Story: Ao No Flag
It's near midnight and I cannot sleep after just finishing this manga. I don't know, I feel like I need to say about what I am feeling right now. I cannot explain how I am feeling about happiness. It feels lonely and it feels just right when I read the ending. I'm scared. Every character been doing their best at the end, it's not perfect but they tried to make their own path, trying to find their happiness, doing their own thing and being happy about it, even if it's not perfect.
And it made me scared about my life, I didn't really think about what I wanted. What do I want to do in my life? Right now, I just want to do my best and survive at work, that's not kind of happiness I wanted.
I want to make my own path and have someone I could share my feelings with.
I want to change, and I need to take a step.
I want to change and find my own happiness. I'm 22 and going 23 now, I'm still young, I need to change for myself. I need to start. I can draw my own path like the characters.
This book is so good that I want to recommend it to people. Be entertained and learn a lesson from this book.
If you have yet to read blue flag/ao no flag I highly recommend it. It's such a beautiful story and will have a lasting impression on your life when it comes to relationships, emotions, and sexuality.
It’s been a long while since I’ve just kind of rambled about an entire piece of media like this but I wanted to share my thoughts on Blue Flag! I read it all today and seeing other people’s comments on each chapter got me thinking.
I don’t really have anything to build my ethos here which isn’t really necessary anyway because this is more of me just sharing how I view the story rather than trying to convince other people there’s a “correct” way to understand it. But I’m a queer person if that helps in understanding how these thoughts came to form.
Content warning: reclamation of the word queer. Also ending spoilers.
One review I scrolled said that Ao no Flag was not a LGBTQ+ genre love story, and the queer characters were just side characters. Which I don’t think is entirely wrong, but I do think that if you are looking at Blue Flag for a high school setting queer romance, that’s not what you’re going to get.
AnF *is* a romance in that it has a focus on Taichi and Tauma’s romantic feelings, but not strictly about how they feel about each other. But I feel like it is a mistake to let the romance swallow your entire focus in this story.
To me, Taichi’s story was before any thing else, about coming of age and navigating personal relationships. Romantic and platonic. It’s so easy to get caught up in the love triangle we’re presented here (or quadrangle if you include Masumi). In the very beginning the reader is faced with the question “friend or lover” and it’s a constantly reoccurring theme in the decisions characters are forced to make.
It’s not focused on Taichi and Touma in the romantic sense. Instead we see Taichi’s buried resentment towards Touma as he slowly falls in love with Futaba as he is trying to help her get with him. I think it’s also worth mentioning that there’s a lot of foreshadowing of Taichi’s own oblivious attraction towards Touma though. I noticed a lot of readers say that the endgame where they got married made no sense but I remember the second the bus scene happened I just stopped and said “these bitches gay. good for them. good for them.” There’s also a notable amount of times Taichi is flustered by Touma or has one of those romantically coded “holy shit your beautiful” panels.
I also really enjoyed watching Futaba’s feelings develop as she still cared deeply and equally for Taichi and Touma and didn’t want to give them up. Again the theme of choices friend or lover. I really like how she chose both, or at least that’s what she wanted.
As for the ending where Futaba and Masumi got married to random guys we weren’t introduced for, it’s slightly unsatisfying but I think it makes sense. Along with how they brushed over all the years in between and how things changed.
Masumi’s character development has a lot of focus on conformity in a conservative society. Akiko’s conversation with Masumi helps in understanding that things don’t just “fall into place” when you are an adult. There are conscious choices behind finding your place in the world and choosing where you will allow your feelings to take you.
Masumi, Futaba, and Taichi’s emotions just happened to lead them down different paths. There wasn’t anything special or revolutionary about it. And I think that’s fine, and quite realistic actually. It’s not really about conforming to society’s expectations in this case, and more about following the flow of one’s emotions. Relationships shift as you grow and the results vary depending on how/if you choose to fight against the change.
Although I wish we had more insight on how Taichi eventually realized his feelings for Touma, I don’t think the ending was completely out of the blue. If you know where to look, you can see there are hints of romance from the start. My only question is what happened after his split with Futaba that allowed Taichi to realize and pursue these feelings.
So I guess I understand readers who were upset expecting a more traditional romance. But I think AnF is a quality queer romance in it’s own right. Not for the relationship between the two main men, but for the decisions and friendships of the queer leads.
so this was a fun ramble. If you want to read more about the specifics of tropes and foreshadowing im referring to, you can find them here. goodnight!
WIP of the four ships challenge over twitter! I chose characters/ships that I haven’t drawn before or not often, which made things harder 😂 I might take a while to finish these because its been terribly difficult to actually draw lately💦
