Review: Ao no Flag (Blue Flag)

Current mood: ...

I joined a Sasaki and Miyano discord recently (and became a server mod wow!), it keeps me productive during the pandemic. Two members started gushing about the final chapter of a certain series, which caught my attention. They were very passionate about it, so I went and dug myself a blackhole into a world of teenage romantic angst.

Ao no Flag (Blue Flag) is serialized in Shounen Jump+ so you know this aint your typical romance plot. It follows the lives of a bunch of high school students, but it's mainly about three kids: Taichi (Ichinose) is your average student, not outstanding, barely scrapes by with his grades, has niche interests etc. He's got his group of nerdy friends too. Futaba (Kuze) is small, timid and clumsy, has no self-confidence, and the story kicks off with her crush for Touma (Mita), the most popular guy in school. He's nice, tall, good-looking, has a killer bod, is the captain and ace of the baseball club, he's got everything... oh and he's Taichi's childhood friend. Other characters include Masumi (Itachi), Futaba's close friend and is the female version of Touma. She's attractive in a cool, mysterious way, gets confessed to quite a lot, but never has a lasting relationship. Mami (Yagihara), who is openly in love with Touma, and may seem like an alpha bitch (at first...). There's Taichi's nerdy gang Omega, Mon and Yorkie, Touma's gang Kensuke and Shingo (who is also Mami's close friend), and Mami's gang Shouko and Sayaka.

The plot starts off simple. Futaba has a crush on Touma, and being the tiny and timid girl she is, asks Taichi for help, since he's Touma's childhood friend. The problem is, Taichi hasn't been that close to Touma since middle school, with different interests and all (among other factors). Taichi decides to help Futaba anyway, although reluctantly. Masumi aint that happy about it. She knows Taichi knows about Touma's specific type, and the type isn't Futaba. Somewhere along the way Touma misunderstood and thought Futaba is trying to get together with Taichi, which made her sad.

Things didn't go as planned, but Taichi and Futaba became fast friends. She still wanted to try he best winning Touma's affections despite knowing that she isn't the type that Taichi says Touma likes, and that determination made Taichi think that maybe he could also change. He has an unexpected heart-to-heart conversation with Masumi, he tries his best to make up with Touma and then...

Disaster strikes. After a great win by Touma's team, Taichi sees a kitten wander off into the middle of the road. While everybody is confused by Taichi's sudden sprint, Masumi catches on and tries to stop him, but what happened was Touma gets hit instead. He has a broken leg and has to be benched for the remaining games. He keeps on a positive front but Taichi is heartbroken by what happened and blames himself for it. Futaba tries to console him and they get some UST between them. Next thing you know Taichi and Futaba are dating! Aint nobody too upset about this development... or is there?

Mami suddenly gets close to Taichi, participating in his nerdy interests. Futaba gets anxious about this closeness, so Taichi decides to make things clear with Mami. Mami gets really frustrated with the people around her, some misunderstandings were had so now Taichi is stuck with three girls - Futaba, Masumi and Mami in a restaurant. The four of them have a session of heart-to-heart, so now everything is good.

Or is it? The school festival comes. The breaking point is here. Touma finally rejects Mami's advances and his reason? The one he likes is Taichi. Shit hit the fan, all hell breaks loose. Touma, Kensuke and Shingo are suspended for fighting. Taichi and Futaba's relationship strain (a little). Masumi and Mami fight, but not for reasons you'd expect. Entrance exams are close, so what are our protagonists to do than study for their futures? Touma isn't going to college so he leaves school early to work. Taichi and Futaba find Touma at his workplace and Futaba gives some time for the two guys to settle their unresolved feelings. Taichi likes Futaba and he wants to continue his relationship with her, but he cannot lose Touma, his best friend. In a life full of choices, he took the third option - to retain his friendship with Touma and continue dating Futaba.

This is no romance. After two years, Taichi broke up with Futaba. It's all in good terms, but the awkwardness means they didn't talk to each other for another four. Then a wedding invitation from Futaba arrives...

My thoughts:
At first glance this may be a teenage romance but it's not. It's more philosophical than you think. The good news is there's only 54 chapter and its free to read on mangaplus so its something everyone can pick up. The bad news is that you have to be prepared to work your brain over some of the heavier topics. There's some romance sure, but unlike all the shoujo or BL tropes I've come to expect, it shows that life isn't as optimistic. It doesn't matter who ends up with who, because the ending will always be bittersweet, depending on who you root for. From the shoujo perspective, Futaba and Taichi do seem to genuinely love each other and they totally look cute together, but their relationship didn't last. From the BL perspective, Touma is hopelessly in love with Taichi but his subject of affections is straight as a ruler and has a girlfriend. From the GL perspective, Masumi and Futaba are close and would be good for each other, but Masumi knows that it'll never happen and refuses to confess.

Some characters just want to feel worthy, some just want to be friends, some just want their love to be requited, some just want their beloved to be happy. All of them just want to be true to themselves. They want to be free, but they can't. The harsh reality is that in a conservative society like Japan, societal pressure forces these teenagers to conform to the norm. Each character's psyche is explored in various chapters, sometimes two overlapping with similar issues. Taichi and Futaba are two characters with low self-confidence, but their problems are also very different from each other. Taichi's problem stems from having a brilliant childhood friend that fuels his insecurities, Futaba's are more towards her own naivete and clumsiness; Touma and Masumi are closeted gays, but they handle their crushes very differently. Both have no problem bringing this secret crush to their graves, but at one point Touma is very close to confessing (and he did after he was outed), while Masumi never confesses and feels guilty for keeping it a secret; Taichi and Mami are subjected to similar situations about platonic relationships in different chapters, but the outcome varies for them both. Taichi's situation was ironic, in that he claims that platonic relationships are possible but ended up falling for Futaba later and eating his own words, while Mami truly believes that it is possible, hence her friendship with Shingo and everyone's perceived man-stealer attitude of her; In the very end, all love is unrequited.

One of the major themes that are present since the first chapter is choice, more specifically, choice between a lover or a friend. Taichi faces this question with Futaba as the lover and Touma as the friend. Touma and Masumi both have to choose between wanting to be their crushes' lover or friend. Kensuke, who is smitten with Mami, wants to be lovers, but Mami chooses to be friends. Futaba also has a brief dilemma, when she doesn't know if she sees Taichi as a lover or friend. In the final chapter, a movie poster poses the same question: between a lover and a friend, who will you choose? Taichi says that the choices of the movie characters don't sit well with him and then immediately adds that his own choices might not make any sense to any observer either. In this game we call life, we make a lot of choices. But in the midst of it all, we hope to gain our own happiness and live freely, to be the truest of ourselves.