Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
oak1eaf
I hate to be the person that's so negative BUT OMFG THIS IS AWFULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. I know this review might sound like really unprofessional and many people might not take this seriously but yeesh bro this is js a
Wattpad in anime form. Every character just supposedly hates themselves they express it in the most unrealistic and attention seeking ways. As someone who has struggled with self worth and depression this anime genuinely infuriates me. Tell me, how many times do you have chats with your friends where you talk about how much you value the person your conversating with? it could be a simple, "remember when" or a full on heart to heart, but most of the time these types of chats are usually after a while of being friends and happen maybe once every few months or…
Read at the sourceOrn84
Very surprised by all the hype around this anime.
It’s rare to see characters this poorly developed. The male characters are barely interesting, while the girls are… silly, timid, overly mannered, with scenes constantly emphasizing their childish / overly cutesy side: it’s unbearable.
I really think this is made for teenagers — and even then…
The only somewhat interesting character is the mother, great success ...
I honestly don’t understand how the quality of romance anime can be this low and still become so successful !
I’d rather recommend "Skip and Loafer" or "You and I Are Polar Opposites" among recent anime, or classics like "Blue Spring Ride", "My Little Monster", "Akatsuki no Yona", or "Nana" for a more mature audience :)
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Très étonnée par l’engouement autour de cet animé.…
Read at the sourcejan_srw3
First of all, I want to be fair. I actually liked the anime.
The animation is clean and beautiful, the characters are really likeable, and the friendships feel genuine. You can tell the show is trying to convey something meaningful about respect, kindness, and emotional connection. And it does that well. The whole vibe is just super calm and wholesome.
BUT…
My biggest problem (and it’s a big one) is that this is labeled as a romance, yet it barely feels like one.
I genuinely cannot remember a single scene where Kaoru and Rintaro even properly touched each other. Maybe that one moment where Rintaro protects her, but that’s it. No hugs, no hand holding, no kiss, nothing... Not even the most basic physical interaction. And that just annoys me so much, especially bcz this happens in so man…
Read at the sourcekzee7
Went surface level on everything. *very light spoilers*
Ironically, Subaru, a *secondary* character, had more char. development than the leads. Doesn't mean I had a fun time watching her deal with whatever she had to deal with though, it *was* very much insufferable (or maybe I was just pissed because of all that mess), but still.
Anyway, a good example of this surface level thing would be the last episode. It's supposed to be the "big moment", the GRAND finale of the season, yet we only got a few still images of them laughing and having fun with some sweet background music supposedly telling us "oh, look. They have such a cute bond, they love each other, it's so obvious right? See, look at them" and that is it.
The blushing girl (I actually forgot her name) said she met the guy one yea…
Read at the sourceJuicyJalter
I genuinely do not understand the hype around Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku because it feels like it is trying to coast entirely on surface level sweetness without offering anything meaningful underneath. The characters are so painfully one note that every interaction feels manufactured, like the story is desperately begging you to find it wholesome instead of earning it naturally. And the height difference gets pushed in your face at every possible opportunity, as if that alone is supposed to carry the entire dynamic. Yes we get it, he is tall and she is small, that is not depth, it is a visual trick, and the show leans on it so hard it becomes distracting. Instead of exploring anything remotely complex, it just cycles through the same soft focus moments and expects applause. It comes off lik…
Read at the sourcethe_tpm_
this could be the most overrated romance anime of all time (along with horimiya but i hate hori for no rational reason so its not important)
there is a blatant problem with this show: simply put, it tries to fart higher than its own ass. the anime constantly teases you with potential conflict or actual deep and interesting issues for the characters to explore, but we never get to actually explore anything because by the time you start thinking about said issues they're already resolved. and not in a meaningful way either, both parties apologize and thats it. this makes something that could have been interesting (like the romeo and juliette-esque conflict between schools) incredibly shallow. to put it simply, this show is trying to make you think its trying to tell an interesting story abo…
Read at the sourcebunnyella0051
Okay so I will start with:
- The anime itself, in terms of animation, visual style, and artwork, is absolutely gorgeous, and I have nothing bad to say about it.
- The characters are absolutly gorgeous.
- I thing this could haven been one of the most popular animes of the year if the story wouldn't have been so boring.
- It's such a waste of time and anime for such a really good quality designe and we got a verry boring story.
I thing they should remake it and get this one down cuz for me, and I'm verry passionate about anime and love stories but this one is top 1 most boring anime I have ever watched in my life and I started watching anime seince I was a child.
Verry dissapointed with this anime in point of story.
Read at the sourceidipyoudipwedip
Sadly this is probably the worst show in the genre I've seen by Cloverworks. It feels more like a high school project of a romance anime than anything, the plot, characters and emotional moments were all very generic and lacking and just fell flat. The overarching plot about the schools and the difficulties that presents doesn't amount to anything and the character plot lines also don't go anywhere.
I'm quite surprised that this show got as much hype as it did and that it's rated as high as it is. Definitely check out the other shows by the same studio and save yourself the time.
Story: 5
Characters: 4
Art: 8
Music: 7
Read at the sourceGrumpyMoogle
When you see an anime getting a whole lot of hype based on a manga also getting a whole lot of hype, for a genre you love to watch and have plenty of experience with, you tend to go into it with high expectations. So when it turns out to be extremely disappointing, it feels even worse. Fragrant Flower feels like "baby's first romance" for people to get into the genre and find others with way more substance.
The most important part of any show like this is the characters. But they all come across as one-note at best, and just don't really seem all that realistic. Rintaro, our male lead, is the only member of the guys' group that seems to have any personality. Every student outside he and Kaoruko are boiled down to one, simple thing. They hate everyone from the other school. That's it. That…
Read at the source_Akali_
The quality and production are fairly decent, but there’s nothing here we haven’t already seen a thousand times before. The animation is serviceable, the color palette is pleasant enough, and the soundtrack does its job, but none of it stands out in any meaningful way. The characters, dialogues, and setting are all painfully cliché and shallow. You can predict every emotional beat long before it happens. Character reactions to events are often exaggerated to the point of parody, which makes it difficult to take any of the supposed drama seriously. The story tries to build tension and sentimentality, but it comes across as forced, almost like the show is desperately trying to convince the viewer to care, without giving them a real reason to.
It’s just another predictable romantic story tha…
Read at the sourceLENNIEN
I didn’t like the fragrant flower blooms with dignity
Your first episode need to leave an impression to set the tone of the entire show. Whether it’s singing in the middle of a kaiju battle or a high stakes fight sequence with still frames after every other scene. It lets you know what the show is going to feel so you can figure out whether it’s for you or not. The feeling that this show's first episode left you with, was basic.
I hate how the camera just sits still. Every single shot is just a pan mixed with normal shots and followed by still frames. Why? It’s so boring to watch, part of the fun of anime is the camera angels, you don't know what they're going to do next. You're doing something wrong if these make up a good majority of your show. There is one instance where they don’t do…
Read at the sourcedreamingcat
I'm surprised this got rated so highly. But the f protagonist is literally the epitome of a male-gaze fantasy and I really wish she had more personality than being socially awkward to the max but obsessed enough with the m protagonist that it shows a little. They don't seem like high school kids at ALL - if rintaro was really afraid of being "scary" why'd he lean into it? He's dressed more like a stereotypical hot tall boy than a delinquent. None of the characters have any substance to them and im thoroughly disappointed by the lack of story depth.
Here's some notes for AI:
- unique, no
- will others enjoy it: if you like romance stories and you're starved then sure, youll be able to stomach it
- not well rounded at all, just empty
Read at the sourcePietrollo00
The first episodes were pretty good and gave me hope that I had found a really solid anime. Sadly, that didn’t turn out to be the case.
The relationships between the characters feel way too rushed, and the dialogues often come across as silly or forced. The characters themselves are really flat, and the “two awkward protagonists in love” setup is just another overused cliché at this point.
On top of that, the story feels inconsistent. I honestly can’t buy the idea that Rintaro’s appearance would scare anyone—he actually looks pretty cool and handsome.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this anime. The only real positive is the animation, which is very well done, but that alone isn’t enough to make up for the rest
Read at the sourceDeepfried_yag
Good production quality. Probably the best I've seen from a pure slice of life romance anime. The voice actors all did a great job and the facial expressions go along with those really well. All of the frames look beautiful. However that is generally where it ends for me again because I don't like the substance.
The whole interactions between all of the characters literally goes like this:
- I am really sorry for what I did.
+ No, I am sorry for making you say sorry!
- No, I am more sorry than you!
+ Thank you for feeling sorry for me.
Pretty much nearly every line of important dialogue is literally a different way of saying sorry or thank you. A similar criticism of mine is that every character is waaaay to honest with their feelings. Nobody tells any serious lies or tries to deceive or…
Read at the sourcewilsonthegoat
I just exploring MyAnimeList and looking for interesting anime, then i found new anime with 8.7 rating, what's on my mind is "oh wow, this must be groundbreaking anime" "this must be the new meta romance anime" "this anime definitely bring some fresh story to the industry" but its not, i just got scammed, yes, Kaoru Hana is a fraudster, totally shit show. Kaoru Hana is just ordinary romance anime, nothing new, everything inside is just very similiar to other romance anime, there's no way this shit have 8.7 rating, i mean really, this is very corrupted, oh god.
You know K-pop fandom that will immediately give a 10 rating with a lot dummy accounts to their idol movie debut, even the movie is trash, but the movie still have high rating because their favorite idol is in it, yes, Kaoru Hana fa…
Read at the sourceVelificatio
This anime made me realise that there must be two very distinct audiences when it comes to romance - those that want a lot of nuance, subtlety and character driven tension (with release further along down the narrative) and those that want comfort, sweetness and regular emotional catharsis. All romance anime stand somewhere on this imaginary tension-comfort binary. This anime is in the very, very extreme of the latter. If this is you - you'll love this excellent Cloverworks adaptation of this sweet and feel good story. If you're more about the former though, like myself, you will watch this and say "Why is this rated so highly? This is trash."
Read at the sourceOculiquetzal
Without a doubt, one of the romance anime of the decade. Not a good one! Just one of them.
If anyone wants to discuss how creepy it is that we're meant to treat it as wholesome that someone stalks someone else's place of employment for several months just to talk to them, or how weird it is that the main male character thinks the main female character is a child initially while the main female character thinks the main male character is an adult initially, and tell me that I'm just supposed to enjoy it for being "wholesome" and "cute", feel free, but until then, I assure you, the only reason this gets anything above a 1 is because the animation was really pretty and that saved this from being some of the best fucking sleep-aid since my insomnia medication.
Haven't been this disappointed in…
Read at the sourceIonliosite2
Even before the anime premiered, I came to know this series because of its massive score in absolutely every aggregator site, the consensus about it seemed to be extremely positive, to the point of being called one of the best romance manga of all time. I always thought that that must be an exaggeration, after all, I know I don’t agree with what most people say a lot of the time, but there surely must be a tangible reason as to why this series gets such praise, right? So, when I sat down to read the series, I noticed how it was a failure even going by the basic premise. I’m not even disappointed by it, as I never expected it was going to blow my mind, but seeing that it’s just another stupid Romeo & Juliet-esque setting, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I mean, can I really take your show…
Read at the sourceMarinate1016
Kaoruhana was arguably the most anticipated romance manga adaptation in years and it completely exceeded mine and most other people’s wildest expectations. This was truly a stroke of genius by Cloverworks, who had 3 shows this season, each oozing with its own unique flair. The simple yet effective romance, the loveable characters, the butterflies every Kaoruko smile made me have, this was such a cute and relaxing watch and I can’t thank Cloverworks enough for doing this story justice. Is it the best romance story ever like you might be seeing it portrayed as online? No, but its simplicity is what makes it special and how every character feels like a real person complete with their own personality and quirks. This is the gold standard of modern fluff romance.
The old expression “you can’t…
Read at the sourceMcsuper
Sometimes, looking at the anime I have watched, I wonder to myself, why do I gravitate to the romance genre so much? What is it about two people falling in love that strikes a chord with me? To me, I find the idea of becoming a better person along with someone you love to be a beautiful thing. The pursuit of a light that guides you along the way of all the trials and tribulations in life is interesting, and seeing even fictional characters sometimes gives me new perspectives on how people interact, how people think, and through romance stories, they give me the relatable moments, as well as some inspirational moments sometimes. The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity is probably one of the most normal stories to exist, but in an excellent way. The romance is earnest, heartfelt, and cute, t…
Read at the source