#blue flag masumi

[pfpanimes]

⌕ blue flag - masumi.

like or reblog if you save/use.

[artistictea]

I am hitting you with my telekinesis beam. You want to read Ao no Flag. Ohhh you want to read Ao no Flag SO bad.

[spacecatlivesonthemoon]

I’m sick they married male versions of each other

[choujinx]

AO NO FLAG (2017-2020) by kaito

[piesohardy]

Taichiii

I love this manga sm pls go read it (name: ao no flag)

[mayoiayasep]

[ID: a colored manga chapter cover from blue flag of touma, taichi, futaba, and masumi lying down in the grass. masumi and futaba both have their hands folded on their stomachs and are smiling peacefully, with futaba smiling bigger than masumi. touma has both hands behind his head and is also smiling, while taichi has one hand behind his head and the other on his stomach with a neutral expression. End ID]

[bowledburrito]

Two years later …

[irontragedyreview]

One of those manga that I consider deserves an anime adaptation is Ao No Flag/Blue Flag. It’s short but above all I like how it touches on issues related to sexual orientation. Touma and Taichi’s story is tender but above it’s builds little by little, in the same way that the relationship between Taichi and Futaba is also beautiful and it doesn’t feel that she is the beard or  the middle of Taichi and Toma love.

Taichi learns and changes with Futaba and they push each other to improve, Taichi with Futaba learns to get out of his comfort zone, which had been one of the reasons why he and Touma had drifted apart, Taichi stops hanging out with Touma because he believes that they are in different social circles in high school, even when Touma tried to get closer but there is only so much he can do. His friendship with Futaba and subsequent love relationship doesn't feel bad because it’s built in a way that develops a relationship between two people who begin to enjoy each other's company, but above all who are there to support each other in overcoming their fears, even if in the end they end up with different people.

However, I feel that the end of the manga feels rushed in presenting you with certain events, both Touma and Taichi's relationship, and Masumi's revelation as bisexual. I would like to focus on Masumi more than any other character because honestly a cliché part of my heart was hoping that Futaba and her would end up together, especially because of the level of devotion that Masumi had towards her. Also in the end when  I saw her  married to a man, it left a bad taste in my mouth because she had settled for the easier life that represented hiding her sexuality. Of course, this doesn’t really happen, from the few words we see from Masumi's husband we can understand that he’s aware that Masumi likes both men and women and it doesn’t make him jealous or insecure because he trusts Masumi and her choice to be with him. In my blog there is a post (not mine) talking about this topic. At the beginning I also saw Masumi's marriage as her deciding to stay in the closet, especially because throughout the story the way she describes her feelings for Futaba and how she had tried to go out with boys but without feeling right. All this leads us to think that Masumi is a lesbian, which is why I would have liked one chapter before the ending with a broader development of her sexuality. Although, I want to say this I consider that knowing her bisexuality feels rushed but I don't feel that it’s wrong or queerbating because I can find myself in Masumi, I don't feel that it’s wrong to show that we’re still not completely clear about our sexuality while we’re teens, as a bisexual woman I remember going through a process to accept that I liked men and women. It was a big "I can't be a lesbian because I like guys" but it was also "I'm not straight because I like women too”, getting to a point where both thoughts coexisted and didn’t repel each other took me a while, especially because at the time I didn’t know the word bisexuality. I think that despite everything, Masumi is a good character to feel identified in the discovery of her sexuality because I can understand how her crush with Futaba canceled the possibility of perhaps feeling something romantic or even sexual towards others,  it makes sense that her feelings for Futaba occupy a space that perhaps didn’t allow her to fully explore other relationships to fully understand other aspects of her. That's why I think that once her crush with Futaba ended and had the opportunity to meet other people, she was able to discover herself.

[levbolton]

I think my favourite gender is Cat/Owner

[bleachshippu5678]

Chapter 13 of the Blue Flag Manga dub is here!

[polyamanga]

Blue Flag chapter 9

[blueraimo]

[worstqueerbaittournament]

[choujinx]

AO NO FLAG (2017-2020) by kaito

[rel-bis]

Re-reading Ao no Flag cause I'm buying the physical volumes, so some thoughts specifically about Masumi's ending

So in the ending Masumi marries a man, and as a bi woman I have some thoughts about that, positive and negative. Let's start with the positive

I saw some comments from people saying its not explicit that she's bisexual or that clearly her husband is a beard and she got a sad closeted ending. I was confused about these comments tbh, I believe that it's clearly implied she's bi because of this page:

Her husband mentions being jealous of both men and women. And then he basically says "she chose a person, not a gender" which is LITERALLY the message bi people have been trying to get other people to understand forever! Even the comment about her "not belonging to either side" is something any bi person can relate to.

Also he's talking with Touma here, and asks him if he "gets it" regarding being jealous of men and women, and Touma responds in the affirmative("Really? You too?") because he's also married to a bi person(Taichi). Just a tiny thing that only makes sense when you learn that Touma is the POV character lol

It's unfortunately a common trope in Japan that sapphic relationships among young girls are not taken seriously and are treated as just a silly playful phase they go through and eventually grow out of. When I saw Masumi ended with a man, I winced, bracing myself for this scenario. However, her husband clearly acknowledges her attraction to women and her bisexuality by saying she didn't "choose a side", she chose him. It's rare to see such a clear messaging of bisexuality in manga, so this dialogue was honestly a very pleasant surprise to me.

Now the negative. I was happy about this sure, but it was also a bit awkward and hard to accept this happening in the very last chapter when for the entirety of the series, Masumi was coded as a lesbian. In real life no one would bat an eye at Masumi, someone who identifies as lesbian and previously only liked women could discover later she's actually bisexual and anyone who judged her for that would be an idiot, same thing if it was the opposite. But this is fiction, and what you portray and HOW you portray it matters.

One of the main evidences of her lesbian coding is that all her relationships with boys in high school fail, even though they're "perfect boyfriends". I guess you could interpret this as, obviously she couldn't force herself to like these boys regardless of gender while she was still in love with Futaba, but that's me making sense of it retroactively, the story doesn't make it clear and "lets you believe" she's a lesbian, because why wouldn't you, that's a pretty common way of coding it.

Another thing is Masumi's conversation with Akiko, where Masumi reveals that her internal struggles come from the fact that she wants to fit in heteronormative society because things would be easier that way. Her happiness comes from the people she loves being happy and not worried about her, which they would be if she "went against" society. So seeing her end up with a man can be uncomfortable as it can be seen as her making the choice to fit in with society.

SO YEAH I have conflicting feelings about this, I thint it definitely could have been handled better. I think the ending was very clear about her being bisexual and I like that, but there's also definitely a conversation to be had about lesbian erasure regarding how her arc was handled, and I understand the feelings of those who were upset and frustrated by it.

Sorry if I forgot anything lol and feel free to add any comments if you have them

[lishenkaaa]

here's some blue flag manga colourings from ages ago, can you tell i love mami <3