The anime was licensed by Right Stuf Inc. At the start of Sweet Blue Flowers, Akira Okudaira, who is an entering high school student into Fujigaya Girls Academy, becomes reacquainted with her childhood friend Fumi Manjōme whom she has not seen for ten years.

Fumi is attending Matsuoka Girl's High School where she quickly becomes friends with a handsome third-year student named Yasuko Sugimoto.

When Akira and her friends enter their second year of high school, an energetic first-year student named Haruka Ōno joins the Fujigaya drama club.

When Takako Shimura was writing her manga Dōnika Naru Hibi, she became interested in a story between girls, leading her to create Sweet Blue Flowers.

While she felt that the story focus should be on girls for yuri works, Shimura also wanted to introduce some males since she thought it would add an interesting aspect to the series.

With a guide book of Kamakura in hand, Shimura thought of various locations that would later appear in Sweet Blue Flowers, such as the café that the characters frequent.

[5] Shimura also used the Komaba Park estate in Meguro, Tokyo for the interior of Fujigaya, such as with the staircase featured in chapter eleven.

[7] Shortly after the first manga volume was released in December 2005, Matsukura went to a Media Factory producer, who also agreed to collaborating on a Sweet Blue Flowers anime.

For the series composition, Matsukura thought it would appear unexpected to pick Fumihiko Takayama, though he was asked to participate, because he likes shōjo manga.

[7] Takayama initially suggested not to produce an anime, because of the difficulty in maintaining the feeling of the original work, and wanted to let someone else deal with it.

It allegedly sold poorly, prompting the editors to reply, "Our warehouse is full of flowers" when asked in the 2018 Barcelona Manga Convention about the possibility of licensing other yuri titles.

[25] The anime has been licensed by The Right Stuf International and was released on subtitled DVD under their Lucky Penny label on March 5, 2013.

Fuji TV producer Kōji Yamamoto revealed that a second season is not planned due to low DVD sales of the anime.

[3] Sweet Blue Flowers was featured as Anime News Network's Import of the Month in May 2007 where it was described as "the best of its genre" that "makes stuff like MariMite and Strawberry Panic!

Smith of Mania described the anime as presenting the story in a "sincere and open way...without any gimmicks," as opposed to other yuri-themed series that are "either heavily comedic in nature, or have disguised the relationship in one way or another."

"[31] The Sweet Blue Flowers anime was selected as a recommended work by the awards jury of the thirteenth Japan Media Arts Festival in 2009.

[32] Additionally, Beatrice Viri of CBR praised the manga for exploring LGBTQ themes, and called it "a sweet romance that many will enjoy.