Review of Blue Period

As a manga reader, when I heard the news of an upcoming anime adaptation I was excited as the manga had quickly become one of my favorites. And to be honest, I'd say it delivers a compelling story for the most part. To begin, of course, I'm a fanatic for art which is the reason that compelled me to start the series, and the demonstrations of art techniques fascinated me. I often found myself being impressed by the skill gap between the art shown and the art I produce which is why I found Yaguchi to be a perfect self-insert character. The way he views artalong with his eagerness to create compelling pieces is similar to my own journey, so I felt invested in his struggles. I would sometimes cry when the problems seemed too overwhelming for Yaguchi and I would cheer when he was able to overcome them. Even some of the side characters I found to be compelling, from the struggles of Ryuji and how society views them, the mysterious yet open demeanor of Hashida, to the directness and mutual respect presented by Yotasuke.

I did feel like the direction and shots were weak at times, along with some peculiar music choices, and perhaps too much a focus on Yaguchi. On that last point, I believe any of the side characters could carry the narrative for a few episodes without the need for Yaguchi to be present, after all, they're all artists and I think it would be a novel idea to show how much they struggle just as Yaguchi does.

Spoilers mainly for the last episodes in the next paragraph

I felt like the conflict presented by Yaguchi's deteriorating health could've been more compelling. Perhaps he should've kept it to himself and just brushed it off saying he was fine because he believed that if his mom were to learn of how seriously bad he was that he would not be forced to rest essentially throwing away all the effort he had put in up to that point. Moreover, we saw what could happen because of overworking yourself as seen with Maki's friend who was hospitalized. This would've actually made me worry that Yaguchi would actually not be passing and entering TUA, but although I knew he would pass because he's the MC I still found myself cheering when he was shown to have passed.

Other than that I think Blue Period manages to hit some decent highs and if there was to be a second season this would've been a great first season to set it up. As such while not as captivating to me personally as the manga was, I still believe Blue Period to be a very good 8/10