Flower and Asura - First Impressions
Written by Rei Caldombra 2/3/25 Video: https://youtu.be/TyF_LupWPjE?si=KEqrnJJzYM2fCPRi
If this is your first time seeing a first impressions of mine, for these I give my thoughts on an anime airing during the current season based on the first 3 episodes. There will not be many spoilers for specific scenes, but I do get into the general themes and trends of the show as well as discuss the characters. Keep in mind that first impressions are just that, first impressions.
With our 2nd show of the season, we have Flower and Asura / Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku. Here we have a school club anime focused on broadcasting and the art of recitation. Our main character Hana Harumiya loves reading and recitations of literature, but has severe issues with self-worth. She impresses the president of her school’s Broadcasting Club, Mizuki Usurai, who convinces her to join the club. We’ve got our handful of kids who all have their motivations and worldviews based around broadcasting and recitals.
To start with a brief summary of my thoughts without going into any details, I am really happy with these first 3 episodes. I don’t really have anything negative to say about it. The art and animation is good, the voice acting is great, and we’ve got some interesting characters. I think there is solid substance so far and signs of good things to come.
The framework of this show is a school club, where we follow the characters of a club learning about their activity and having conflicts surrounding it and how it is a part of their life. I am a big fan of these types of shows, as I enjoy learning about activities I have not engaged with and love compelling stories about how they factor into a character’s life. Seeing how someone’s passions and issues intermingle with an activity is fundamentally engrossing to me. When it comes to activity focused series (doesn’t have to be school clubs specifically), my belief is that the viewer should not have to have prior interest in the activity to be able to enjoy it. The strengths of the show outside of the portrayal of the activity itself should be able to stand solidly on its own. Such as how well it is integrated with the characters and their development, motivations, etc. I didn’t even know shogi existed until I watched March Comes in Like a Lion, and despite still not having any interest in the sport itself even after watching it, It’s still one of my absolute favorite anime. Not because the shogi matches are cool and intense, but because of how it plays into the deeply compelling stories of the players and the people around them. If you fundamentally don’t enjoy this sort of framework, I don’t see why this one would make you feel any different. But if you are someone who keeps these types of shows on your radar or are like me and actively seek these out, I highly recommend giving it a shot. To me Flower and Asura is succeeding so far at being interesting outside of just portraying what broadcasting and reciting is about. I really like what we’ve gotten from the characters in the club, especially the two main characters.
I love these two and I am shipping them already. Hard to say if this is going in the direct of legit yuri (good), just enough to leave it open to interpretation (good), or bait (bad, please don’t we’ve had a lot of yuribaiting in recent seasons) but regardless these two have really great chemistry.
When it comes to the activity itself, it is being portrayed well and is genuinely interesting. It's gotten significantly into the details of speaking. Pitch, intonation, how sentence structure plays into reading, etc. This isn’t a club anime where the interest is surface level just to give the characters something to work around. Part of what makes it interesting is that it is very different from a lot of public speaking situations. There is no visible body language, it is entirely about the voice. It’s not just about speaking objectively well, it’s about speaking in a way fitting to the piece. The recitals especially make for very strong scenes that allow for more interesting imagery.
These segments have a lot of visual flare to them, manifesting the feelings that the recital is meant to convey. They’re properly visualizing the scene that the characters are speaking into reality. You are seeing how a performance can take you to another world and make you feel. One detail I like in regard to this is how when a character finishes listening to a compelling performance, they often take a gasp of air. It’s a great way of showing how the characters truly are enraptured in the scene.
With Okitsura (the first show of this season I did a first impressions on) I have trouble seeing people enjoy it if they do not care about the main subject of Okinawan culture. With Flower and Asura I don’t think you need to have interest in reciting and broadcasting to enjoy it. I think it has more broad appeal. Not only because of the activity but because the characters here are defined much better and setting up proper dynamics and threads for future conflicts. We already have characters being directly confrontational, not shying away from some of the characters being jerks. Though a similarity between them is that the Japanese language is integral to the subject of both, so again some appeal is likely lost on non-Japanese speakers. But like with the topic I think this does not mean it's ineffective. You don’t need to know a language to pick up on voice acting and understanding things like intonation and tone, but some things will inevitably be lost on you. I thought I’d mention this, but I am not saying you will enjoy it less because you don’t speak Japanese. I’m not fluent but I can pick up on a lot of this and am thoroughly enjoying it. Fittingly for an anime with this subject matter, the vocal performances are very good. If you really enjoy good voice acting, I especially recommend this show. You have the voice actors deliberately giving a variety of performances, such as with their character’s natural talking voice versus how they recite. This is definitely one to listen to with proper headphones so you can better pick up on vocal details.
The tone of this one is pretty moody and low key, this is very much a drama. So far it has not gone for much of the bombastic jokes and visual gags or moe like you see in a lot of school club series. It has some comedy, but it is taking itself pretty seriously. I think the most apt comparison when it comes to tone is Sound! Euphonium. Which is not a coincidence as these share the same author, Ayano Takeda. That just makes me even more optimistic that this will be going to great places. We have one overarching theme at the forefront of this show so far, which is enjoyment vs achievement when it comes to pursuing a skill/sport/hobby etc. This is the biggest point of conflict across the cast and I think it is being done well so far. When it comes to our main character, we are already delving into her issues deeply and how they influence her actions. This anime is not dragging its feet when it comes to these themes and conflicts, which I think is excellent. I’m looking forward to watching Hana continue to grow and see how the characters continue to bounce off each other as we learn more about them and get deeper into the training and competitions.
To conclude, I give this a very strong recommendation if you are interested in a school club show that takes itself pretty seriously. I am not calling this 10/10 peak fiction, but I really can’t come up with anything negative to say. The activity is interesting, I’m invested in the characters and enjoy the pacing it is moving in terms of its drama, and it looks and sounds great. It’s done a great job of getting me invested in these characters and wanting to learn more about reciting and broadcasting. As of right now I think it’s my favorite of the new shows, at the very least it has been the most consistently good (that’s in reference to one show I’ll be talking about that I think has higher highs but heavily stumbled in its 3rd episode).
Thanks for reading! I’ve got some more first impressions coming for this season!
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