is a Japanese yuri manga series written and illustrated by Takako Shimura. It was serialized between November 2004 and July 2013 in Ohta Publishing's manga magazine Manga Erotics F, with its chapters collected in eight volumes. The story focuses on Fumi Manjōme, a lesbian high school girl, and her close childhood friend Akira Okudaira, who tries to keep her friends happy through difficult times.
An 11-episode anime television series produced by J.C.Staff and directed by Ken'ichi Kasai aired between July and September 2009 on Fuji TV. An Internet radio show to promote the anime was produced between June and October 2009 on HiBiKi Radio Station hosted by Ai Takabe and Yūko Gibu, who voiced Fumi and Akira in the anime, respectively. The manga was licensed in North America by Viz Media. The anime was licensed by Right Stuf Inc.
Plot At the start of Sweet Blue Flowers, Akira Okudaira, who is an entering high school student into Fujigaya Girls Academy, becomes reacquainted with her childhood friend Fumi Manjōme whom she has not seen for ten years. Fumi is attending Matsuoka Girl's High School where she quickly becomes friends with a handsome third-year student named Yasuko Sugimoto. Akira joins her school's drama club with her friend and classmate Kyōko Ikumi, who is in love with Yasuko, though Yasuko turns her down. Akira meets Kyōko's fiancé (in name only) Kō Sawanoi. Yasuko and Fumi become a couple, and Fumi comes out to Akira who is at first unsure on how to act, but still tries to support Fumi's new relationship.
Akira's drama club does an adaptation of Wuthering Heights for a drama festival; Fumi helps out with her friends Yōko Honatsugi, Misako Yasuda, and Miwa Motegi. Yasuko breaks up with Fumi, who learns that Yasuko's older sister Kazusa is marrying a teacher at Fujigaya named Masanori Kagami whom Yasuko had fallen in love with. Time passes after the wedding, and Yasuko decides to study abroad in London after graduating. Miwa and Akira's older brother Shinobu start going out, and Fumi tells Akira that she was her first love, much to Akira's embarrassment.
When Akira and her friends enter their second year of high school, an energetic first-year student named Haruka Ōno joins the Fujigaya drama club. Akira and Kyōko are split into different classrooms, and Akira meets a tall girl in her new class named Ryōko Ueda. The high school division of Fujigaya does the play Rokumeikan with Akira, Kyōko and Ryōko playing lead roles, though Ryōko only agrees to act because Akira also agrees to act alongside her. Fumi and Haruka become friends, and Haruka confides in Fumi that she suspects her older sister Orie may like women. Not knowing how to respond, Fumi seeks advice from Akira, but ends up confessing her love for her instead. Kyōko does not want Kō to break off the engagement, but he ends up finally breaking up with her. The play goes well and everyone praises the actress' performances. Over summer vacation, Akira suggests to Fumi that they go out together after thinking deeply about it.
Characters Main characters
Fumi is a first-year student at Matsuoka Girl's High School, and is a tall, shy girl prone to crying. Fumi comes back to the town she grew up in and she meets, without realizing it, her childhood friend Akira Okudaira. When they were much younger, Akira had been Fumi's bodyguard, keeping her out of harm and consoling her when she cried. Fumi is a lesbian and had her first romantic relationship with her older female cousin Chizu Hanashiro, with whom she had sex. Soon after Fumi moves back to Kamakura, she finds out Chizu will soon marry a man she has never met. Not long after meeting Yasuko Sugimoto in the literature club, Fumi develops a crush on Yasuko, who later asks her out.
Akira, nicknamed "Ah" by some of her friends, is an innocent and cheerful girl in her first-year at Fujigaya Girls Academy. She was Fumi's best friend in elementary school and rekindles that relationship upon meeting her again 10 years later. She acts as a main source of advice for Fumi. Akira joins the drama club because her friend Kyōko Ikumi is a member of it. She often talks about food and gives advice, and dislikes scary stories or things that test her courage. Unexpectedly and unintentionally, Akira usually spills secrets about her friends to other people when they ask her questions about them. Her intentions are pure, and only discusses them to help her friends out. However, this sometimes causes problems for them instead.
Fujigaya students
Kyōko is a reckless girl who has eyes only for Yasuko. She is in the same class as Akira and is a member of the drama club. She has been dubbed as Princess for her charm, and is also skilled in sewing, art, tennis and acting. Many students look up to Kyōko in the same way Kyōko looks up to Yasuko. Kyōko is engaged (in name only) to Kō Sawanoi, a college student. This engagement was pushed for by Kyōko's mother while Kyōko and Kō were still young, and not all of Kō's relatives are happy about it.
Ayako is a third-year student when Akira joins Fujigaya. She is a member of the drama club and plays Catherine opposite Yasuko's Heathcliffe in the Drama Festival production of Wuthering Heights. After graduation, she goes to study abroad in England.
Kaori is a senior and the president of the drama club in Akira's first year. She regularly scolds the club's absent advisor, Masanori Kagami, for not showing a deeper interest in the club.
Haruka is a girl who joins Fujigaya as a student one year below Akira and becomes a new member of the drama club. She has an endearing personality that makes it easy for her to become friendly with anyone, though she is prone to making silly mistakes. Many students, especially Kyōko, remark on how similar Haruka is to how Akira was when she first came to Fujigaya. Haruka has an older sister, Orie, who is in a romantic relationship with Hinako Yamashina, a science teacher at Fujigaya. Haruka's family owns an old hot springs inn.
Ryōko is a tall girl who sits beside Akira in class in their second year. She has a gentle, quiet personality and enjoys reading; she's a library aide at Fujigaya. Her acting talents are noticed while she's reading aloud (to herself) Deer Cry Pavilion, a play that the Drama Club intends to put on that year. She ends up playing one of the leads. She says Akira is so small and cute that she wants to put Akira in her pocket.
Matsuoka students
Yasuko is a popular third-year senior at Matsuoka Girl's High School. She is a cool upperclassman and the captain of the basketball team, though Fumi mistakes her for being in the literature club when they first meet. After visiting Fujigaya Girls Academy and rejecting Kyōko's confession, she asks out Fumi, who accepts. Yasuko developed romantic feelings for a teacher, Masanori Kagami, when she was attending Fujigaya. After his rejection, she switched schools and changed focus from drama to basketball. Yasuko has three older sisters who all attended Fujigaya: Shinako, Kazusa, and Kuri.
Pon is a member of Fumi's first-year class and the first person to approach her. With her middle school friends Mogii and Yassan, she wants to form a drama club at Matsuoka. She tries to get Fumi to join, but Fumi isn't interested. Pon has a bright, frank personality and wears her hair in a shoulder-length bob cut. She is a bit on the clumsy side and has a hard time competing against Kyōko in tennis. She later turns out to be a talented script writer, which impresses Fumi.
Mogii is a member of the Matsuoka Drama Club with her friends Pon and Yassan. She has a gentle personality and wears her hair in a shoulder-length wavy style. She is the only one of her friends to be put into a separate class in their second year. Miwa becomes interested in Akira's brother Shinobu and the two start dating around the end of her first year of high school. Akira finds this awkward, but she and Mogii remain friends.
Yassan is president of the 3-person drama club at Matsuoka. She has thick eyebrows and boyish-short, frizzy hair. She likes to test people's courage or scaring them by either participating in a game of "test of courage" or telling ghost stories. Despite this, she gets emotional very easily when it comes to things she cares about, like her friends or the drama club.
Kaori is a classmate and friend of Yasuko. She's in the literature club with Fumi. Kaori and Yasuko's friendship is the reason Yasuko hangs out in the Literature Club room, and therefore the reason Yasuko and Fumi met.
Other characters Okudaira family : Akira's older brother, who attends college. He is constantly worried about his sister, and often takes her places in his car, though Akira often gets very annoyed at how protective her brother is towards her. When she was younger, he would sneak into her futon at night; now he tries to follow her around when he thinks she might be meeting with guys. He suspects Kō of being interested in Akira. Later, Shinobu starts dating Mogii and relaxes a little about Akira. : Akira and Shinobu's mother, who tends to get easily excited. She often yells at Shinobu for his inappropriate behavior regarding Akira, but she also worries about Akira, just like Shinobu does. (She's just less protective about it.) Her sister describes Sakiko as the black sheep of the family. Sakiko was friends with Yoshie years ago, and regularly visits with her now that Fumi's family has moved back. : Akira and Shinobu's father. He doesn't appear much, but he seems to have a personality similar to Shinobu's. He's a salaryman working for an IT company. : Keiko is Akira and Shinobu's aunt, as well as Sakiko's sister. She currently lives in the outskirts of Yokohama, but she graduated from Fujigaya. Keiko and Sakiko don't always get along because of snobbish comments Keiko makes, while Akira is afraid of Keiko's forceful personality. When Shinobu introduces Mogii to her, Keiko overwhelms Mogii so much that she basically hides behind Shinobu. Manjōme family : Fumi's mother. She is good friends with Sakiko Okudaira. : Fumi's father. He works at a bank. His job transfers him back to Kamakura, which brings Fumi and Akira back together. : Fumi's cousin who lived near Fumi's family while she was going to college. She and Fumi were very close as children and developed a more physically intimate relationship once they were older. Fumi is in love with Chizu, but Chizu chooses to marry instead, breaking Fumi's heart. Chizu's first child looks a lot like Fumi did as a baby. : Fumi's strict grandmother, who used to treat Akira like her own granddaughter (that is, strictly). She died two years before Fumi's family moved back to Kamakura. When Fumi is feeling bad about herself, she sometimes hears her own negative thoughts as if her grandmother were saying them. Sugimoto family : Yasuko's mother. She often pretends to be scandalized by her daughters' antics, but then says the most scandalous things herself. Despite this, she shows a caring side to Fumi when she visits. : The oldest Sugimoto sister, who likes to joke and tease Yasuko. She attended Fujigaya at the same time as Hinako; Orie had a crush on Shinako in school before Hinako confessed. Shinako was quite popular in school and often had younger students admiring her and wanting to date her. She dated a female student named Kaoruko, who broke up with her, but it seems they got back together several times. Shinako regularly had many girlfriends and says she loved all of them. : Kazusa is an artist. She has a kind personality and appears very feminine, except when she paints. For a short time, she worked as an art teacher at Fujigaya after graduating from there. While teaching, she met her future husband Masanori Kagami, also a teacher. She knows two of her sisters loved her husband when they were younger, but this doesn't appear to bother her. She also teaches Kyōko private art lessons and suspects Kyōko's feelings for Yasuko.