The Blue Star on that Day is still one of the best yuri I know
I thought I'd post more in May, but the month was harder on me than I expected. Still, I feel like I need to write a little bit on my reread of a yuri that brought me unparalleled amounts of gentle, soft joy in the past few weeks: The Blue Star on that Day, also known under its Japanese name as Ano Koro no Aoi Hoshi, by Aoikani.
I actually already posted about that same yuri back during my Februaryuri 2024 review batch, and I'm not sure I will bring much more to the table than what I wrote back then... But rereading it was such a fantastic experience that I feel compelled to write about it again, if only a little.
The Blue Star on that Day was among the very first yuri I read when I started getting into the genre back in 2021; and I've always kept it in my mind as possibly the best high school yuri I know. Rereading it now and catching up on its latest volumes released so far, and even after reading many more yuri mangas since, I can firmly say it again: this is my favorite high school yuri, and one of my favorite yuri mangas, period.
I don't exactly know how to convey what it makes me feel without relying on its art first. Its atmosphere is one of its most immediately visible strong points; but also I just really, really like Aoikani's style overall: coming back to it recently felt like coming back home. So many of the manga's pages and moments clearly stayed in my head through the years, and reuniting with main characters Umi and Shou felt like seeing old friends again.
That being said, I also kept this yuri close to my heart because it felt real. Before mentioning anything else, there's notably something particularly moving in finding sapphic neurodivergent characters in fiction, and its deuteragonist Shou is by far one of the most relatable ones I know1.
Her portrayal is on point, first and foremost through her obvious love and deep knowledge of sea animals - a special interest that I find mirrored in several close ones of mine. But her neurodivergence is also, as I see it refracted through my own experience, tangible in so many other elements... including some really small ones, like her slicing veggies extremely evenly or winning at memory games she learnt the rules of minutes ago.
And then there's the more obvious ones - like her general difficulty with several social cues, or the bullying. Said bullying is definitely present here or there in the series, and it feels painfully real; but never in a way that is miserabilist or uncomfortably insistent. On the contrary, seeing Shou build a romantic relationship with Umi, and more generally a support network around their shared friends, surrounding herself with a group that effortlessly accomodates to her and loves her how she is, feels in many ways like the manga is seeing me and trying to give me a hug.
And the manga is trying to give me a hug. It's incredibly wholesome. Not in a "nothing difficult ever happens" way, but in a way that feels grounded: through the simple joys of finding out that the girl you like loves you back, of holding hands by the shore, of sleeping next to each other on a school trip, of teaching her new things about the sea, and of caring about each other. Finding hope and excitement and joy in being together despite the harder things going on is something I desperately need in fiction; and this manga captures it so, so well. There's just so much in this that aligns with my own experience.
I don't know, seeing Umi give Shou so many looks full of love as the latter infodumps starry-eyed on things like argonaut shells or seagulls or otoliths for a while just warms my heart so much. I have given that look to people I love and been given that look in turn; and seeing it in manga strikes something very special in me.
But there's even more to it than that. I haven't talked about Umi enough; and as our point of view character, we see her get through an incredibly realistic discovery of her own lesbianism. On that point, The Blue Star on that Day effortlessly does a lot of things that many yuri mangas stumble with, in my experience. It showcases big and small moments of attraction in ways I find absolutely perfect - I actually lack words that are not blnkknlkbknjbnn keyboard mashes to express correctly my feelings about many of these scenes. Its confessions and relationship conversations and kiss scenes in particular are full of great setup and dialogue, but so much of their reactions at large just feel so real in their depictions of how it feels like to be reduced to a blushing lesbian puddle.
With all this, I also appreciate how the manga's plot doesn't revolve on jealousy or relationship issues2 - just on two girls figuring out their relationship, with all the nerve-wracking and exciting moments that this process can imply, and being happy to exist near each other.
Overall, the story and paneling and art all blend together so well: they convey perfectly how momentous and loaded each interaction with someone you love can be, making me feel so many things in empathy3.
Maybe the final thing I can pinpoint on that topic is how this yuri, so far, always has the characters asking and voicing their explicit consent and checking in with each other during romantic moments. This almost never happens in yuri at large: pushy characters still remain way too much of a tried and true archetype. But here, we see them asking whether they can kiss each other, and communicate their wants and boundaries more generally, in a way that feels absolutely momentous to me. It's just-- it's just normal. It's just here. Of course you'd ask your partner if they want to be kissed. You care for them.
I think this heavily contribue to why these two girls' relationship feels so soft and wholesome and real: it shows a very realistic level of mutual care.
Look, I could just fill the rest of this post with pages from this manga and say how much they click with me - how deeply I know that precious feeling of safety of finding a close one to bloom with. Or I could just ramble about how so many of these moments make me want to go on a date with my lover.
Instead, I will conclude by stating the obvious thing I haven't said enough before now: The Blue Star on that Day is one of those yuri where the entire yuri is aquarium yuri (figuratively speaking; so far they only actually go to aquariums twice).
Under many aspects, this is a good thing: it works extremely well as Shou's special interest and as a general theme, it teaches us readers a lot of stuff, it allows Aoikani to channel their own passion for sea creatures, and it's atmospheric in a way that goes beyond the great staple of the yuri aquarium date.
Maybe the one regrettable side effect of this, from an antispeciesist point of view, is how the manga does promote a few aquariums. Strictly speaking, I understand very much how Shou can be starstruck seeing a whale shark live, for instance; yet sadly, much like zoos, aquariums almost always4 provide poor or inadequate treatment for their animals, and this is at the very least something that's worth bearing in mind. More insidiously, because of their sheer structure, these places also make the visitors more likely to see nonhuman animals as "wonders of nature to marvel at" instead of living, sentient individuals forced to live and die in captivity.
Incidentally, this cognitive dissonance is very much present in The Blue Star on that Day, since the two protagonists can be amazed by some fish then joke about eating them a few seconds later; and they aren't particularly worried for whale sharks in tanks, for instance, while I really think they should be considering the often bleak history of keeping whale sharks captive.
... But, yeah. Aside from that, this manga is simply fantastic. If you're looking for a fiction depicting the realistic development of a gentle and caring romantic relationship with the excitement of high school sapphic love, and if you're interested in a generous scoop of sea animal facts on top and the elation of finding kind people to bloom with as a neurodivergent person, I think this is the manga for you.
As The Blue Star on that Day is a self-published passion project, it has no fixed release schedule, and sadly it doesn't exist in physical form; but you can freely download the existing volumes in Japanese here, or read their English fan-translation5 here or here. Above all, I highly encourage you to support the author on their Pixiv (which has various support plans, similar to Patreon). Recent volumes have seen the special thanks list of highest-tier backers grow and grow, and I'm so happy for Aoikani.
Sometimes I can't fully believe how such a passion project has clicked with me this much time and again, and how accurately it depicts the safety I feel and have felt in sapphic neurodivergent relationships. It is one of the very best yuri out there in my opinion; and with each new chapter, I'm endlessly thankful that it exists.
I'll probably be quite busy in June, and am not sure if I will be able to post more this month despite my many post ideas. Still, I wish you a kind and fierce pride month - with close ones to help you keep fighting for our lives; and with soft queer readings to make you feel seen, and make the fight feel worth it.
words like "neurodivergent", "autistic" or neighboring ones are not used directly, at least so far - as is almost always the case in the current manga and anime landscape. Still, Shou is very obviously considered "different" from all her classmates, and this difference is so clearly woven into the story and spills into so many elements of her life that I can't help but think Aoikani may be neurodivergent themselves to write her so well. It just comes out so obviously through reading, despite not being explicitly named.↩
That's not always a bad thing, of course. But some yuri, and particularly high school yuri (and including otherwise great yuri), can sometimes be a bit formulaic in the way they make relationship troubles part of their plot.↩
There are too many good things in this story to mention them all, and I'd better let you discover them yourself! but among the ones that come to mind in the more recent volumes, there's a school trip arc that feels particularly thick with the immensity of budding attraction for instance - and gosh, I, wow. I think I have very few memories this vivid of the common romance trope of "school trip" arcs, with characters in love and still figuring out their relationship in the midst of it. The other two that come to mind right now are probably the unmissable queer webcomic and series that is Heartstopper; and in a different context with college student characters, one of my absolute favorite yuri that is How Do We Relationship? - that I may post about again when I've reread and finally finished its last few volumes sometime this summer.↩
Even the aquariums dedicated to research and conservation efforts I've otherwise heard great things about are guilty of this, sadly.↩
the English fan-translation of the first few chapters is, I believe, a bit rough at times; but please, please don't let that deter you.↩