Review of Blue Period

"If you feel frustrated, it means you can still grow." -Ryuji Ayukawa After seeing all the rave reviews about the manga, and not having read it myself, I decided to give this anime a try, since it had an interesting premise, an art anime potentially based on Picasso's Blue Period? Who could pass up such a good opportunity to watch this? I'm not an artist at all, in fact, I suck at art so much I've gotten laughed at many times, so I won't speak in a way that makes it seem I'm an art master. Personally, I find art very interesting and eye-opening. People sayart broadens our perspective, and I would have to agree with that, and I saw some of that in this anime for sure.

From what I've heard about the manga, many people said they cried, it changed their life, and resonated with them a lot. Now, from an anime-only standpoint, I'm quite sure that the anime rushed a lot of the story, and unfortunately, that resulted in rather mediocre storytelling and character development, but overall, there are still a lot of good themes to be seen here.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Comedic/Romance themes /20

STORY: 16/25

It's rather bland, but not completely uninteresting. Yaguchi is a rather stock character that goes through changes like in many shounens, and I found him to be pretty bland. What shines though in the story are the developments of characters around him, especially a certain girl called Ryuji Ayukawa, but she's a "he"! As a trans-male, or rather, a cross-dresser, we explore a lot of societal problems in our modern world today, acceptance of people who are "different", and a family's treatment of their child. I felt a lot of the disadvantage in society that he had, and it showed in his art, and while being a popular person, people never tried to establish a deep bond with him, except for Yaguchi, a childhood friend of his. The depth of Ryuji is what made me engaged in the story, and I was wondering for the longest time, when we would get some backstory on him.

ART: 6.5/10

For an anime about art, the animation was rather lackluster, and it detracted from the immersion. Not to say the paintings weren't good, I could see the texture of the paint on a canvas, and the angelic portraits, those are very nice to look at indeed.

MUSIC: 8.7/10

The opening was one of my favourites this season, otherwise quite average.

CHARACTERS: 15/20

Self-doubt, passion, creativity, perseverance. These are the main themes of Blue Period, and they are shown in Yaguchi's journey to be an up-and-coming artist. What I've found from this show is that art is difficult to master, it's subjective, and to be successful, you gotta think outside the box. All these requirements make us wonder, is art even worth pursuing in the first place? Yaguchi asks these same questions, and though these themes are executed perfectly, we could see his mental journey.

The supporting characters, are not forgettable at all, and as I mentioned earlier, Ryuji Ayukawa is the best side character I've seen in quite some time, dealing with more than just his gender identity, but with family issues as well. It could be argued that Ryuji's character writing was even better than Yaguchi's, and I'd love to hear some arguments on that.

ENJOYMENT: 12.5/15

Some good episodes, some average ones, I enjoyed it overall.

COMEDIC/ROMANTIC THEMES: 14.1/20

Some funny jokes here and there, and slight romance, with Yaguchi and Mori, or Yaguchi and Ryuji, one being a source of inspiration, one being an interesting friendship. It was fun watching the relationships develop.

OVERALL: 7.28/10

There's no doubt in my mind the manga's better (even though I haven't read it). Technical issues and story issues aside, this was a pleasant anime that gave us a look at the world of art, and whether you're an artist or not, I'm sure this anime will be a decent one that you'll enjoy.