Blue Period Review – Learning to Be Naked

One of Blue Period’s greatest achievements is the level of depth it has for a short series. One of the series’s best elements is its honest and realistic approach to the depiction of the journey of someone who expresses themselves artistically. In this case, we mean all those who draw and paint and everything in between. It achieves this through taking us on a journey with characters who are fleshed out in ways that are incredibly emotional, engaging and enable us to empathize. This is especially true of Yaguchi Yatora, our protagonist who develops a love for art in the course of the series. Yatora is already an incredibly complex character in the opening scenes of the first episode, as we see him grapple with his understanding of reality, his place in the world, his apparent social sidelining alongside his friends and the weight of expectation.

When he first sees Mori-senpai’s painting of angels in the art classroom, he is blown away by the depth of the colour, which begins Yatora’s relationship with the colour blue. He notices blue hints in the green-tinted skin of the angel on the left side of the painting, and with a bit of coaxing from the art teacher, he channels the inspiration into his “My Favourite Scenery” project for his art class. The result is a blue interpretation of a scene Yatora sees all the time – Shibuya in the early morning. This scene is linked to Yatora’s various outings with his friend group, which would often linger into the early hours as the four self-proclaimed delinquents kill time with zealous support of the Samurai Blue (Japan’s National football team), cigarette smoking and copious amounts of drinking. The relationship between the things an artist values and the art they create is really important, and when the artwork is completed and hung up for display among the various other projects from students in Yatora’s class. An emotional moment happens when his friend, Koi-chan, correctly understands the painting to be an interpretation of Shibuya in the morning. Yatora is moved to tears by the fact that he has effectively conveyed his true feelings for the very first time in his life. “For the first time, I feel like I’m having an actual conversation with people.”

Throughout Blue Period, Yatora is forced to reckon with the juxtaposition of talent and genius to effort and persistence and accept that he’s just a normal human being. However, frustrated by his own lack of ability, confidence and inherent genius, Yatora is determined to work so hard that the unmistakable chasm between himself and a genius is reduced to total insignificance. All artists can relate to feeling underwhelmed or even angry at their perceived lack of progress or ability, and Blue Period has been especially good at depicting these various artistic neuroses while also having Yatora’s progress be realistic or at the very least, believable and not based on some kind of superhuman genius.