The Beautifully Animated Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Finally Finds Its Way To Netflix

By Elijah Gonzalez | September 5, 2025 | 9:30am

Anime Features The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity

The Beautifully Animated Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Finally Finds Its Way To Netflix

If there’s a recurring theme throughout the first episode of CloverWorks’ latest project, The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. For his whole life, Rintaro Tsumugi has been seen as something he’s not; due to his imposing looks, he’s been typecast by those around him as a brute. Of course, in reality, he’s a sincere kid who always puts the well-being of those around him first, even if constant assumptions have made him self-conscious and somewhat withdrawn.

Because of these assumptions, he’s even leaned into the image of a “yankii” or delinquent: he dyes his hair blonde, wears an earring, and tries to carry himself with an outward aloofness. While he has friends at school who know that he isn’t the least bit violent or mean-spirited, Rintaro still hides pieces of himself from them. For instance, he doesn’t tell his buddies that his mom runs a bakery because, in the past, kids would make rude remarks about how “ridiculous” it was for someone who looks like him to be associated with such a cutesy family business.

Intent on carrying on with his guarded, withdrawn existence out of fear of getting hurt, it’s not until his meet-cute with fellow high school student Kaoruko Waguri that he finds someone who sees who he really is. And so begins a charming romance story that has excelled thanks to well-written characters and strong visuals from CloverWorks, who continue to prove themselves as one of the anime industry’s most skilled studios.

In addition to producing the currently airing My Dress Up Darling, here, they similarly succeed in bringing out the big emotions of adolescence through skilled direction and animation. There are grandiose visual gestures, like a symbolic flashback presented in shadow and silhouette, that expertly place us inside the negative past experiences that define Rintaro’s current behavior. But then there are also plenty of more subtle aesthetic choices as well, like a shot where Rintaro is visually separated from his friends by a bag that sits in the foreground, aesthetically communicating how he keeps a wall up between them even as they offer to help.

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And it’s not just the heavier sequences that shine, because the bubblier moments are incredibly charming as well, like when we see the goofy look on Kaoruko’s face as she stares at Rintaro’s uneaten cake—in another play on how looks are deceiving, she’s capable of downing an impressive amount of sweets despite being very small. These touches all very quickly communicate the demeanors and thought processes of both Rintaro and Kaoruko, putting us in their headspaces.

But of course, Rintaro’s internal anxieties and lack of self-confidence aren’t the only barriers between this pair and their relationship, because there’s also very much a star-crossed lovers angle to the story: they go to schools that absolutely hate each other. Rintaro goes to an all-boys school, Chidori Public High, which is a place for “idiots,” as he puts it, while Kaoruko attends the all-girls Kikyo Private Academy, a prestigious institution mostly attended by the daughters of the country’s elites. The members of Kikyo Private Academy express a general sense of disdain for their next-door neighbors, and the boys mostly reciprocate this bad-mouthing. It all sets up to at least lightly touch on issues of gender and class, showcasing how Rintaro and Kaoruko’s peers impose certain types of expectations that they both need to overcome.

However, while I mostly only have positive things to say about the actual content of this series, Netflix’s rollout strategy has been curious to say the least. While the show started airing on Japanese television on July 6, we’re only now getting an official English-language release for the first episode on Sunday, September 7. Most streamers that license anime these days, like Crunchyroll or Hulu, tend to “simulcast” series, meaning they add individual episodes almost immediately after they premiere on Japanese TV stations.

While Netflix has started to take this approach more consistently, as evidenced by their current slate of weekly releases that includes The Summer Hikaru Died, Dandadan, and Witch Watch, for some reason, The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity drew the short end of the stick. Even more strangely, instead of waiting for the season to be complete and dropping all of the episodes at once, like they usually do when they don’t simulcast, they will instead be airing the show weekly starting this Sunday, essentially with a nine-week delay from Japanese TV.

While this may sound like a minor inconvenience, it makes it that much easier for a series to get lost in the shuffle: over 200 anime air each year, and many of the most dedicated viewers watch series episode by episode as they’re released. Anime tend to run for 13-26 episodes, starting and ending around the same time across, for example, the current summer anime season began in early July, and most shows will wrap up by the end of September. Basically, many anime fans are looking to start new shows at a very particular time, and if you miss that window, they may not pick it up at all.

Another issue that happens when licensors don’t simulcast a series is that many of the most seasoned viewers will take matters into their own hands, finding ways to watch fan-translated versions of the show instead of waiting for its official release. And beyond how you feel about the effects and ethics of piracy, this type of rollout inevitably fragments online discussions about the show, which in turn hinders its ability to gain the cultural momentum it needs to stand out.

Even if viewers who watch anime as they’re released are in the minority, it’s these wonderfully dedicated little freaks who frequently help push a series towards the mainstream. Frankly, I can’t wrap my head around why Netflix would pick up licensing rights to this show, only to start releasing it weekly three-fourths of the way through the ongoing anime season, a summer season that is absolutely stacked no less.

Thankfully, The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity is good enough that it might find an audience despite Netflix’s strange release process. The series does an excellent job conveying why its leading pair mean so much to each other, as CloverWorks utilizes smooth character animation and bold imagery to convey what’s going on inside their heads. Just like its protagonists, it’s kind and thoughtfully presented. It’s a good thing that people can finally actually watch it.

The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity premieres Sunday, September 7 on Netflix.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.