THE FRAGRANT FLOWER BLOOMS WITH DIGNITY 1 by SAKA MIKAMI
A REVIEW by ALEXA DUNCAN
“Two rival schools unalike in dignity,” reads the back copy of the first volume of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity. This romance manga clearly takes its cues from Romeo and Juliet, boasting rival schools, a bad boy with a heart of gold, and a good girl with unexpected spunk. Sixteen-year-old Rintaro—known for being “scary” because of his height—goes to an all-boys school infamous for its delinquents, while the demure Kaoruko attends the all-girls school next door. The two have a fateful meeting at Rintaro’s family’s bakery, and a tentative romance blossoms between the two despite the other students at their schools hating one another.
Author and illustrator Saka Mikami does a wonderful job at crafting a very familiar romance story while twisting it enough to make it interesting. The writing is earnest, portraying the fragility and nervousness of teen love with the kind of heartfelt declarations often seen in manga (“I don’t care about anything else, I want to learn more about you because you’re Rintaro-kun” p. 106). Especially gorgeous is the art, the hard lines and close-ups of the characters’ lovestruck faces giving this work an almost action-adventure quality, making it seem as though Rintaro and Kaoruko’s relationship is as serious as life or death. This is an interesting departure from typical romance manga, where the art is softer to portray a certain dreaminess. The intensity of the drawings, then, makes the story that much more powerful.
Romance manga fans will fall hard and fast for The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity. It would also be a good pick for teens looking for a slightly different example of the genre.