Review of Blue Period
Blue period was an artsy anime about art that aired throughout the autumn season of 2021, showing up on my Netflix feed every time I woke up on a Saturday morning hungover, which was how I ended up watching most of these episodes every week. The first episode immediately caught my attention because it told a story about the protagonist getting hooked into art because he wanted to encapsulate the image of the environment he finds himself in whenever he stays up till sunrise from a night out in Shibuya to catch the first train, something that I had just tried to do around 7hours prior (I gave up and slept over at a friend's house). This is extremely specific, but sobering up and walking along the empty & silent streets of Tokyo to catch the first train after a night out is always an experience I enjoy even though I can't really explain why. The tranquillity within blue period's relaxed animation and mostly laid back characters were all something that I instantly connected that type of vibe to (even the op sounds like 5am in Shibuya), and I started to find myself feeling less shit on Saturday mornings because I'd have a small something to wake up to. Granted, this feeling of relaxation slowly morphed into straight up PTSD as the anime tailed off into the exam period near the end of its run, but overall it was still a pleasure watching Yaguchi's journey. It makes me hope that I can find something that I can be so passionate about in the future.
Contrary to how often Yaguchi seems to have complete mindfuck epiphanies with art that make this anime seem way deeper than it actually is, I don't think blue period is something you should overanalyse. The artwork that appears in the anime isn't always going to be art college standard, the plot isn't anything crazy, art school has an extremely low acceptance rate so you know in the back of your mind that most of these happy go lucky art students you meet are fucked (Spoilers from here) the way that they sort of brushed off some side characters that failed their final exam so abruptly makes me wonder if they're fully prepared for a season two to continue their story or they just really wanted Yaguchi to be the only happy one in the end, shit went from blue period to blue lock wtf (Was happy to see him succeed though. Was about time he stopped crying in every episode)
Overall? Good anime. The whole cast are a bunch of chads. Immaculate vibes. I will hate exams forever. If art doesn't work out for Yaguchi he can pursue a career in ASMR.