“The path ahead is still a long one. I’m still not skilled at imbuing magic. Even if I have ideas, I can’t give them form.”

Dahlia in Bloom is one of those rare romance anime that sprawl across so many genres that it certainly can argue it has something for everyone. However, I found something about this show wasn’t clicking with me. I was certainly enjoying each episode, and there are multiple elements to it that I like, but I began walking away from each episode with an underlying cognitive dissonance. Some unidentified aspect of the show felt unrefined, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t until I was most of the way through it that I figured it out.

Dahlia in Bloom is (ironically, given it’s about crafting) a jack of all trades, but master of none. The show is a decent show about crafting, a decent romance, a decent isekai, but none of its disparate parts are elevated beyond the rest. Such an issue doesn’t make the show bad, by any stretch of imagination, but it left me mildly unsatisfied. While it certainly has a charming aesthetic and fun characters, it’s hard to recommend Dahlia in Bloom to anyone who isn’t a devoted fan of fantasy shojo or magical artificers. Should this get a second season, I might attempt to dive back in, but I fear, without a greater sense of focus, I’d be prone to drop it.

The show follows Dahlia, a young woman who had previously been an office worker in modern day Japan. After dying from exhaustion at her desk (at this rate even Truck-kun will get killed by overwork), she is reborn in a fantasy world as the daughter of a magical inventor. As she grows up, her father sets her up with his apprentice, who is the son of a family friend. However, that apprentice, Tobias, ends up backing out of the engagement on the eve of their wedding. Dahlia complies with little opposition, as she realizes she never had romantic feelings for Tobias. Then she meets a knight, and forms her own company, and enters into a patent dispute… This description is becoming meandering, but that serves to illustrate one of my earlier points.

The show has a lot of irons in a virtual cauldron of fires, but nothing feels central. Is this a show about crafting magical items? The crafting and experimentation often feels secondary to the reactions of the characters to Dahlia’s inventions. Is it a romance between Dahlia and the knight, Wolfred? Well, neither of them are romantically minded, so the pacing of their relationship feels glacial, and it regularly takes a backseat to business machinations. It’s possible the show is meant to be a slice-of-life that follows Dahlia as she seeks to become an expert craftsman, but the stories are too busy to match the laid back tone one would expect from such a series. If it was pursuing an intensive approach to that topic, the crafting shouldn’t breeze by so quickly. Any one of these stories could serve as a good focal point, but once again we return to the jack of all trades and master of none issue.

If it sounds like I’m being hard on the show, it’s only because I felt it had the potential to be great. As it stands, it’s pretty good, but is awash in unfulfilled potential. The show has its strengths. Dahlia is a fun character whose curiosity tends to exceed her caution, much to the chagrin of those around her. It’s fun watching her gradually build alliances as she steps into her own as an inventor.

If there is one character who didn’t work for me, it was Wolfred himself. I think my problem with him is that the show paired two aloof individuals who are both lacking in romantic tendencies. As such, he comes across like a milquetoast romantic lead, with little to bring to the table aside from an occasional crafting idea. The pairing has its occasional moments, and I warmed up to him as the show went on, but I still wouldn’t call him interesting.

You might expect Dahlia’s ex-fiance was set up to be an antagonist, but outside of an underhanded dealing or two, things become largely copacetic. It’s a shame, because while a series doesn’t require a villain, having an antagonistic force might have offered some conflict to help focus the proceedings.

The studio behind this is Typhoon Graphics, whom I’d never heard of before. The closest I’d come to encountering their work was last year’s My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer which had been on my radar, but I never watched any of it (Was that actually last fall?! Time is strange. I legitimately thought that was last season). For a relatively new studio, this isn’t a bad production. There are occasional animation shortcuts and mediocre models later in the season, but I’ve certainly seen worse. Ultimately, the quality is middle-of-the-road, but it has a pleasant aesthetic which can earn some forgiveness. I noticed an odd habit where, aside from the basic shading done on the character models, the production would place a shadow gradient in post, presumably to match the lighting of the environment. It wasn’t distracting, but it caught my eye enough for me to wonder about it. Seriously, you can see it in every screenshot I’ve taken. The OP and ED are pleasant and mildly catchy, though I don’t foresee them sticking in anyone’s memory for too long.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• This is an odd one. I enjoyed coming back to it each week, but towards the end I felt a nagging feeling that something wasn’t working for me. Once I started picking at it, the issues began to pile up.
• Typhoon Graphics has another show airing this fall, Haigakura. Maybe I’ll check it out, but from a cursory glance it looked a bit generic.
• There is currently no word of a sequel to this. As I mentioned previously, I’m not inherently opposed to sampling more of the story, but I question where they can go with it. There’s no significant conflict or goals.
• I did recommend this to Caveman. I was feeling more positive towards it at the time, though I’d probably still recommend it now, due to his interest in artificers, and his wife’s appreciation of shojo romance.
• My rating is slightly odd, since I don’t think there is an episode that I’d give as low a rating as 3/5, but when everything is combined together, it’s hard to go any higher.

Dahlia in Bloom has many good components, but unfortunately, it never quite lives up to the sum of its parts. I wish I ended this show as positively as I had started it. For fans of magical crafting or fantasy romance, it’s worth at least testing the waters, but for everyone else, you’ll probably be better served elsewhere.

Score: 3/5