#anf blogging

[uniformbravo]

i cant believe this manga just assassinated me like 8 times in a row

[uniformbravo]

@cry-beeby​ replied to your photoset: Touma’s Big Gay Tai Panel

sjdksjdkdjd not to show up late to the game but Fuck Yeah Hell Yeah Damn Right Fuckin Right

the bit immediately following when he like rubs his mouth/the back of his head. god damn kaito how you walk around town w that fatass brain

ghggkdoGOD I KNOw that whole sequence.................

similarly when touma gives tai his bday present & tai says he loves it w/ a big ass smile & them big ol’ eyes & touma has to Take A Moment

cryin in the club

[uniformbravo]

Touma’s Big Gay Tai Panel

[flockofdoves]

back in like 2019 i accidentally stopped reading ao no flag around like chapter 47 (maybe influenced by how rough reading chapter 44 was and not knowing where things were going, but mostly i think i just got busy and forgot)

and i was curious about getting back to it but had vague memories of people expressing some sort of disappointment about the ending, which could make sense to me with where i left off.

but i became really curious earlier this week after seeing multiple people in unrelated contexts randomly say they loved the ending an also felt that i was picking up the vague implication that [redacted] happened

so over the past few days i reread and finished it.

spoilers under this part

i think now i understand perfectly why i've seen both opinions so much lol. it wasnt perfect and i do think that stuff around chapter 44 is still a little too clunky for my tastes (like obviously there are teenagers talking exactly like this its realistic but i just feels a little uncomfortable in how much space its given. but even if i didn't know that KAITO came out as gay since i last read that part its still not the worst ever when given that thats not the spirit of where the story leaves off afterwards) and i do wonder what went into the artistic choice of never showing touma at the end (precedented from stuff like the flashback scene where touma ran away and taichi held his hand, but while it works, touma not being explicitly shown outside of his first person perspective even after they hold hands is a little odd maybe considering like. first lgbt manga in shonen jump etc. in a way that even just one 3rd person perspective panel could remedy for me) but i do think after sitting with it since i finished it earlier today that i'm leaning on the side of that i largely liked the ending and don't really think it was rushed or out of nowhere for what it was trying to do like it seems like a lot of people think it was.

rereading old parts with it in my head from vague implications from posts i saw earlier this week that taichi might get in a relationship with touma was really intriguing. like i definitely picked up on some of that subtext of taichi potentially also having some sort of attraction to touma before, but i think letting myself be totally open to that the story might be allowed to go there made me realize even more. its so crazy the balance of his repression of his bisexuality to the point that there's literally almost nothing said in words either out loud or in his head throughout that could be used as evidence, but still the paneling and use of perspective and paralleling of touma and futaba in how he looks at both of them is so so evident once you're on the lookout for it.

what i really do still wish for was more exploration of what's going on with futaba's thoughts around gender. i really wanted futaba to be a trans guy. but even if nothing explicitly came of that it really still is going into how i read futaba. like ok you're hoping for happiness after getting married but also go on t now!!!!!!!!

i think the biggest thing at first that put me off about the ending though was masumi marrying a man. its not like there aren't bisexual teens who have a similar experience to hers, but everything combined for me in a way that made me much more heavily interpret her as a lesbian, so even if she's acknowledged by her husband explicitly as attracted to both men and women so she's not being entirely subsumed into the classic lesbophobic tropes, it still was a little bit of a bummer to me at first.

but then i read that especially in the original japanese text her husband comes off as implied to be a newly out trans man, and while of course i would love that more if it was more explicit (although i guess there's already a decent amount of pages spent on this one off character in this final chapter that i can get why it wasnt even if intentional) that kind of fixes a lot of my issues with things, since i already didn't quite know how to square my interpretation of masumi as a lesbian (and at least back before the story ended, a desire for them to maybe get together) and how strongly i was interpreting futaba as a closeted trans guy. so masumi having been comfortable enough after giving up on her feelings for futaba to start dating someone she perceived as another woman at first is good. and then for that guy to have a really similar personality to futaba and then come out as trans is soooo intriguing to me. its like. what futaba couldve been or something. idk.

[uniformbravo]

boy oh boy i sure wish blue flag hadnt taken that turn

[uniformbravo]

“everyday moments turn into precious memories” pLEASE stop getting my ass im gonna fall over, masumi isnt even blowing any bubbles shes too busy staring lovingly at futaba 100% occupied w/ how cute she is....... meanwhile tai (who’s a bit too short to reach but by god hes trying) is only trying to pop the bubbles but touma’s out here laughin like hes some sorta comedic genius for it like ok. i see. i get it, i understand, fuckin,, ““precious memories”” more like, do nt speak 2 me, anymore, thaank u

[uniformbravo]

i have a few anf caps i was planning on making posts abt that have just been lying around this whole time so im just gonna get those outta the way real quick once and for all

ok 2 things:

the palpable gay euphoria emanating from touma at being fed by tai all cute like that, im so happy for him

the palpable gay jealousy on masumi’s face as she watches this happen and wishes she too could participate in such a coveted activity (u can like See her thinking abt feeding futaba all cute like that it’s Overwhelming. i choose to believe that somewhere out there exists a lost panel of a moment 0.2 seconds after this where masumi just shoves the food into futaba’s face with no warning just the wild reckless abandon of youth and god for that single moment before any repercussions kick in does it feel so good)

-

god. god. where tf do i even start holy shit

the fact that futaba was talking about touma’s like, personality and various admirable traits, obviously that’s what she was referring to, but tai’s mind Immediately goes to his physique

(which is even funnier bc tai short touma tall ofc tai’s first thought is his body, hes like who WOULDNT wanna be taller given the chance)

the fact that tai pictures touma fuckign ENORMOUS like that, fuck if he can picture their actual height difference accurately all he knows is Touma Big & thats that on that

just tai’s general image of what touma is like, this is a direct window into tai’s mind specifically on how he views touma, fucking amazing. the height is wrong but he made sure to remember all that muscle definition HUh. the charming personality. i rest my c

“yo, taichi!” and “how’s it hanging” with the little star coming off of it ghfnhnjnjg

“im not that big”

fully convinced that the look of horror on tai’s face as he imagines this is because futaba is his Short Solidarity and the thought of not only losing that but exchanging it for TWO giants towering over him constantly is unthinkable. actually masumi is tall too isn’t she ghfgjn god the stakes are so high futaba rly is all he has in this dog eat dog world...

besides ALL THAT futaba is all embarrassed admitting this to tai and meanwhile he’s just thinking about fuckign,, THIS.......... god i love this manga

thank u

[uniformbravo]

its been a good 3 months since i last read blue flag so the details are a little fuzzy & remembering that the reason touma’s leg is broken is bc he got hit by a car pushing tai out of the way ironically feels exactly like being hit by a goddamn truck heyo we’re back babiee