Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Sakura131
I do not believe the Aoi Hana anime and manga receive the credit they are due. I feel too many are into the classic GL love story with a hidden crush, blushing, a confession, kiss, and perhaps maybe happily ever after.
Takako Shimura is a prolific LGBT+ mangaka in Japan and this anime is an adaptation of her manga work. The manga should be read before the anime and I recommend experiencing both. Being as prolific as she is in the LGBT+ genre, I believe she is best skilled in truly capturing the social awkwardness and internal conflict of being a teenager in love - especially when in love with the same gender. She depicts teenagers coming to terms with defining love, questioning whether they truly feel it, whether to reciprocate, and having no idea what to do with the new sexual feelings…
Read at the sourceribzqueen
As a slice of life anime, it's kinda slightly above average and okay. As a Girl's Love anime, it's a rare bit of representation of realistic sapphic high school romance. In short, if this anime wasn't gay, I probably wouldn't be recommending it. But then again, if you've even come across this anime, it's probably because you were explicitly looking for gay content (like I was).
Characters: The characters are sweet, but don't really stand out much and leave you kind of wanting more depth. The redhead was probably my favourite character but the protagonist was cool, too.
Plot: The relationship that was central to the plot was... eh. Like, it was okayyyy. I feel like it takes a lot of guts to make a realistic gay anime and input a freaking heterosexual wedding scene in the climax lol. And t…
Read at the sourcemoe_sama
Aoi Hana is bittersweet but at the same time one of the most realistic representations of real world relationships that I've come across.
Went in for the yuri, stayed for the story.
You're not going into Aoi Hana for fuzzy feelings or a wild ride through a wacky world of interesting events. You're going in for realistic relationships, believable characters, and the crushing reality of what romance really is and how fleeting that feeling can be. (Including the struggle of being able to "come out of the closet" to your friends and family).
Subtle animation and a muted color palette capture the tone and real-world feel of Aoi Hana. Much like reality, much of what you look at isn't meant to paint a pretty picture. It's functional and it gets that message across.
These characters are well wr…
Read at the sourcecaptjoe213
(updated 9/19/18 for format and slight content revision)
Welcome to Robert's Too Late Review! Today we're tackling the masterpiece that is Aoi Hana. I am a fan of *good* yuri anime, possibly to the point of preferring what is considered class-S in Japanese culture, that of friends who are less lovers, and more 'soul sisters'. Having said that, my first two experiences with yuri-ish anime was Maria-sama ga Miteru, a firm class-S, and Strawberry Panic, an over the top full on yuri. Neither of them prepared me for the beauty of this anime. It is an experience not to be missed! I'll let you guess now if Aoi Hana made the RTLR wall of fame.
Story: 10
The story is a rollercoaster of emotions, taking us on a journey through childhood friendships, to contemporary same sex relationships, to the h…
Read at the sourceReina_banana
What can I use to describe Aoi Hana? To put it simply, it is gentle and beautiful.
-Story: 8/10
The story in this anime is quite simple. Fumi Manjoume, an introverted and shy girl got her heart broken by the person she loves and on her first day to school, she ran into an energetic and bubbly girl, Akira Okudaira, only to find out they were childhood friends when Fumi and her mother visited Okudaira. With that, both girls reconnected and be involved in each other's life and problems they faced. Aoi Hana tackle on the theme 'Unrequited Love' and 'Friendship' very well and every episode feels like a ride on a roller coaster of feels. Not only that, it takes itself seriously and shows us a legitimate love story between characters. I especially quite like how this anime uses words like 'bisex…
Read at the sourceBootlegBrains
Aight , so , have you guys seen this movie called '' Blue is the warmest colour '' ?
No? Sweet.
Well to put it simply, Aoi Hana is what this movie wishes it could have become.
My feelings about this one are fairly positive and since it's closest I ve ever come to a yuri series, I gotta say the genre left a good impression on me. For some people it might deserve an 8 and I can kind of understand why.
Aoi Hana deals with romance and sexuality in a very mature way. Story
The series gives a realistic ( I could argue about whether the fact that almost all female characters have a crush on Sugimoto is realistic or not but I ll let it slide ) portrayal of high school life, the highs and lows. It is indeed a romance series but I found myself thinking that the focus of it was friendship and t…
Read at the sourcePixL123
So I'm just gonna start this off with idk how to write a review but I'm gonna try so bear with me here...
I started watching this because a few friends were gonna watch a random anime and I thought it would be fun to join them. Lucky enough for me, the random anime that the site chose for me was Aoi Hana. At first I didn't read about it or anything and I thought it was gonna be bad because I judge all my anime by the cover art. A few minutes into the first episode and I'm just thinking, what did I get myself into? I wasn't sure if I had gotten a hentai or something... Then I got a little ways into the first episode and I started to think it was good. The music is what really got me hooked on it. It's very simple music but I just loved it! Luckily there was no hentai or any real "intense"…
Read at the sourceashketch95
Story: Are you sick and tired of watching the same generic love story all the time? Are you sick of watching yuri that's just basically there to show smut? Well, this anime is nothing like that whatever. You see that it's a romance in the genre section, but this is more than that. It's a real coming of age story about two girls trying to find their way through high school and what it really means to love someone. You have two best friends, Fumi and Akira, who reunite after ten years of separation and find out that they are going to different all girls schools. Akira is your energetic one who tries her very best to protect those she cares about. Then, you have Fumi, the cry baby who is also very shy but has her love of books. You'd think that these two are just your another set of tropes, b…
Read at the sourceTanakaRiza
Being a homosexual female, I have always been searching for a queer anime that didn't exist only for the purpose of fan service. I wanted an actual love story between a queer couple. One day, I was searching online for some more shoujo ai to watch and I came across this one. When I started watching this show and all the way to the end of the season, I thought, "Finally! This is exactly the queer love story I have been looking for in an anime."
They don't use queerness as an excuse for fan service. The lesbians in this show are just human, and not treated as objects for the audience to enjoy for entertainment. Strawberry Panic was a cheezy soap opera. YuruYuri pretty much uses offensive humor that is sometimes sexual. The characters in Sakura Trick are really stupid and you can tell that t…
Read at the sourcedokdek
Overview:
Aoi Hana shows a very refreshing depiction of yuri, it doesn’t have the over the top comedy, fanservice or satire that regularly plagues the yuri genre. It instead is more of a slice of life drama that has yuri undertones. It revolves around two childhood friends: Fumi and Akira, and how they interact with each other through their romantic, friendly, and family relationships.
What I liked:
What I really loved about the series is how they decided to depict relationships, I don’t really want to spoil it but the interactions between all the characters are interesting and believable. Another thing I loved is how they handle slice of life; it never really got boring, it’s slightly episodic but has defining arcs; I managed to watch the series in 2 days perfectly fine. I’m a sucker for…
Read at the sourcejohnbradshaw
Aoi Hana, from the first episode till the very end, was pretty much of a tender ride, a light-hearted anime about love.
I always find Yuri is the purest kind of love. And this gerne is not strange to the anime world coz many shows have tried to portray it in many different ways possible. But i must say in the Yuri world, Aoi Hana is a unique one, not because it's so weird or unusual but it's very serious and realitics. A series that portrayed what young girls would worry or think when it comes to love, with jealouscy, with worries, with demanding, with misunderstanding, etc...
The anime itself is easy to watch, with bright colors and beautiful drawings. I really had no problem marathon through the show. It also has good op and ed.
" No one can forget their first love" - that's what i l…
Read at the sourceabeatrizfontes
I began reading the manga long ago, but for some reason I still don't know, I stopped.
Anyway, Aoi Hana is a very special anime: good animation, colors, soundtrack. The storyline is really sensitive and beautiful. I think it shows very much the difficulty we have with our own emotions and also how amazing is the first love thing, even though you get to get distant from the person you fell in love with. It's a mark on our lifes.
I recommend it.
Read at the sourcePuervy
So I just finished this anime and I can say that I did not regret it.
Story 7/10 : The story about highschool girls reconnecting, finding love, getting hurt and finding thier way back. The characters have their own personality and their own love problems which made the story intense (personally). By the end of the series, you begin to wonder and fill yourself with many questions..which also made me love this story even more then I did, (reading the manga as of now -) I couldn't help but wonder what will happin to Ikimu? or Sugimoto? what of A-chan and Fumi? Then I began to wonder, "Do I remember my first love?", which is rare for animes to have me wonder that (ha!). Overall, the story is great and just all around put together wonderfully.
Characters 8/10: I loved the character developm…
Read at the sourcebillybob300c
i felt like i got robbed watching this series. overall i give it a 3/10 and here's why:
SPOILERS AHEAD...
1). Fumi x Akira NEVER HAPPENED AT ALL. I fell in love with the opening song, especially the parts where Fumi x Akira are dancing with the flowers & both are bare-skin. It was so dazzling and mesmerizing to watch them dance inside that flower garden & flower tornado. And when Akira drops those flowers gently on Fumi's cheeks...the way they looked at each other (especially how Akira looked at Fumi)... it was so mature and beautiful to watch that it made me wish I could look at someone the same way and have someone return those feelings. You can easily tell that they're really in love.
This feeling is what I got from having watched the opening of Episode 1. Around episode 5, I could t…
Read at the sourcetehnominator
It's true enough when they say that you never forget your first love. There are those lucky enough that the memory is nothing more than that, just a hazy recollection, a fond vagueness. For some, first loves are pangs, barely perceptible; the heart has forgotten how to beat to that rhythm. And then for some, a first love is as soft and fragile as a little flower.
This is the wealth presented in Aoi Hana, an anime adaptation of Shimura Takako's utterly genius manga series. The development of the manga is akin to watching a book read itself, learning and discovering things, and then reflecting that in its own progress. The anime does not get to reach this stage, as unfortunately it did not get the audience or attention it needed for another season. But to pass this series up is to deny your…
Read at the sourcemaybelletea
I enjoyed this series. Some may not like it as it is slow paced; there’s nothing over the top or exaggerated about it. It’s simply about the lives of different girls as they develop in maturity and discover what infatuation, first love, and being in love is.
The story is bittersweet, dealing with the comforts of friendship and the pain of unrequited love. There is not an excessive amount of drama or romance in the plotline. There are aspects of those genres, but to a subtle extent and it is romantic and dramatic without being overtly so.
There is no heavy story here. Rather, Aoihana is a very character driven series. The whole series is based on character growth, particularly through Fumi. Prior to watching the series, I was expecting more graduated love interest between the two main cha…
Read at the sourceiamjoe
I said it before and I'll say it again: there are just few things on this planet that can be as fabulous tier as I am. Aoi Hana is one kind of anime that comes dangerously close. (NB: close. Nothing is my tier as yet).
This anime has the distinction of NOT being a disgusting fanservice yuri anime. It is pretty good drama and isn't about hot chicks snogging one another or worse, not snogging and just drinking tea all the time. Don't get me wrong, this is no "snore, huh?, wtf, I can't even spell 'soeur'-fest" like Maria-sama ga Miteru nor are the girls candy coloured whores like in Strawberry Panic.
No, Aoi Hana shows you pretty much how unfabulous it is to be a gay-girl teenager who is so deep in the closet that even the Boogieman is starting to feel claustrophobic.
So the story follows…
Read at the sourcepopnstuff
Love is love, no matter whether you are a guy who is in love with a girl, a guy who is in love with another guy, or a girl who is in love with another girl.
And I think that's the important message that an anime like Aoi Hana tries to show us: no matter what your sexuality or even who you fall in love with, nothing is more sweet and lovely than falling in love and being in love.
It may seem a bit much giving an anime a score of 10 so easily, but let me justify: an anime like Aoi Hana makes it easy for you to just fall in love with it and its brilliance. Honestly, I can say this is one of the few romance anime I have seen that qualifies so thoroughly for the term "masterpiece" simply because it is so earnest, sweet, romantic, dramatic and does not fall into the typical cliches and tropes…
Read at the sourceSkadi
If your requirements for enjoying an anime are fantastical brightly colored settings, perfectly formed and ideal bodies, and over the top comedy chop full of nosebleeds and sparkly heart shaped eyes; then Aoi Hana is not for you. If your only interest in yuri storylines is girl on girl macking and fan service; then Aoi Hana is not for you. Aoi Hana has none of these things. (Well besides the girl on girl macking)
What Aoi Hana attempts to portray is a thoughtful and serious story about a group of teenage girls as they learn about first love and themselves. The main focuses are the girls Fumi and Akira (affectionately called Aa-chan). Both were close friends when they were very young but in the years they had forgotten about each other since Fumi's family had moved away. The story begins w…
Read at the sourceEvalia
Aoi Hana...
If I am asked to describe it in 3 words, I would say:
1. Gentle 2. Kind 3. Friendship
~Story~
It is about friendship, which lasts. And, which overcomes all the difficulties. What if your bestfriend tells you that she is in love? In love with a girl?... Does it change your friendship? If yes, how? If not, why? It is great to have a friend, who will support you no matter what. And I would like to highlight that the main theme of this anime is friendship between two girls. And hatsukoi (first love), which they experience is beautiful, but the most important is to see how they support each other. Real friendship between young women is gorgeous and very rare.
~Sound~
Opening song is very gentle and soft. A singer has a unique voice, which 100% fits the story. Ending theme is a…
Read at the source