The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity

Episode 5

I know I don't always watch anime (or anything) to see real life play out onscreen, but there's still something refreshingly lovely about how everyone in The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity is so human. They have real feelings and act and react based on them in recognizable ways. Usami is more than just an airhead, Saku isn't the cool guy with no discernible emotions, and Subaru worries about her actions, even if she believes in them. This episode does a remarkable job of showing that, as it jumps between characters, it doesn't feel disjointed. Rather, it serves to highlight their very humanity.

The major event is undoubtedly Saku freaking out over Kaoruko's note in Rintaro's notebook. He's genuinely pleased that his friend passed his tests, but seeing that little pink Post-it really brings him down. At first, it's easy to assume that what he's feeling is jealousy: he's supposed to be The Smart One of their friend group, whom everyone turns to for help, so what's Rintaro doing going to some Kikyo girl? While that still may be part of it (and I think it probably is), the real issue is that Rintaro refuses to talk to Saku about it. If he'd just said what was going on, Saku would have understood, or at least made an effort to. But because Rintaro tells Saku that he doesn't want to talk about Kaoruko, he deals a blow to the other boy's understanding of their friendship. In Saku's mind, friends tell each other everything. Rintaro's refusal feels like an outright rejection of their friendship.

That Rintaro himself doesn't fully understand why he didn't want to talk about Kaoruko with his buds helps to round out the interaction. It's important to remember that this is the first real friend group he's ever had; most of his school life before Chidori was spent feeling like he didn't belong because of the assumptions people made about him. So he doesn't have the social skills to act like Saku's concept of a “good friend” or a “real friend.” Rintaro's deep in the throes of many emotions he's never felt before, and that's throwing him off, and his reaction is to retreat into his shell, where it's safe. The fact that his inclination is always to crouch down and make himself as small as possible speaks volumes: it's safer not to be noticed by people, even people you like.

This helps to further the parallel between Rintaro and Subaru. Although Subaru's situation is at least a little different based on what we know so far, she also acts in ways that reinforce a specific image. But where Rintaro curls inward, Subaru lashes outward; her “at rest” persona is the retiring one filled with uncertainty. That's very clear when she meets Kaoruko at the playground at the end of the episode – she's plainly nervous about what she has to say, and that's because she's feeling guilty about what she did…much like Rintaro is mulling over his words to Saku and Subaru for most of the episode, like having the world's worst song stuck in his head. Subaru is ready to confront that; we'll have to wait to see if Rintaro can bring himself to do the same.

With all of this heaviness in the main plot, Usami is something of a godsend. His golden retriever personality and the way he wears every single thought on his face help to lighten the mood, even as his puppyish antics are all in service of fixing things between his friends. He, too, is a recognizably human character, the peacemaker friend who does his best to help everyone get along in his own, slightly dippy way. If anyone's going to manage to bring people together, I feel like it'll be him.

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