The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity

Episode 2

Children aren't born with prejudice; they're taught it, and despite what they'd like to think, teenagers are still technically children. That's amply in evidence in the second episode of The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity, which works hard at showing us how Kaoruko is free of the anti-Chidori bias that plagues not only the Kikyo students, but also the Chidori boys themselves. Part of the point is, of course, to show us how innocent and perfect Kaoruko is, but it's also to demonstrate that people have been putting Rintaro and his friends down for so long that they've begun to buy into the denigration. Rintaro can't imagine that Kaoruko would still want to be friends with him after learning where he goes to school, while the Kikyo girls can't fathom that she'd want to be anywhere near one of the Chidori boys. It's textbook prejudice, and while I'm sure the easiest analogy is Romeo and Juliet, it goes deeper than that. Plus, I really dislike that play, so I try to avoid using it as a reference whenever possible.

Rintaro's internalized bias is probably the most significant piece of this episode. It's great that Kaoruko won't let other people's stupid assumptions stand in the way of her relationship with a boy whose mom owns a bakery. (And who can blame her? Those cakes look good.) But that's pretty par for the course for this subgenre of romance, where something superficial keeps potential lovers apart. It's much more important that we see how Rintaro has managed to start believing the garbage people say about him and his school, because there's absolutely nothing to support it in the real world. His friends aren't thugs; they're not even mean. He's not out picking fights; he spends most of his free time working in the bakery. The only markers of dissipation that he has are his large build, bleached hair, and Chidori uniform, and only one of those is something he can do anything about. So why is he acting as if he's got the plague?

I have to give Rintaro's mom a lot of credit, because she's the one person behaving rationally across these two episodes. That makes a certain degree of sense, because she's also the only adult character who gets any real screentime, but we do have to assume that it's the grown-ups who are feeding the Kikyo girls their anti-Chidori ideas, so it's still significant. But she's all for Rintaro and Kaoruko being friends, and she tells it to Rintaro straight: he's making the same sort of assumptions about Kaoruko based on how she looks and where she goes to school that people make about him. Where he thought he was saving her from him, what he's really doing is proving those negative points by upsetting her. He's behaving like the person people believe him to be.

As of this episode, those Kikyo girls need a major lesson in judging people by appearances and socio-economic status. I can't be the only person who wanted to yell at them as they were dragging Kaoruko away, being far meaner than any Chidori boy in the process, not even deigning to treat Usami like a human being. Kaoruko may be a little too sweet and perfect right now, but I'm rooting for her and Rintaro to smash down the artificial barriers between their schools…and if they manage to form a relationship as well, so much the better.

Rating:

Sub Thoughts: Whereas the screener I received of episode one was for the English dub, I watched episode two subtitled, and I liked the Japanese language track much better. Mostly that's because of Bijou Middlebrooks' stilted performance as Kaoruko; I'm actually pretty ambivalent about the other voices. I'll likely stick with the sub from here on.

The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity is currently streaming on Netflix.