The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity Volumes 2 and 3 Review

Last summer, Kodansha debuted the first volume of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity in print. Since then, an anime adaptation by studio CloverWorks has been announced and is set to begin airing in July. So, what better time to carry on with the manga and find out how the story of Rintaro and Kaoruko continues to develop?

In Volume 1 of the series, we met Rintaro, a student at the all-boys school Chidori High, who becomes friends with Kaoruko, a girl who attends the rival school next door: Kikyo Girls’ High. With a fierce rivalry between the students of the two schools, our main characters have been keeping their slowly developing friendship a secret from their friends. Unfortunately, at the end of the volume, Kaoruko’s best friend, Subaru Hoshina, found out about her spending so much time with Rintaro.

And it’s this confrontation between Subaru and Rintaro that kicks off Volume 2 of the series. Subaru and Kaoruko are childhood friends, and there’s nothing more precious to Subaru than their friendship. Subaru is scared of men, having been bullied by boys when she was younger. It was Kaoruko who stood up for her in the end, which led to their firm friendship thereafter. Given the reputation of the Chidori High students, Subaru doesn’t want Kaoruko to put herself at risk by associating with them and requests Rintaro stop seeing her.

Rintaro fully understands the risks of the two spending time together, but he’s grown very attached to Kaoruko and has no intention to stop seeing her. This, of course, is not the answer Subaru wanted to hear and Rintaro, for his part, is now left feeling guilty about refusing to part ways with Kaoruko and begins unintentionally pushing her away while he figures out how to keep her safe.

And while Rintaro is busy thinking about all this, his friends notice there’s something off about him lately. When they later find a note from Kaoruko wishing him good luck in his exams, his four friends decide to confront him about what’s going on. Anxious about protecting Kaoruko, Rintaro refuses to tell them anything, which drives a wedge between them. Is there a way for him to remain by Kaoruko’s side but also confide in his friends?

This is a storyline that continues into Volume 3 as well, resulting in a fairly long arc overall. But I think mangaka Saka Mikami made the right decision in making it a longer one, given that this offers ample opportunity to develop other characters. In fact, most of Volume 2 is about Subaru rather than our two leads, showing us why she cares about Kaoruko so much and the lengths she’s willing to go to to protect her. But also the immense guilt she feels about tearing her away from Rintaro, whose company she’s been enjoying. Volume 3 puts the spotlight on Rintaro’s group of friends instead, showing why they respect him so much and why they’re upset he refuses to open up to them.

It’s this emphasis on character relationships rather than romance where The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity really shines. When I reviewed the first volume, I criticised the series for the lack of romantically charged scenes despite the obvious attraction between the leads. And that’s still true to an extent here, but I think there has been a subtle shift in focus which prevents that being such an obvious omission. Instead, the artwork has given a lot more impact to the emotionally charged scenes between our main characters and their friends, which in turn has gotten me invested in their storylines.

Now three volumes in, it’s easy to see how this has become such a big hit if it continues along similar lines. This split focus between main characters and side characters is something we don’t see often enough in romance manga, not least because there usually isn’t time among the drama of the main pair. It takes guts to step away from the usual pacing of a story like this and opt to go about it more slowly, like Mikami is, and that’s more than paying off in the finished product. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in the next major arc.

The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity Volumes 2 & 3 come to the West thanks to Kodansha and continue to be translated by Fabian Kraft with lettering by Madeleine Jose (George Bao is credited for the digital edition, which I suspect is referring to K Manga rather than eBook releases). As with the first volume, these both read well with no issues. There are no extras such as colour pages, but there are some brief translation notes at the end of each release.

Volumes 4 through 6 have already been released in English by Kodansha, with the next release being Volume 7 in June. There’ll certainly be plenty of this to enjoy before the anime begins!

Overall, The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity continues to stand out from the crowd with these two volumes. Taking the time to develop the side characters now feels like it will pay off in a big way going forward. At the very least, I find myself growing more and more attached to this cast and series.

Our review copies from Kodansha were supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.