Words to describe Bloom into You: Slow-burn, tender, sweet.

Yuu has always wanted to fall in love and to feel like a character in the shoujo manga she reads, but when a boy asks her out, she feels nothing. When she overhears an upperclassman, Nanami, gracefully turn down another boy's declaration, Yuu is impressed. That's hardly surprising, since Nanami is impressive in many ways: popular, intelligent, and involved in student life, she is pretty much perfect. The real shock arrives when Nanami declares that she thinks she is falling in love with Yuu, and asks her not to reciprocate these feelings.

I'm on the third volume of the series now, and what I like about it so far is the way it subverts my expectations. As Nanami and Yuu spend more time together, cracks appear in Nanami's facade of perfection, revealing more vulnerability than she shows to anyone but Yuu. And for her part, Yuu is more complicated than I expected. She grapples with her desire to feel love and her ambivalence when faced with the possibility of doing so. Remembering my high school experiences, I can relate to this conflict.

I also like the secondary characters--especially Koyomi, the bookish aspiring novelist who hates all cute things except the sea creature stuffies she collects; and Maki, whose interest in romance only extends to watching the lovelorn trials and tribulations of his friends. I hope that as the series progresses, they and other characters get their own subplots.