Blue Spring Ride, Manga Recommendation of the Week!

Article at a glance:
Blue Spring Ride explores themes of self-discovery, genuine friendships, and love, with a well-handled narrative that goes beyond a simple romance.
The manga features relatable characters, particularly the main protagonists Futaba and Kou, whose growth and personal journeys are central to the story.
While the art is typical of the shoujo genre and not particularly standout, it effectively complements the story and characters.

Ok, is it just me, or every anime/manga with the word “blue” in the name is fire? Blue Box, Blue Lock, Blue Orchestra, and now, I’ve found another one, Blue Spring Ride. It can’t just be a coincidence, right? Anyway, I found out about this manga recently and oh boy, some of the themes in this were surprisingly heavy. I went in expecting another rom-com but nope, there is some heavy stuff in this manga. And to be honest, I was more than happy to be surprised like that.

So welcome back to another edition of our manga recommendation series. Today we will be talking about Blue Spring Ride. If you want a simple romance manga, this isn’t for you. But if you are looking for something deeper, you will love this. So let’s get started.

Introduction

Blue Spring Ride is written by and illustrated by Sakisaka Io. It was serialized in the Bessatsu Margaret magazine from January 2011 to Feb 2015. It does have an anime adaptation made by Production IG that came out in 2014. And while it is a decent adaptation, it doesn’t cover the whole story. As for the manga, it isn’t very long, coming in at just 53 chapters or 13 volumes.

Plot

Yoshioka Futaga used to get a lot of attention from boys in her middle school days. But this also led to a lot of girls hating her. So for her high school debut, she decided to change her image and started acting unfeminine and indifferent. This does lead to her making some “friends” but are they truly her friends? Things take another wild turn when Futaba’s crush in middle school, Mabuchi Kou enrolls in her high school after years of being “missing”. He does admit to Futaba that their feelings were mutual but Kou is a completely different person.

As you may imagine the story is about finding real friends and love as Futaba also discovers herself. As I mentioned earlier, this manga deals with a lot of heavy stuff. And it is handled really well.

Characters

As you can guess from the plot summary, Futuba’s character arc is front and center in the manga. It is a journey of self-discovery as she tries to find genuine connections. She is incredibly well-written and her growth as a character is engaging. Kou seems like a lost cause at first but when you learn his side of the story, it is pretty understandable why he ended up becoming that way. These two paired with a decent supporting cast and some well-done interactions work wonders for this manga.

Art

The art is nothing special. I am not saying it is bad but it is the typical Shoujo manga art style. I like that art style so I have issues with it. Again, the art is not bad, it just doesn’t stand out much.