If I were a better organized person, I’d have read Blue Period immediately after having reviewed Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey. They are both about a personal journey into fine art and the struggles of getting into highly competitive art school. Blank Canvas, being of course, an autobiographical memoir, and Blue Period being fictional.
SPOILERS
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I’m not sure I’d appreciate the magnitude of, our hero, Yatora’s undertaking if I had not previously read Blank Canvas. Yatora is presented as a natural when it comes to art. Technically, he may have a lot to learn, but he’s portrayed as someone with a good ‘eye,’ who intrinsically understands how to imbue art with emotion.
Even though he doesn’t take anything in his life seriously, Yatora decides, after seeing a student’s painting that moves him, to maybe give art a go. He tries to capture the faint blue feeling of Shibuya in the early dawn…
And immediately, if clumsily, is able to capture it.
This inspires Yatora to go all in. This guy who was very likely headed to some typical salaryman future is suddenly obsessed with trying to get into art school.
And… I’m rooting for him.
I think we all like the fantasy of genius being this easy. At least Yatora has been characterized as someone who is just very good at putting in the time to accomplish the skill. We discover in the first few panels that despite looking like a delinquent and hanging out late nights with his sporty gang of guy friends, Yatora is a good student. People think he’s smart, but he tells us it’s not that, he just learned good study habits and keeps to them. So, I mean, at least it’s set-up in Yatora’s character that he’s not necessarily some kind of savant, who is just going to randomly decide to draw one day and become the best of the best. We even get a couple of scenes where we get a hint that maybe Yatora used to draw, but had given up on it at some point.
Although maybe this is just one of those things he bought for school, as Yatora is basically untrained. We, though his lessons, learn about perspective, shading, etc., etc. There is, of course, an art teacher who is odd as a duck, but who also instrumental in encouraging Yatora. I like her? She reminds me of my friend Laurel.
I have some friends who tried watching the anime, but gave up on it. The manga has a certain amount of urgency, in part driven by Yatora’s desire, passion and curiosity, but also by the upcoming deadline for the art school applications. I could see myself continuing to read this one, honestly.
The art in it is visually arresting, even in black and white, but it does feel like the kind of story that would improve in color. You can see Yamaguchi trying to be artsy in certain panels. Like, he is trying to give you the impression of light and color, while stuck in the black & white medium of manga pages.
Honestly, it mostly works. If you are interested in a story about art, this might be for you.
If you like Yamaguchi-sensei’s art style, but would rather read a very sad, bittersweet boys’ love romance, you can check out Kokuhaku no Jikan about a boy who has an accident and loses the ability to remember anything except the day before, in which he was promised a love confession. It’s very sad, but quite lovely. Yamaguchi-sensei also drew the manga version of She and Her Cat.
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