#to read taichi as attracted to Masumi. and of course……

[daisyachain]

not quite AnF time again. Courageous move by KAITO to put a set of panels in which the textual question ‘what do you want?’ is answered by the subtextual ‘he wants him physically’ halfway through the manga before we’re even supposed to be thinking about it. And it flew over everybody’s head including mine

[semi-imaginary-place]

Yeah Ao no Flag is a romance manga but more than that its about the lives of highschoolers as the begin transitioning to adulthood and all the messiness that entails. I don't usually have patience for the drama of highschool romances and the will they/won't they, actually Ao no Flag is the only one I have read to the end which is a testament to its quality. I've heard this series compares to Kids on the Slope for its nuanced depictions of complicated emotions and highschool problems but I haven't read it so I can't say.

I kind of want to see a sequel about those 7+ years like I would have liked to see Taichi and Touma's relationship develop and yet that would also be a very different series than Ao no Flag which is specifically about the third year of highschool, college and the early 20's come with a host of different problems.

Maybe I'm reading too much into things but when Taichi met with Futaba for the first time in 5 years and found closure for their breakup, I think their talk about future he wanted to choose referred to Taichi planning on progressing his relationship with Touma. Earlier in the chapter we see signs of Touma and Taichi's cohabitation like the two toothbrushes and the page right after Futaba is a cityscape shot of Shibuya with the famous 109 building, Shibuya being one of the first areas to offer legal protections of any kind to same gender partners.

Futaba is the one to push Taichi to meet Touma in ch 52, imagine if Taichi being Taichi let that opportunity die and that relationship wither away by doing nothing. She pushes them to have a heart to heart alone. This is what I like about the main cast, they've all helped each other grow as people from Futaba being a little more brave to Taichi not running away from his problems and not letting what other people say get in the way of his relationships and happiness. Taichi from the start let his feelings of inferiority get in the way of his friendship with Touma. Thinking about it that way Taichi originally was attracted to Futaba because he left she was "on his level" as compared to Touma who was too good for him. He distanced himself from Touma in highschool because he felt inferior in comparison with other people treating him differently from Touma. It was Taichi that changed and pulled away from their friendship. By the end of the series we see him starting to overcome that and that's when he reaches out to Touma which contrasts the begining of the series where is always Touma reaching out to Taichi.

I do hope Masumi chose her husband because she awakened to realizing that while she likes both women and men and not because she thought conforming would make her happy, but either way she seems happy with her choice in the end and that's what matters not how she got there.

I can see how people might have been blindsided but reading through while knowing the ending, Touma was always important to Taichi and there were hints the attraction was mutual from the paneling to how Taichi looked at and viewed Touma. Through ch53 KAITO leaves Taichi's relationships unresolved, him and Futaba are still kind of awkward around one another and he's only then actually communicated with Touma, everything is left ambiguous and I love that because it hints at hope without making anything concrete and is a great tone to leave the main story on. Futaba and Taichi breaking up is pretty realistic, not many highschool romances actually last. It's the first serious relationship for both of them and that's usually about learning about yourself and growing as a person and also a relationship many people also grow out of. The cast in people's lives aren't stagnant, we are always meeting new people, bonds wax, wane, and change forms. It has been years of course they have all met new people. In a way the epilogue reframes the series as an old highschool memory. The emotions and struggles at that time were real but Yokki was right in the greater scheme of things you're career path is more important than any of highschool dating drama going on.

One of the main themes is people's choices. People should make their decisions regardless of what others think and should pursue their own happiness which looks different for everyone. What future someone wants to choose is theirs to decide. We see this through the cast making many choices (some of them bad choices) and those are tied up in personal circumstances that an outsider has no place judging. Its repeated multiple times how the effects of someone else's choices are something another person has no control over so there's nothing for that other person to feel guilty about. With this in mind the ending to Ao no Flag was very appropriate, its an open ending and we learn nothing concrete. The epilogue is so far in the future (over 7 years, it could be 15 for all we know) that we the audience have no right to judge where the cast is in life because we know nothing about those years. Personal relationships are just that personal, and it doesn't matter that other people think about it. All the readers who were angry at the ending prove this point again, the characters went and did what they wanted regardless of what the audience thinks.

[mangaycompany]

do you have a favorite rare pair? if so, would you mind writing something that would induce me (and maybe others) to ship these? (I need more rare pairs content TT)

anybody who's ever talked to me at least once knows exactly what i'm going to say

i absolutely LOVE bantai / 万太

bantai isn't AWFULLY rare in the japanese fandom (it's kinda rare but i know worse, like jutai which i also really love), but it's INSANE how little people actually consider it in english :sob: i myself know exactly 4 people who are into it and it breaks my heart because i'm the only english speaking artist who contributes to the tag ever

before i start talking about it more, i'm going to link you to some things

the ao3 tag (in which 3 whole fics are by yours truly <3 they're bad though),

the pixiv tag (my favorite artist is hn, whose works i especially love because of their warm light-hearted stories, as well as their interpretations of the characters (i love how they tend to write 万>太 and 万>(<)太, you don't see banri be the one pining very often and i love it)),

my very self-indulgent spotify playlist (it might not be all that accurate but it's based on my own personal interpretation of characters, keep it in mind :'D)

anyway, time to talk to what just GETS me about this ship

initially i didn't think about it myself, because ANY banri ship will always be overshadowed by sehhyo/banju, but sometime in august last year i realized their dynamic is actually quite interesting

i love this rivalry air the two have developed, it's not quite like the rivalry banri and juza have going on, this one feels much more casual and like something best friends would have going on

there was something that touched my heart in act 3; when taichi confessed about his betrayal, banri was the first one ready to forgive him; he was the one who was willing to open up in order to make taichi feel more comfortable sharing his portrait with everyone

mankai stage

bestie behavior

and they kiß

headcanons

in canon, their bond might seem a little one-sided (we can't have everything :/ ), with taichi being always all over banri about how cool and popular he is, but trying to expand on that thought, i like to think banri's grown too used to taichi's compliments; the moment taichi switches to fawning over juza, something clicks in banri's brain that makes him annoyed with the whole world for the entire day

when they get together, it's something very new for both of them; taichi's never been in any relationship, he doesn't really know how to act around banri and fails to not make a huge deal out of it, due to his hopeless eagerness mixed with personal insecurities, it might keep their relationship stagnated and frustrasting for the first few weeks, he wants to do more and more couple things very badly but is worried about communicating it to banri (he doesn't know why, he can't name his fears really) / banri has been in relationships before, with people of all genders, so you'd think he wouldn't stress out about his new boyfriend all that much, but it's very much not true; he's been in so many relationships and yet this is the first one in which he genuinely fell in love with the other person. he's always found it difficult to be vulnerable and open up to anyone else, but it's something he'll have to overcome for his and taichi's sakes

each of them teaches the other important things; banri teaches taichi to be more confident and to not rely on strangers' opinions so muh, taichi teaches banri to be open and that it's okay to rely on your closest friends

you know banri gets Really jealous when taichi pays any attention to juza (and he obviously does because he looks up to him), but what you wouldn't think is that when taichi realizes it, he starts doing that on purpose just to get attention from his bf

you'd think it'd be hard for these two to keep their relationship a secret, but for the longest time, nobody even suspected a thing; for at least half a year, the only person who knew about them was omi, and it's only because he's taichi's roommate so Of Course He'd Find Out

i feel like they're a kind of couple in which they don't really Talk about their feelings (like love and insecurities) unless things truly require it (banri doesn't want to for obvious reasons, taichi doesn't want to pile it onto banri and make him feel like he HAS to also); for a long time they had a thing going on without even clarifying if they're really dating or not. they rely very strongly on their personal love language, which consists wholly of nonverbal love declarations such as small touches and meaningful glances

because of that, banri probably hadn't even said the word "love" long into their relationship (which must have made taichi cry like a baby when he finally did)

anyway

there's a Lot More on my mind but i'm very bad with words sorry

some other rare ships i love:

太九 [taikyu]: taichi/kumon (very soft and light-hearted :) high energy)

十太 [jutai]: juza/taichi (obvious for taichi's fixation on juza, very soft and delicate kind of ship)

十咲 [jusaku]: juza/sakuya (bond over shared love for acting, very warm and shoujo-esque kinda feel)

丞誉 [tasuhoma]: tasuku/homare (opposites attract, learning to understand each other, thriving off bonding over misunderstandings)

天十 [tenju]: tenma/juza (starting off with private acting tutoring, ending up with... developing a crush?! 😳 light-hearted and sweet, probably has the entirety of summer troupe trying to get tenma to make a move)

ships i'm not sure if they count as rare pairs and i dont feel like checking rn but i feel like i don't see them enough

万九 [bankyu]: banri/kumon

真円 [masumado]: masumi/madoka

東誉 [azuhoma]: azuma/homare

一臣 [kazuomi]: kazunari/omi

志九 [shifukyu]: shifuto/kumon

咲太 [sakutai]: sakuya/taichi

莇椋 [azamuku]: azami/muku

i hope you'll consider at least some of them :) thank you for your time reading this mess of a post

[the-himawari]

A3! Usui Masumi - Ride on a Galaxy Train Mini Conversations Translation

*Please read disclaimer on blog

---

Practise Conversation 1

I listen to music a lot when I take the train.

I guess I like listening to songs while thinking of you and watching the scenery drift by outside the window.

Our play on the train seems like it’ll be pretty different than usual…

But I’ll study up on sleeper trains and practice hard.

I want you to think I’m cool and that I look good as a crew member.

Let’s sit beside each other and chat, and also gaze at the scenery together during my breaks and on the train ride home.

I’m looking forward to this train ride with you.

Practise Conversation 2

Taichi was talking about how there are various attraction points and heart-skipping situations that also happen in stations and trains.

Of course, meeting up at the station beforehand and riding the train together is a typical situation…

But when it gets crowded inside the train, you can protect the girl with a kabedon* pose, and her heart will flutter.

He also said it’d be nice for the girl to sit in the seat while you stand in front of her and talk face-to-face.

He totally gets it, so getting that kind of information from that guy is useful, sometimes.

Hey, Director, let’s go for a train ride together.

You can get on the train after me…

I'll take the train from the station before you and wait for you.

Practise Conversation 3

…So you came too. It must be fate that we came to the same place without planning to…

Yeah, I’m on my break.

…Before we got on this sleeper train, I picked out some songs that I wanted to listen to with you on the train.

I’d like to listen to them together, sharing my earphones.

…I’m so happy.

Alright then, here. Your earphone.

Sitting beside you while listening to music on the deck of this train running through the night… feels so comfortable.

Also, you’re so close… my heart’s racing.

*Sigh*, you’re so cute…

I’m glad to hear you liked the song too.

I have some more songs that I want to listen to on the train during the day.

So let’s listen to them again together.

Masumi & Kumon Talk

Kumon: Speaking of trains, that train game is famous, right! It’s called the “All Times and Places Game”**. It's a game where someone chooses a topic, and everyone answers in turn according to that theme.

Masumi: A topic?

Kumon: Yeah! Like sports names or food names, for example.

Masumi: Hmm. If the topic is things I like about Director, then I could go on and on forever.

Kumon: I feel that! If the topic’s nii-chan’s cool points, then I could just keep talking! I wanna try playing it with everyone at the Company! Masumi-san’s memory is so good you can memorize your lines right away, so I think you’ll be good at this game. I wonder what kinda topic would be best if we’re all gonna play together?

Masumi: A theatre topic… Maybe characters who have appeared in our plays up until now.

Kumon: Oh, sick! That sounds super fun. Let’s invite Director and everyone else later!

Masumi: I’ll do it if she’s there too.

Kumon: Woohoo! Alriiight, let's come up with lots of other hype topics too!

---

*“壁ドン” (kabedon): a trope typically found in shoujo manga where someone essentially pushes someone else against a wall in a cool/romantic way. I'm sure most of you know what this is but still **I’m pretty sure this is a parody of the “Yamanote Line Game” (The Yamanote Line is a huge train line in Tokyo). In this game, everyone sits around in a circle and list items/names from a chosen topic, one by one, to a rhythm. You can watch an example from this random youtube video I found here lmao

[lemystical-puffle]

My A3 Sexuality Headcanons that no one asked for!

[These won’t include Gender, only sexual orientation or lack thereof(is that a phrase?)]

Color coordination

Gay

Bi

Pan

Aro

Hetero

Sakuya Sakuma: Pansexual! He doesn’t have any preferences, honestly after his childhood he just wants someone who will love and accept him!

Masumi: Bisexual. I feel like he would love the director whether they be boy, girl, other, all, he just wants someone to give him attention, and that person just happened to be out beloved Izumi Tachibana.

Tsuzuru: okay this ones me projecting but whatever Aro/Ace Tsuzuru. He doesn’t feel romantic attraction, and instead just feels a family-brotherly kind of love towards his friends and fellow actors. He doesn’t really want to romantically be with someone, and yet instead just wants to be there for them when they need it and love them the same way he loves his family at home

Citron: Also pan!! But Pan-Romantic specifically. Citron literally just wants to love everyone ever because he’s just awesome like that, but won’t go pass kissing someone. It just makes him uncomfortable which is perfectly fine because he is Citron Lastname! But yeah, also no gender prefermance

Itaru: Bi with a male preference. I can’t really explain why I think this, I just do. Maybe because most of the woman he has ever shown interest in are his 2D anime waifus. Also I mean come on he totally had a whole thing for Lancelot he thinks knights are hot and that is so valid.

Chikage: he is a gay cabbage. Listen the only time he has said he liked a woman it was because he said they weren’t like his mom and I am just- I’m sorry I don’t trust that. This man is a gay, he is never had a boyfriend but he has definitely thought of hooking up with his boss for a raise, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

Tenma: Also bi! Bi-Ace specifically. I wasn’t really sure where to put him because on one hand I feel like he has a lot of MLM energy but on the other hand his solo song so I just, bi. I feel like his gay awakening came when he played the token gay best friend in a romcom because gay actor erasure but Tenma didn’t really understand, but later he was in a scene where he was with his boyfriend who shows up for one second to remind the audience he’s a homosexual and Tenma was just: crap he’s not

Yuki: okay at first I didn’t know what to put for Yuki cause on one hand sexuality erasure Yuki has specifically said he likes girl and he defies stereotypes and stuff but on the other hand he never said he didn’t like boys so he’s bi with a female preference. I feel like Yuki is the kind of guy to just happen to fall in love with whoever and just go “oh crap did I just fall in love?” And while he likes girls more sometimes it just. Happens.

Muku: Surprise surprise he’s Pan! Muku totally reads shoujo manga with all sexualities and is very livid about good representation, will write a “negative review” (and in Muku terms that’s him being very polite, 4.5/5 stars and linking research resources) about how inaccurate a sexuality was portrayed. I feel like at first he just thought he was a very active ally and now he is just: “oh crap boys. And girls. And enbys. And genderfluids. And everyone.”

Misumi: Misumi is very homosexual, which at first he was sad about because homosexual has 2 o’s which are circles but then he realized he can just say gay but spell it like: G🔺Y so he got happy again. I feel like it was one of the reasons he was kicked out of his home, he just likes boys Jeez Ikaruga parents no rights. (I also Headcanon him as autistic but that’s not what this post is about).

Kazunari: In Kazunari Miyoshi’s world he never has to make a decision in his life and that includes sexuality. Show him a guy and a girl and tell him to pick one and he will simply overload until he picks the person who knows the most trivia on classical art or smthing. Kazunari just: adores everyone ever, and that’s okay! After a lot of internalized homophobia and fear, he was able to come out to first a small group of college friends and eventually felt comfortable with the label and was able to express it openly, now he wears it with pride!

Kumon: I really don’t have any explaining to go here, Kumon just feels gay to me. My head can’t wrap around him wanting to be intimate with a girl. I do think there was this big moment of him coming out to Juza and Juza just going “s’okay.” Then they hug and get ice cream

Banri: Banri is bisexual with a straight pride flag and a Juza Preference. Catch him at the straight pride parade telling “those Homo’s that they’re going to burn.” While making out with Juza against a wall. That’s canon I don’t take criticism

Juza: Also Gay, I feel like Kumon came out first and Juza did research and was like “oh me too.” And just thought about how he’s never actually liked a girl and thought boys were kinda pretty and oh crap Settsu slicked his hair back oh crap oh crap pretty men.

Taichi: Taichi is bisexual, with his preferences being as random as his hair. Except no weird 1/4 quarters going on. Idk where I was going with that analogy I’m sorry. Taichi just likes the humans and wants to go kiss kiss with them all, and then bring them along on his journey for fame and popularity!

Omi: Listen, Omi is the mother of Mankai, and as the mother he loves everyone unconditionally. He also totally wanted to kiss Nachi I’m sorry. I feel like Omi has a male preference, but only by a bit as he loves everyone! He is a good boy and brings all the snacks and water to the pride parades so his friends stay healthy :)

Sakyo: Sakyo is the straight~ supportive dad who doesn’t care if you’re gay straight bi pan anything as long as you pay your taxes. Was probably a little confused at first just because. Probably said “LGBT? Isn’t that a sandwich.” But he got informed did research and is now a huge ally! After more research he identifies specifically as graysexual/romantic as he feels rarely any romantic attraction at all unless under certain circumstances aka Izumi Tachibana. I akso think he suspected that Azami was LGBT for a bit before he came out so he wanted to do research so that Azami would feel comfortable coming out when he was ready. Also he can’t like, not support Sakoda (who I Headcanon as gay :) )

Azami: Azami is bi-aro. Sex? Nah he won’t even hold your hand before marriage, however he will love you no matter your gender. I also see him with a female preference just from his straight upbringing and it’s the title he feels most comfortable with after some internalized homophobia, especially with how his dad shamed him for liking makeup. He is still getting used to the LGBT community and I feel like he is still taking baby steps, learning about different identities and wanting to do all he can to support both himself and his fellow actors due to simply not knowing where to start. Don’t worry Azami take you’re time! There is no rush, you are trying to figure yourself out and we all love you so much for it, there is no shame in changing your mind later. We adore you all the same. (If you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t only talking to Azami. If you are still questioning yourself it is 100% okay, because honestly I am too. There is no rush to figure yourself out, and I hope you know that we are all here for you!)

Tsumugi: Tsumugi is gay, but I feel like he also had a lot of internalized homophobia. I feel like when he was younger he really liked Tasuku but didn’t really understand the difference between platonic and romantic, and it took some time before he was able to really discover himself and come to the identity he has currently.

Tasuku: Tasuku is gay and homophobic.

Hisoka: Hisoka is homo-demi-romantic asexual. I feel like it won’t want to date anyone without really earning their trust and feeling safe around them, and after that point he still will be pretty shy romantically, but it is very much understandable and we all still love Hisoka

Homare: Homare is pan. He doesn’t really care about gender, he just wants someone who will love him and his poetry without seeing him as broken. I feel like after his last relationship he was hesitant to date again, but after some time and help from the rest of winter troupe he was able to rediscover himself. (Also autistic Homare go brrrr)

Azuma: Azuma is an old gay man who just thinks boobs are neat. That’s it that’s the post sent tweet turn off replies.

Guy: New color who this? This is because I didn’t know what to put for Guy, so he simply doesn’t identify as anything. I don’t know a lot about Guy but I know enough to feel like relationships would be very awkward and touchy for him due to his problems with emotions and expression. He isn’t straight, but he doesn’t really identify as anything either. He’s just: Guy. Which is more than valid

[oh also all of winter is Poly and they’re boyfriends thanks for coming to my Ted talk]

Hope you all liked these! Of course they are all my own opinion and you don’t have to agree with all, they’re just how I feel!! Feel free to reply or reblog with your own opinions or Headcanons!!

[waywardfacegarden]

what’s your opinion of the last few chapters of ao no flag and how they fit in with the rest of the manga? 👀 (like do you think the ending was well set-up and satisfying?)

Sorry it took me so long to reply to this!!!!!!! I absolutely flipped of happiness when I got this ask, so thank you so much for sending it!!!! I love talking about things I love, and this manga is so criminally underrated imo, but I have SO MANY THOUGHTS!!! It’s nice having an excuse to rant about it, lol. Also, feel more than free to rant about this question, too, I would love to hear your opinion!!!

Here goes my way-too-long reply under the cut:

To be honest, I have a lot of thoughts about this manga but I’m too bad at expressing myself and articulating my opinions in a coherent way, so this is probably going to be pretty incoherent ajsdlashfldsf, my apologies in advance.

First of all, I have to state that I really like the ending!!!!!!! I totally understand that some people say it was rushed, but it wasn’t like that for me. At least, not in a way that made me feel like I wasted my time reading it.

As for the whole Futaba/Taichi breaking up and Touma/Taichi being endgame, I absolutely loved it. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have more context and background about how Taichi and Touma got together (and if the author decided to do a short spin-off about some moments between that time skip, I’d read it in a flash), but I also like the myriad of possibilities you can play with in your mind of how that happened. I like the open aspect of it. Also, I really, really, really, really loved Futaba and Taichi’s relationship, and I have to admit that when I read that “two years later... I broke up with Futaba” line, my jaw dropped LOL. I had to pause my reading for a couple of minutes to fully process it, if I’m honest. Not to say I hated it, but it did hurt me that they broke up LOOL. However, I also found it... realistic? It’s not like Futaba and Taichi’s relationship was bad or that at some point I thought “this is due to end at some point, I don’t think they’re going to last forever together”... it’s just that I liked... how it was handled? If that makes sense. Yeah, it was pretty simplistic, and I know some people say that it was out of nowhere and that the author didn’t even care to explain why it happened with that “sorry explanation”, but I really liked it.

I checked up the exact lines in my translation so i wouldn’t mess it up, lol, and here it is: “There wasn’t an interesting story behind it. People might ask why... or say what they would’ve done in our place... not understanding the little decisions we made. But... we decided to go our own ways... not to match the shapes set forth by others, but for our own shapes of happiness.” 

I love it. All the manga is a wholesome, pretty realistic (in my opinion) way to show the teenage years, the coming-on-age, the “have to take/make decisions that will affect your future” and the whole mess that is... feelings and the complexity of relationships. I like how, when Taichi is explaining it, he says that there isn’t something dramatic or big that lead to it. It probably was a bunch of things, and maybe the outcome wouldn’t be what other people would have done, but it was their decision, it was what made them happy. He makes it clear. I especially love it because:

1) It’s pretty normal. Relationships don’t always work. It doesn’t have to be because of something big, either. People change over time, take different decisions that, in consequence, lead to change in dynamics/relationships. That’s life. It’s always, constantly changing. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, and I doubt I will be exactly the same five years from now pn to the future. That doesn’t mean that if you’re in a relationship now and you both start changing that it won’t work, it’s just that sometimes it doesn’t. And that’s normal. It’s pretty simple but also real, in my opinion. He clearly states that other people probably wouldn’t understand the little decisions they made, but it happened. Which, again, realistic imo.

2) I love how he says “we decided to go our own ways, not to match the shapes set forth by others, but for our own shapes of happiness”. Why? Because it leads back to the repeated theme of the story of “what is your happiness right now”. Basically, I think the main topic/message by the end was how Taichi took the decisions--and how people in general irl make decisions--because that’s what made him happy in that moment. You don’t always know if you’re making the right decisions, but at the end of the day, you’re always chasing your happiness. So, I like how that theme played there as well. They took that decision to chase after their own shapes of happiness, not wanting to chase after what someone else think that would made them happy, but what they themselves thought that did.

I also love how he states that it wasn’t easy. Futaba was an important person in his life. She helped him change, she shaped a lot of who he was by the end of the time-skip, so of course it would be hard to break up. It wasn’t like she would die or something, but it was a big change. Even if it was a decision that was took for the best (at least for them), of course it was going to be hard for him, and I like that it was stated. I also love how Touma was the one who made them connect again, really an amazing touch and, again, one of the things I loved about Ao No Flag, and how the main love triangle wasn’t toxic at all. He knew both of them were important for the other, and I love that he was the one who helped them get in touch again. I also love how Touma was still in touch with Futaba and Masumi and that Futaba and Taichi reconnect again.

So all in all, I think Futaba and Taichi’s broke up was realistic. It’s true that just because you have a relationship in your teenage years it doesn’t have to end when you grow older, but a lot of times, it happens. That’s the complexity of liking/loving someone over the years and relationships/feelings in general. So I don’t think it was that out of place? As much as people like to complain, because, true, you usually have this endgame pairing at the end of the story and you, of course, assume everything is going to be happily ever after for them (or, like, as happy as it can get with its highs and lows) and they will stick together... this is also a realistic possiblity/outcome? It’s pretty uncommon in a story, and I understand that people thought that the manga took the route of focusing “way too much on Futaba/Taichi’s romantic development to just throw it by the end” but I don’t think the story itself was just that. The story, for me, was more than just Futaba and Taichi’s “romantic development”. And everything that happened, and how each other changed the other’s life was so meaningful for me even if they didn’t end up together. I love how they breaking up doesn’t change any of that.

Also, I don’t think Taichi’s romantic feelings for Touma were “our of nowhere”? OF COURSE, I would have loved to have a Taichi’s explicit realization of “oh, I love Touma like that” or “oh, he’s more than just a best friend for me/this is more than just platonic love”. But... Idk, this is probably just because I’m bi, so I’m probably biased (LOL), but I never thought of Taichi as other than bisexual? This is just my perspective, but I feel like there were hints everywhere in the manga that he felt strongly about Touma, and yeah, you can say that it was just platonic love, but even if he didn’t feel romantic feelings for him in his teenage years (which, I personally think he kind of had a crush on him when they were younger), he very well could have had developed them later. I know a lot of people irl that have known each other for years and never felt any slight romantic attraction to each other and then years later they started talking more, etc. and started liking each other. It can happen. More so if you’re already close? Of course I would have loved to have more explicit moments, but I feel like the author A) decided that Taichi would develop romantic attraction/feelings only later (in that time skip) or B) did want to include more but wasn’t allowed to because shounen genre. This is just my opinion, of course. But, yeah. I think it was already hard to make that ending happen (main reason of why I think it wasn’t THAT explicit either that it was Touma/Taichi and why the author didn’t show Touma’s face), and that they showed a lot of subtle moments of Taichi’s deep feelings respecting Touma around the story. I really, really, really, absolutely loved Taichi’s turmoil/conflict by the end after Touma confessed to him. Raw, realistic, emotional, deep... I love everything about it. I always cry like a baby when he reads the message inside the charm of “best friend power”, I tell you. I have that panel of him crying and smiling saved in my phone because I’m a fucking masochist aksdjlsdfjk. IT BREAKS ME. Everything about him breaking down, too, with that dream, throwing things in his room, EVERYTHING about his turmoil felt incredibly crude and real to me. Never ever fails to make me cry. And I really liked how he did thought a lot about his feelings and what he wanted and what Touma felt, instead of just going “no, I accept his feelings and I love him, but not in that way. Not like Futaba”. Of course, by the end (before the time-skip), that’s basically what he tells him, but I liked how it didn’t only went with that without showing all of Taichi’s inner conflict.

As a bonus, two more things about the final final chapter:

1) I’m assuming this, but I think I’m right, haha: I really, seriously love how the author knew the ending was going to be controversial and threw some lines that made it seem like (for me, at least) “I get it, most of you won’t get it but I’m fine with this ending myself”. With the whole “Friend or lover? Which will it be?” poster thing, Taichi’s comment about the ending like “the characters’ final decisions didn’t sit well with me”, the “oh, but then again... form someone’s else point of view, my decisions might also seem...” (ASJDLDSFJ it’s like the author is saying, ‘ahaha, yeah, ik, you might not get this, ik’, and I find it so incredibly endearing and satisfying and funny? I absolutely love it when authors make subtle mentions to their [probably] controversial/uncommon/or even cliché decisions in their own story).

2) I absolutely love the final panels of the chapters because they always manage to make me cry my eyes out? The simple but oh so realistic that I absolutely die for line of “life is a series of choices. Even if you pick, hoping for the best... You might hurt someone, or yourself, and regret it. And even if, you do gain happiness, you might be afraid of the next choice that comes, because you don’t want to lose it. Nevertheless, we continue to make choices forever. That’s why I pray that... the future that lies beyond this myriad of choices...” GAH, I LOVE IT. It’s so painfully real; and just... the underlying beauty of the hopeful open ending of the line, too? -- Also, the “hey, if it were you...” followed by the “haha, you’re so annoying!” panel of TAICHI SMILING AND LAUGHING SO FREAKING HAPPY, LIKE THAT’S EVERYTHING I WANTED FOR HIM, Y E AH. IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMN EMOTIONAL. AND TH EN, THE FOLLOWING PANELS, FUTABA BEING SO HAPPY WITH HER HUSBAND, MASUMI AND HER PARTNER, AGHHHHHHH, MY GODDAMN HEART, THEY’RE SO HAPPY AS WELL AND THAT’S EVERYTHING I NEEDED, AND AND AND THEIR CLASSMATES ALL HAPPY AND GOING ON WITH THEIR LIFES, AND THE FUCKING. ENDEARING, LOVELY DOMESTICY OF THAT LAST DIALOGUE OF TAICHI BEFORE THE “let’s go home”, thE FUCKI N G R I N G, I SCR E AMED (like i knew they were married, or i THOUGHT so before -- buT BU TT B UUU T AAAAAAAA), AND ALSO THAT PANEL OF TAICHI IS ONE OF THE BEST, MOST BEAUTIFUL, HEARTWARMING PANELS I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE?????????????????????????? The way he looks so goddamn SOFT and SO FOND and the way he’s just in the middle and focus on the panel, like it’s everything Touma sees, and and and just how HAPPY TAICHI LOOKS, and the way the hand kind of... “goes out” of the panel, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WHEN AUTHORS DO THAT IN IMPORTANT SCENES, AND THEN THE LINKED HANDS????????????????? BR O. I seriously was crying my eyes out. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful for me.

SO YEAH. All in all, I was satisfied! Of course, I would’ve loved more of Touma and Taichi’s explicit romantic development, and I understand that people felt the ending was rushed. But for me, the manga was more than just... couples and endgames, you know? The manga itself was so beautiful and wholesome and it had so many good points that the ending just felt like a beautiful closure and, at the same time, a hopeful, amazingly beautiful and touching opening for more of this heartwarming, real, so beautiful coming-of-age story. I think it matches with the tone of the rest of the manga of chasing your happiness and making the decisions that sit best for you and for what you want, even if others don’t understand. I think it matches with the theme of how complex and beautifully amazing relationships and feelings are. I think it suits with the beauty of the manga in general.

And in conclusion, I’m going to show you a pic of this comment on reddit (of a discussion of the ending) that pretty much sums up what I think and said in this:

[murasaki-murasame]

Time for another round of ‘sad teenagers navigate the complicated minefield of gender, sexuality, and societal expectations’ with Ao no Flag chapter 26!

Right off the bat, I feel like this is the sorta chapter I’ll need to go over a few times when I have more free time so that I can properly go over all of the overlapping themes and narrative threads going on in it. So this post might be kinda messy.

I immediately associated the opening monologue with Touma in regards to his crush on Taichi, but I guess it more or less fits each character. They’re all a bunch of nervous wrecks who are scared of rejection [I mean that in a nice way, lol]. The fact that it’s not explicitly connected to any single character helps it feel like a more universal sort of statement that fits the entire situation going on at this point in the story, which is neat.

Woo boy, back to the ambiguous topic of ‘Futaba wants to be like Touma’, and everything that entails! At this point they’re stressing it enough, and so specifically, that I can only assume it’s something more than just basic admiration/envy. Especially now that we know that, from the start of the story, Futaba was off doing exercise and weight training in the background because she wanted to be like Touma. Which makes me veer even more toward interpreting it as Futaba seeing Touma as literally being a representation of the sort of person she wants to look like. But of course even that could still fit under the umbrella of basic admiration, so I’m not really gonna act like anything’s definitive for now.

Though the fact that Masumi had such a severe reaction to hearing Touma say that Futaba wanted to be like him also makes it seem like it’s meant to be something more complicated and specific than just admiration.

[It’s kinda hard to figure out what order to talk about stuff in because there’s so many overlapping conversations in this chapter, so I guess I’ll focus on Futaba and Taichi first.]

Futaba bringing up the whole idea of ‘what makes her different from other people’ also makes it feel even more like a question of identity, but again, we’ll see how it goes.

At the very least, this chapter makes it even more clear that Futaba never really had romantic feelings for Touma. Or at least, she never really wanted to date him or anything. It definitely seems like she had different sorts of feelings toward him, but since she didn’t understand them or know how to vocalize them, she assumed that it must mean she wants to date him.

It’s really interesting how this whole scene is recontextualizing the earlier scenes between Futaba and Taichi. At the time, it was framed as if Futaba was just trying to be the right sort of girlfriend for Touma, but now it’s becoming more and more clear that she was trying to learn more about Touma so that she could change herself to be more like him. I suppose it’s also worth noting that one of the first things we saw her do was cut her hair into more of a short, boyish style, which she seemed very pleased about at the time. Which certainly feels a bit different now that we know her intentions were more along the lines of ‘wanting to look like Touma’ than ‘wanting to be someone he’d be attracted to’.

It’s still a pretty complicated situation, but it’s becoming more clear that Futaba’s feelings for Taichi are probably more along the lines of conventional romantic attraction, but she’s been struggling to differentiate and label these two sorts of love because she’d basically been conditioned to assume that any sort of interest she expressed in Touma must be romantic.

I’m pretty sure that Taichi’s putting two and two together on this, so he’s probably catching onto the idea that Futaba has a crush on him. I hope that in the next chapter we’ll get a proper continuation of this scene. It’d be lame if it just got immediately derailed and forgotten about.

Anyway, onto Touma and Masumi.

I feel like my desire to get more scenes between these two was a bit of a monkey’s paw situation, because I wasn’t prepared for this level of angst and drama, lmao.

Now Masumi at least knows about how Futaba sort-of-not-really confessed to Touma. That’s good. As I said above, Masumi had way too strong of a reaction to what he said for her to think that Futaba just admired him, but I can’t say for sure.

This is where I regret not having read any of this series for the last month, because I can’t remember if Touma’s said anything about the job he wants to pursue instead of baseball. At the very least it’s something that Futaba apparently knew about, so I guess it was probably something we’d been told already and I’d just forgotten about. It’s interesting to hear that Seiya is against it, but I guess we kinda already knew that.

It’s interesting to see Masumi bring up the idea of Touma and Taichi attending the same university. It’s probably something that Touma’s thought about, but he might still want to move away from where he lives entirely.

It’s always sad, seeing Touma be so self-loathing like this. He just wants to be anything other than who he is now, because right now he just feels strange and abnormal. Which, I mean, is relateable, but still depressing.

I like the little transition between Touma talking about wanting to be normal, and Futaba talking about how it’s ‘normal’ to want to date someone you love. It really hammers in the whole concept of what society deems as being ‘normal’ identities and feelings.

I’m glad that Touma has someone like Masumi who he can talk about this sorta stuff to.

And on the flip side, we also get to see Masumi opening up about her own self-loathing to Touma, which I wasn’t expecting.

I really like her line of ‘why do I have to be afraid of people seeing me for who I am?’. It really gets right to the heart of the matter. Why should these characters need to feel afraid of being open about who they are, and how they feel? Why do we judge and hate people who fall outside of the boundaries of ‘normality’? I’m really glad that a shounen romance manga is asking these sorts of questions.

It was still depressing, but it was nice to see Masumi talk about how she wants to be with Futaba, and comfort her, but she’s still too afraid of rejection to actually do those things.

I’m incredibly curious to see where the heck the next chapter goes, especially since I think the next chapter should be the end of volume four, so it’ll probably be pretty cliffhanger-y.

On the note of volume four, I’d really love it if it’s cover design was themed after this whole festival arc. That could look really pretty.

And like with every time we get near the end of a volume, I also can’t help but wonder how much longer the series will go for before it ends. Obviously we have at least one more volume to go, so a good 8+ chapters, but I wonder if it’ll actually go past volume five at all. It feels like things are getting pretty climactic, honestly. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

[daisyachain]

my final reading of AnF is that Taichi had a crush on Touma sometime pre-series and was aware of it to a certain extent, but a) didn’t want to have it, b) couldn’t bring himself to accept it, c) didn’t know what to do with it. His ennui at the start of the series is a combination of feeling unable to pursue the career of his choice, feeling inadequate, feeling inadequate compared to Touma, and feeling unable to deal with the jealousy, regret, and attraction that complicate his oldest and closest friendship.

During the course of the series, he starts pulling himself together with the help of the supporting cast. He considers following his dreams rather than ignoring them and going into an ‘acceptable’ field. He learns to help Futaba selflessly and also to view himself as a person with good and bad points rather than just a failure. As he and Futaba develop and pursue their feelings for one another and as he and Touma reconnect, he learns to actively maintain his friendships and through his conversations with Masumi he learns to step back and see from someone else’s point of view. He learns that his own issues have hurt the people around him and he tries to deal with that…

…and as a result, he comes to terms with the mixed feelings for Touma throughout his life. It’s not so much that he falls for Touma over the course of the series, because he doesn’t. That’s his story with Futaba. Rather, he learns to recognize, accept, and embrace his feelings for Touma as just another part of him rather than having it hang over him. The flash forward doesn’t show us that his feelings for Futaba weren’t real or that his romance with Touma developed later. Instead, it shows that he liked Futaba and they had a good relationship which he valued and which he saw through. He stayed with her at the end of the series because he cared about her. And, it shows that he also had feelings for Touma, and that he chose not to act on them because he had matured enough to recognize that he would only hurt Futaba, Touma, and himself by doing so before he was ready

[murasaki-murasame]

Wasn’t really expecting chapter 18 to be up this early. I feel like the last few chapters’ translations have come out a bit earlier than usual. Not that I’m complaining.

I think I remember hearing mixed things about this chapter around when it came out in Japan, but I liked it. Then again, I like Futaba a lot as a character.

Anyway, more detailed thoughts under the cut.

Seeing Touma with a Vita at the start of the chapter was kinda amusing, since I actually got myself one a week or two ago. I feel kinda jealous that he has a Slim model, even though I know his friend just lent him it. I wanted to get one of them, but I could only get an original model. I wonder if Touma’s kinda bad/inexperienced with technology, given that he seemed kinda confused by what seemed to be the Vita going into sleep mode. I guess it makes sense that he’d be less into gaming and whatnot than Taichi.

It’s really cute that Touma feels kinda guilty about wanting Taichi to visit him every day. Thankfully Taichi’s fine with it, and wants to come anyway. I like that they’re getting a chance to hang out, even if the circumstances are kinda awkward.

I wonder how long Touma’s been in the hospital for, by this point. Apparently we’re near the end of July in-story, but I forget when the accident happened. I doubt it’s been THAT long, otherwise the fact that Futaba and Masumi apparently never visited after the first time would be a bit weird.

Mami still bugs me a bit, but at least she’s being way less rude to Taichi than I was fearing. She does kinda need to learn to back off a little, though. I still can’t tell if anything important is being set up with her character. It feels like her whole thing with Touma is going to lead to something dramatic, but I dunno.

I know that Touma probably genuinely likes his other friends, but man I can only imagine how awkward it must be for him to constantly be around Those Kinds of straight dudes. I think this is the second time that one dude’s visited Touma and immediately implied that he must be looking at some kind of porn. I wonder if Touma ever has moments of being like ‘haha yeah c: totally c: I sure do love those big, beautiful, incredibly female women c:’. It reminds me of when I was at school like five years ago and a random dude I was sitting next to turned toward me and was like ‘so which girls in this class do you think are hot?’. Like . . . dude . . . . please. Stop. I’m glad that his other friends seem to be regularly visiting him, though.

Are we . . . meant to know who that other group of girls are, and why they seem to have some kind of an issue with Mami and co? I feel like we are, but I can’t remember them.

On the one hand I can’t really blame them for complaining about Mami behind her back because she kinda deserves it, but on the other hand, they were way out of line with insulting Futaba like that. Thankfully one of them [who I guess is a friend of Futaba’s??? maybe???] defended her.

I can kinda see how an outsider might assume the worst about Futaba’s motives and actions in terms of her obviously having a crush on Touma while also being friends with Taichi, but it’s still kinda uncalled-for.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first, but I like how the story is handling this whole theme of Futaba’s confusion and frustration about all of the drama and baggage behind how society treats interactions and relationships between men and women. It really is awful that people, including Taichi herself, are giving her such a hard time because she just has multiple guys she knows who she likes and enjoys being around. It’s definitely kinda made wonky by the fact that she obviously DOES have romantic feelings for Taichi, but it sucks that the characters are basically all framing her desire to befriend and support Taichi as something manipulative and self-serving. It’s one of the reasons why I kinda hope that she doesn’t have an actual crush on Taichi, since it’d do a better job of hammering in the whole idea of ‘you don’t have to have a crush on someone to want to be around them and be nice to them’.

Usually I don’t care much for stories that are like ‘but what, like, IS love???’, but I kinda liked how it was discussed here. Probably because it also intersected with what I said above, of how Futaba is also grappling with the illogical and misogynistic ways that people view male-female interactions. It’s understandable why she feels so confused about it. Especially since she has pretty valid and clear reasons for why she’d feel strongly about wanting to support Taichi right now even if you ignore her probable crush on him. Like, she’s already witnessed how badly he’s taking this whole thing and how much he’s beating himself up and isolating himself over it. It makes perfect sense why she’d be hurting for him, and why she’d want to help him through it. You get what I mean.

I guess this explains why Futaba, at least, hasn’t really been visiting Touma. I hope she can come to understand that she doesn’t have to only choose to be around one of them, though.

I can really feel for how awkward Futaba must feel, being made to basically pit her feelings for Touma and her feelings for Taichi against each other, to justify why one of them is more important to her than the other one. Which, of course, also means having to label one of them as being the ‘less important’ one, which she obviously doesn’t want to do. Especially since, in this whole context, the idea of someone being ‘less important’ comes with the baggage of ‘you should just avoid them, then, and only stay with the person who’s more important to you’. It actually makes a good amount of sense that Masumi would kinda see things this way as well, with what she said earlier about not having any interest in caring about people outside of her immediate circle. It makes sense why she’d be more open to the idea of basically ranking people’s importance to her than Futaba is.

I can see where Masumi was coming from, in trying to dig deeper into Futaba’s feelings by seeing how she felt about the hypothetical idea of either of the boys already being in a relationship with someone else, but hoo boy do I not want to sit through that incredibly uncomfortable panel of Futaba imagining Touma and Masumi dating ever again. Yikes. It kinda hurt to see her gripping her arm like that when she talked about the hypothetical scenario of herself dating Taichi. I guess other people can read it differently, but she seems clearly uncomfortable about the idea of it because she’s, you know, not attracted to him like that. But on some level she might still feel almost guilty about not being able to experience those feelings.

[Also I really like the panel of Futaba thinking about Taichi after that. He looked really pretty in it. It also makes me even more envious of how Kaito draws hair. It’s a lot harder than it sounds to draw hair in a way that looks nice and actually ‘feels right’ when you look at it.]

And yeah this part makes it pretty clear that Futaba genuinely has a crush on Taichi. Which I have mixed feelings about. Like, at least in a vacuum, I really like her dynamic with Taichi, and I would probably ship them if they were in any other manga, but in the overall context of this series, it feels a little . . . too easy, I guess, that Taichi’s feelings might be requited. Since from day one the story has been all about unrequited love, it’s sorta disappointing to think that the protagonist’s crush would end up being requited, especially since it’s probably the one one that’ll go that way. I still think it’d just kinda suck if this ends with Taichi and Futaba hooking up, while Touma and Masumi just have to deal with their unrequited feelings. Especially since, even in that case, I doubt we’d get to actually see them properly move on and find other partners before the story ends.

I like the current conflict and tension between Taichi and Futaba, and I’m excited to see them overcome that, but it does leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth to think that it’s probably going to end in a romantic way. We’ll see how it goes.

I know that, with the whole unrequited love theme, it’d kinda go against that if anyone’s crushes worked out, but it’s pretty undeniable that it’s just predictable and conventional to have the straight people get what they want in the end. At least if we got a Taichi/Touma ending, if not also a Futaba/Masumi ending, that would be genuinely surprising, unconventional, and against the norm for the genre. It’d be hard to call that a ‘betrayal of the central theme’ or whatever when basically nothing else like this actually ends that way.

Also, it must be bittersweet for Masumi to be increasingly aware of Futaba’s crush on Taichi, since it just makes it even clearer for her how her own feelings are doomed to stay one-sided.

I see why Futaba feels that way, but it’s sad seeing her feel like it’d be better if she stayed away from both Taichi and Touma now, in case she makes things worse for them.

I wonder how the next chapter will go. Given how long v2 was, I think the next chapter should be the end of v3, so if it’s anything like the last two volumes it’ll probably be something dramatic.

I can see why a lot of people probably disliked this chapter, but even though I have my aforementioned reservations about the idea of her having a crush on Taichi, I really do love Futaba as a character, so these sorts of chapters are nice.