Review of Blue Period

This review will be spoiler free. Blue Period is an interesting anime to me, because on the surface it appears to be pretty formulaic, but actually has themes and messages that you don't typically see in the art/drama genre. Let's take this one at a time. The plot is about the main character Yatora discovering his love of painting and his efforts to make it into the Tokyo University of the Arts, which is apparently notorious for low acceptability rates. Simple and direct. However, that is more the 'setting' than the plot. The journey is used as a device to showcase a few other things, such as theparadox of the institutionalization of art, the effects of long periods of high stress, the tribulations of trans teens, the concept of personal responsibility for one's result, and other such.

I find it very interesting, because the show goes to lengths to show that yes, art (specifically drawing and oil painting) has techniques, and patterns and things to do and things not to do, but art at the end of the day is subjective. It's not interchangable with, say, math or whatever else. It requires a lot of know-how and hard work, but there's a lot of personal opinions that play into it.
So while there are are techniques and patterns, success or failure is not guaranteed. Inspiration can strike or flee. The best student can fail even though they did their best, because art is subjective and people can use vague concepts like 'expression' and 'feelings coming through' to judge a piece as good or not.

To be clear, I'm glad they showed this.

Additionally, I'm very pleasantly surprised at the show's portrayal of stress. It goes out of its way to show how unfair such high stress situations such as harsh college exam period are for essentially children, and shows people deal with stress differently.
However, where most anime (and media in general) would have you believe that someone being stressed is everyone's fault and problem BUT their own, this show tells you that ultimately it's your own fault, and your own responsibility to deal with it.
Becauce it's true. The harsh reality is that unfair or difficult circumstances are common, most everyone has to deal with stress, and knowing how to do so is an important skill. Knowing when something isn't good for you and giving up on it is also an important skill, as the show shows.
At the end of the day, the person who cares most about you is yourself, and the person most responsible for your well-being is yourself. We can betide our circumstances and apply blame, but in the end fixing it can only come from us.

One last note on the story that I'll make is that it wasn't very clear if Yatora and Ryuuji had known each other prior to the art club? The first few episodes would make it seem that they don't, but through the show they act like they've been friends for a very long time, which poses a lot of questions.

With that out of the way, let's move on to art. Animation was good, though nothing groundbreaking.
The art pieces, for the most part, got their point across, though they often failed to live up to the heaps of praise the plot demanded be thrown at them, which is forgiveable. They were serviceable.

Sound design was almost nonexistent, but it wasn't actively bad or working against the show.

The characters are interesting.

Yatora is a good protagonist to follow. He's capable and driven, but also fearful and flawed, with things to overcome and goals to achieve.

The supporting cast for this show is excellent throughout. All characters that appear have a very unique voice and role, are at least somewhat memorable and have a role to play in Yatora's journey.
I will say that the focus on Ryuuji as the secondary protagonist seemed a bit out of place. Ryuuji's story would make an excellent show by itself, but in THIS one, the amount of time of the season spent on Ryuuji's troubles seemed disproportionate to how much it tied back to the main plot. An excellent plotline, but it seemed as if I was watching two separate shows that only vaguely connected.

Overall I enjoyed watching Blue Period. Not likely to rewatch, but I watched it pleasantly and will check out a future season if one does come.
8/10 overall.