Blue Period: An Anime for Art Lovers

Yatora Yaguchi is a regular high school student whose goals are unclear after he graduates. Until one day, he became fascinated by a beautiful artwork painted by a student from the art club. Yatora decides to take a risk, dive into the art world and do whatever it takes to learn the process of making art. As well as, taking up a cram school to prepare him to get into a very exclusive art university.  

Oh boy! this anime is giving me flash backs to my collage era. As a former art student, I can relate to what Yatora is going through. I can relate to the struggles and stress (mostly procrastination) of being an art student. When he takes drawing lessons for the first time, I’m like: yeah, I’ve been there too. I took drawing 101 classes. You start with drawing in charcoal/graphite and learning techniques such as knowing your lighting, shadows, and training yourself to “draw what you see, not what you think you see.” Then, we do a line-up of other people’s drawings and critic their works. When you think that you have it all together, until you step back and look at your work and then you realize, “oh shit! it’s so bad and this is embarrassing.” Then, you repeat the nightmare all over again. But now my hand drawing skills... still needs work... and I do practice sometimes. I’m neither good at painting nor working with other mixed media art. Eventually, I ended up pursuing digital art and graphic design instead. 

Yatora picks oil painting as his main media, getting inspired by one of his class mate Mori-sempai’s oil painting. Yatora decides to apply for a scholarship to attend the Tokyo University of the Arts (TUA) , most prestigious art school in Japan. It’s also a school that is very selective and only accepts 1 in 200 applicants.

Yatora is an inexperienced artist, he takes a prep art course to learn what’s required to pass the tests to get accepted into TUA. As well as being surrounded by other talented art students who he has to compete with. Yatora has self-doubts and he believes he’s not good enough. He gets frustrated at himself of why his artwork is not as great as the other students. I can fully understand where he’s coming from. It’s all part of the art journey which includes blood, sweat and tears. It’s hard work and it requires a lot of patience. Yes, there will be other people who are more talented than you and that’s okay. It motivates me to keep practicing and improve my skills. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, as long as you have passion and enjoy the craft, that’s all that really matters. 

Similar to Yatora, I was also late getting onto the creative path. I never took art or design that seriously when I was younger and I never imagined myself as an amateur artist (I still have a long ways to go). For many years, I’ve felt lost and didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I’m so glad that I was able to find one thing that I am good at (never gave up on it) and be proud of my accomplishments. I’ve dealt with many emotions of the fear of failing and over coming self-doubt. What I learned from my experience is that it’s okay to fail or be rejected, it doesn’t make you a bad person. I’ve learned not to worry about other people and just focus on things that works for me, just keep going, and keep practicing. Things will get better overtime and you’re not alone in this struggle. 

The one thing that I didn’t like about the anime is the pacing is really boring. The story is  slow to progress in between Yatora’s art lessons to interacting with his peers. Not until we get close to the final exams where the stakes are much higher and something interesting is happening. It has the usual student drama: everyone has insecurities, roadblocks and a journey of self-discovery. I don’t mind the melodrama, but it sucks all the fun out if it. I understand these characters are under high stress, everyone is working hard and they have no time dilly-dally. Compare it to say, Nodame Cantabile has a bunch of college students who are studying classical music. It has a nice balance of comedy, eccentric characters and melodrama which makes it watchable, even if you don’t know anything about classical music. I kind of wished Blue Period had more fun with the subject. The processes of making art should be fun, exciting, doing crazy experimental stuff and have a laugh. These characters should be able to make fun of themselves for their bad or good art. (I would also recommend Aoi Honoo)  

I do appreciate the series for realistically portraying a life of a struggling student artist. This show is for art lovers and any up-and-coming artist who wants to get into this field. I wonder if the story gets more interesting after Yatora gets accepted in TUA. I’m not sure if I want continue watching this, if it gets another season, because the dull plot is turning me off. If there's no 2nd season, at least the manga is officially licensed in English and it’s available.      
 

Trailer

 Adaptation  Manga by Tsubasa Yamaguchi
 Released  Oct.02.2021
 Episodes  12
 Where Netflix