Manga review: Ao No Flag (Blue Flag)

The general outline of this story

Though this is a campus-life story, its main theme is the relationship among sex, friendship and romance including LGBT problem and what it means to be different from others. There are four main characters: Taichi, Toma, Futaba, and Masumi. They are all third-year high school students.

青のフラッグ 1 (ジャンプコミックス)

青のフラッグ 1-7巻 新品セット

Caution! The sentences below contain some spoilers about the story though it is not serious one (at least for me) !

Why I Recommend This

1. It tells us that we unconsciously assume the "reasonable" relationship between men and women beyond the problem of LGBT

LGBT is its important topic, but it also emphasizes that even "sexual majority" suffers from stereotypes in gender relations. For example, Mami, another character in this story, is seriously troubled about getting along with boys as friends. Though she just want to construct friendly relations that can be seen among boys, she is often considered to try to seduce them by the boys, and is hated by girls. When thinking about gender problem, we tend to focus on sexual minorities, treating the problem only from an objective point of view, and overlook the fact that even ourselves have biased thought on the relation between men and women. Reading this will give you the chance to reconsider your insensible behavior about the relation in your daily lives.

2. Detailed and beautiful character description

The author is very good at character description. Complicated emotions of characters are vividly depicted using sometimes words and only pictures at other time. One situation is showed from several characters viewpoints, always giving me new insights about their thought which triggers their behaviors, and telling me the difficulty of satisfying everyone's wish.
At the same time, these "various viewpoints" asks me whether I am really able to understand others background. Some characters' behaviors are represented as malicious or twisted ones, and I thought them simply as bad guys. However, when I understand their context later, I reflected on my shallow opinion and decided to be careful not to judge others' personality with a simplistic point of view.

3. It vividly reminds me of what I felt in my high school

"Sex" is not only theme in this. "Choice" is another serious subject. As written above, the characters are third-year high school students, who have to decide what they want to do in their future feeling anxious about it. Though (sadly or happily) I did not have any trouble about romance, I was also afflicted by course selection. "Whether it is a problem of romance or course selection, choosing one way always means abandoning other choices." I can recall such natural but easily forgotten rule through the story.
Entrance examination of university is one of the most important and impressive crossroads of one's life, and so it is when you most seriously consider yourself and your future. If you want to recollect those days and compare what you are today with how you imagined, this story will definitely help you.

Conclusion

This work will give you a great opportunity to think rethink your unconscious bias against gender issue and others' behaviors. I think this is one of the most sophisticated manga treating "human relationship".

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