futaba, and he doesn’t even think at the end, “I know she said she was just putting out an example, but I wonder…”
He’s just clueless what she was talking about. And it was all a bit weird, to be sure. Her conversation didn’t feel natural at all, or like anything anyone would really say. Her character in general goes off into the more ‘cryptic’ territory I don’t like in manga, where they try to get all deep but they’re just being awful at communicating anything clearly.
I like it better when the other characters talk because it sounds more natural and feels more like how characters would interact with each other. Especially friends.
Her character also seems more inconsistent and like she does stuff because of plot right now. Volume 1 told me that she was in tune with these kind of things enough that, even though we didn’t really see her interacting with Toma at all, she caught on that he liked Taichi. Now volume 2 has her acting like she doesn’t know what being gay is and thinking she has to date a man. Especially these days, that seems off to me for someone at her age, and it doesn’t match the first volume. I can get questioning yourself and being unsure, especially as a teenager, but her conversation doesn’t seem deep, it just seems obvious. When she’s talking about if love is X, Y or Z, it depends on “what kind of love you’re talking about”, and it’s not like someone her age shouldn’t know what lust is. You might get them mixed up in practice, but if I asked any teenager love versus lust they’d probably give a decent answer.
All of that said, while I thought it got a bit slow, I still thought it was overall good and am interested in what happens next. I liked the part where Taichi helped Futaba out while she had stage fright, because he himself was frightened to be in front of everyone. It’s easy to see how the two would be getting closer and it feels very natural and not forced.
I just don’t think it was as well-paced as the first one and there were a few things in this one that would drop down its rating for me because I was starting to think, “Get on with it”. But I am still interested in the characters and like the other three, and I want to see what happens between Toma and Taichi. I’m hoping volume 3 moves the plot along a bit more steadily.
Volume 3
After volume 2 I was a little worried about the pacing and the conversations in this manga, but I think volume 3 brought it back around. Here, Toma has been hit by a car when Taichi went to try and save the cat at the end of the last volume.
Taichi is dealing with the guilt because he’s the one who ran out to save the cat. Toma’s leg is broken, so he won’t be able to play in the big game coming up. Taichi feels incredibly guilty.
On the other hand, Futaba starts questioning her feelings and who is most important to her. For the last two volumes Taichi has been helping her try to get close to Toma. By now he’s done a lot for her.
She talks about her feelings with Masumi as she tries to figure out who is more important to her, because she thought they were equally important at this point. I don’t really care for the idea that’s it’s pinned on them, “Not being able to be equally important”, but other than that I like this conversation. Her conversation with Masumi here is far more natural than the conversation Masumi had with Taichi in volume 2 (which was really more of a sudden one-sided breakdown by Masumi talking at Taichi, someone she doesn’t spend much time with. It was just weird).
Although sometimes characters can be a bit frustrating when you want them to admit something, it’s also more understandable here because Taichi would obviously feel guilty and upset at this point. It’s sensible for him to be lashing out and having a hard time.
We get briefly introduced to Toma’s older brother, but not too much happens with him as of yet.
So, for this volume I think the pacing was overall good and the character interactions were good. I think I’d bump it back up to something like a five star. I think I may like this one more overall than the first one.
Volume 4
This volume might be a little slower again, and there may be a bit of forced dialogue like in volume 2, but I never felt annoyed like I did with volume 2. It’s hard to really explain why. I think it didn’t go off track enough for it to be too much of a bother.
Toma gets home from the hospital and they have a little coming home party for him, and then they decide to go to a fireworks festival for Taichi’s birthday (all four of them). But the main things that really happen are Taichi and Toma talking about Toma’s future plans and why he’s not going to college, Toma revealing he doesn’t think too much of himself despite everyone else admiring him, and Taichi finally realizing that Futaba has feelings for him now.
It does feel like a lot of “in between” stuff, but I was still engaged enough. Overall the series so far has some pages here and there that don’t work (in particular there was a part in this volume where Toma’s proportions looked way off), but in general it takes enough time to let the story breathe, as well as show character’s expressions and other things without bogging everything down with text.
So, at this point I would say for the minor flaws the overall story is told very competently, and I would expect it to hold up to that for the next volumes. Which I’ve luckily managed to check out all at once, so I’ll be able to binge the rest of the series.
Volume 5
I have to admit, after reading volume five I’m not even sure what to say about it. I guess mostly because it goes off on a tangent about something else completely.
The volume revolves mostly around Mami out of nowhere. I’m not saying it’s an awful story to tell – Mami is upset that people make assumptions about her and her intentions just because she’s a girl with a certain look. A lot of the points made in it are fair and it is good to think about not pre-judging people.
It really did take over the entire story, though. For a huge portion of it not much was really going on with Taichi, Toma and Futaba. So this whole volume is almost like a side story.
I think it went on too long because it kept re-saying the same stuff repeatedly, which wasn’t necessary. Something like that could have been shortened down a lot without really losing much.
I don’t mind the story itself, but I was interested in getting back to the main story, so this volume was a little bit of a slump for me. It went too far into, “Can we get back to the main plot yet?” for me.
Volume 6
Fortunately, volume six gets back to the main story!
Here, Taichi and Futaba are trying to decide on colleges. However, Futaba may want to go to a different college, which might mean breaking up in the future. They’re both trying to decide what they should do with their futures.
A cultural festival also happens and some of the guys spend it together. Mami yells at Kensuke about how she wants to just be friends. Toma and Taichi spend some time together. Eventually Mami convinces Toma to let her do his make-up, and while they’re alone Toma seems to tell her the truth about who he likes. However, Kensuke overhears and ends up getting in a big fight with Toma.
At that point it seems like it’s just a matter of time before Taichi hears about it. At the end of the volume, Toma finally confesses to Taichi.
There are times when it definitely gets over-melodramatic to a point that it reminds me of “I’m 14 and this is deep”. I think this happens the most with Masumi, but it can happen anytime a character starts delving into their troubles. Right now I’m just glad there was finally a confession from Toma, and I’m interested in seeing where it goes from there.
Volume 7
Volume 7 covers the fallout from Toma having confessed to Taichi. Rumors are running around the school about the fight that happened, kids are gossiping, it’s all awkward. After getting in a fight with his friends and confessing to Taichi, Toma is reticent and unsure. Taichi and Futaba aren’t sure what to do and they get very advice and lectures from different people.
Most it goes along at a steady pace, but when Toma’s friends want to talk to Taichi and two girls take him over to one of their homes it drags a bit. Mostly when he girls are there, because there are practically philosophical walls of text. Honestly, I started skimming a bit at that part because they kept going on and on.
When it ends I’m not sure it’s in much of a different spot than when it started. A bunch of people talked, but Taichi and Futaba are still dating, still unsure what to do, and Toma still hasn’t really talked to anyone.
I’ll also say, I’ve come to like Mami more than Masumi. I still think the volume she took over was way too much to focus on her side story suddenly, but I find her to be a much more natural and likeable character in general.
Since there is only one volume left I’m looking forward to these stories being drawn to their conclusion.
Volume 8
In volume 8, Taichi and Futaba go to see Toma. It turns out he already moved out. His older brother gives them money to go to his new place.
They show up together, but Futaba runs away, leaving Toma and Taichi to talk alone. Taichi tells him he wants both Futaba in his life, and Toma in his life as his best friend. They eventually all meet on the beach and reconcile.
I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending too much except one of my complaints revolves around it, and it would be hard to talk about it without spoiling it. In the end, Futaba and Taichi break up two years after starting college. Futaba eventually marries someone else. Masumi has also married a guy, though he seems quite unsure about their marriage.
And Taichi and Toma are married by the end. Which is where my complaint comes in. We don’t really get to see them get together, and I would have liked a chapter for it. Even a short one, to get to experience the payoff of it all. We got to see about two volumes of buildup leading to Futaba and Taichi dating, but we don’t get to see Toma and Taichi reconnecting and deciding to date and it would have been nice.
That does somewhat speak in favor of the manga in general, because it means I’m invested in the characters. It’s just a little bit of a bummer. We also don’t see Toma grown up. We only see the others when they’re older, and it’s drawn from Toma’s POV.
Overall: The series is complete with 8 volumes, so it’s not that hard to sit down and read it all. I would say at its worst points it’s “average”. I don’t think it ever drops to a point where I would say it’s “bad”, but it does lag at points. In other areas it’s quite good. I especially like the more natural conversations. Futaba and Toma’s fight in volume 8, for example, was silly but actually worked as they yelled that the other was cuter than them. I enjoyed that far more than times when characters kept hitting the same point for pages on end or tried to get way too philosophical over having a normal conversation.
Personally, I think it comes off as more meaningful when characters speak like regular people going through issues. When it tries too hard, it starts to sound more like lecturing or preaching than what anyone would actually say in that situation.
I think there were parts that it brought up and then skimmed over that should have been given more attention. For example, Kensuke admits he was molested by another man and that’s why he was going to have a hard time with Toma, because he didn’t want to think of having to be careful around other men. This is not covered very much at all in reality. No one even really comforts him. It’s brought up as his reasoning, and I think that’s a little too big of a problem to have it brushed aside without properly addressing it – especially when they’re droning on and on about some other things. Some of that time could have been taken to more properly address this issue. It’s a good topic to bring up, too. Many men and boys are sexually abused and it’s often not even acknowledged.
Another point is the difference between how men and women handle problems, because they do tend to resolve conflict differently and men and boys are often criticized for the way they handle things. In here Toma and Kensuke duke it out and then they get over it, while the girls are still having an issue with him.
So the manga does bring up issues and fair points, but sometimes it goes on overly long about it. Once in a while a scene gets a bit hectic and it’s hard to tell what’s happening, too, but usually it’s good with pacing and giving artwork time to do the talking.
If this is the type of story someone is interested in, I would definitely recommend they give this manga a try. It’s not that long of a read and overall it’s pretty good.
Next time will be "Slayers Collector's Edition Volume 1" by Hajime Kanzaka.
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