New Year, New Girl

We’re now into the second half of volume 2 of Sweet Blue Flowers (volume 4 in the original Japanese edition). Fumi’s and Akira’s first years at their respective high schools have ended, and they are now second-year students. Yasuko Sugimoto has left the scene (as discussed in a previous chapter), making room for a new secondary character, Haruka Ono (SBF, 2:182).

Haruka continues the Sweet Blue Flowers tradition of having interesting secondary characters beyond the central duo of Fumi and Akira. (This isn’t universal, though: Fumi’s Matsuoka friends Mogi, Yassan, and Pon continue to have relatively little to do, and their characterization remains thin.)

Haruka performs several critical functions within the story. First, she’s entertaining in her own right, with her outsized personality and vocal brashness. She also provides a pair of fresh eyes to view the goings-on at Fujigaya, especially because she transferred in and did not attend Fujigaya’s elementary or middle schools.

In this respect and others (including her height), she resembles Akira. It’s almost as if she’s a younger version of Akira, with her wide-eyed admiration of all things Fujigaya. She’s even visually framed the same way as she enters the tunnel leading to the school and repeats Akira’s comments to herself about being a “Fujigaya lady” almost word for word (SBF, 2:194–95). “She’s just like you were!” Kyoko marvels (2:195).

One might ask, why do we need an Akira clone when we already have Akira? The most straightforward answer is that second-year Akira is much changed from first-year Akira. She’s been thrown for a loop by Fumi’s interest in her and seems somewhat uncertain and almost lost, not knowing what to do about the situation and not knowing whom to turn to for advice and a sympathetic ear. “You seem so distant,” Fumi tells her (SBF, 2:249).

Haruka reminds us of the most appealing traits of Akira: her energetic and impulsive nature, her sense of justice, and her willingness to speak and act in support of what she thinks is right. Even their motivations in attending Fujigaya are similarly ditzy: Akira seems to have done it almost on a whim, while Haruka was moved by her admiration of Yasuko—not realizing that Yasuko didn’t attend Fujigaya (SBF, 2:288–90). It’s no surprise that Fumi becomes friends with Haruka, despite their age difference and their attending different schools. Many of the things that attract her to Akira attract her to Haruka as well.

Haruka is also in a way going through a similar self-assessment as Akira. Just as Fumi’s confession to her prompts Akira to question both her feelings toward Fumi and her feelings about lesbian relationships generally, Haruka’s discovery of her sister’s love letter causes her to think about the issue as well, involving as it does someone close to her (SBF, 2:322).

Haruka also helps drive the plot in various ways, both large and small. She discovers Ryoko Ueda reading in the library and urges she be cast in the school play, encourages and counsels Fumi in her (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to play a role as well, and then apologizes to Fumi for her pushiness after Fumi calls it quits (SBF, 2:259–60, 2:262, 2:291, 2:294, 2:314–16).

Finally, Haruka’s conversation with Fumi about her sister (“I think my sister is in love with a girl!”), Fumi’s response to Haruka about that revelation, and Fumi’s regret over what she feels is the inadequacy of that response, set up the climactic scene of volume 2, Fumi’s confession to Akira of her true feelings (SBF, 2:328–31, 2:333–38).

Altogether Haruka is a most amusing and appealing character. By the end of volume 2, she’s become a force to be reckoned with at Fujigaya (“You sure have a lot of older friends,” remarks Akira) and reinforces the theme of the subversion of hierarchy that I discussed in previous chapters (SBF, 2:318). Where her character will go in volume 3 remains to be seen, but her presence is certainly one of the highlights of volume 2.