English Dub Season Review: Blue Period Season One

Based on the ongoing manga series written and illustrated by Tsubasa Yamaguchi. The story follows a second-year high school student named Yatora Yaguchi (Voiced Johnny Yong Bosch.) who is bored with his normal life. He studies well and plays around with his friends, but in truth, he does not enjoy either of those activities. Bound by norms, he secretly envies those who do things differently.

That is until he discovers the joy of drawing. When he sees a painting made by a member of the art club, Yatora becomes fascinated with the colors used in it. Later, in an art exercise, he tries to convey his language without words but instead through painting. After that experience, Yatora finds himself so invested in the art that he decides that it is what he wants to do for a living. But there stand multiple obstacles in his way: his parents who are hesitant over his unique choices, his more experienced peers, and the study of a subject much deeper than he initially expected…

On the technical side, the animation was done by Seven Arcs. (The very same Studio who brought us Tonikawa) with Koji Masunari serving as chief director, while Katsuya Asano serving as director, with scripts by Reiko Yoshida, character designs by Tomoyuki Shitaya, and music by Ippei Inoue. With the band Omoinotake performing the opening theme “EVERBLUE,” while another band called “Mol-7″4 performs the ending theme “Replica”. These days there are anime and manga properties/franchises about anything and everything that doesn’t always involve horror, action, fantasy/adventure, or isekai. We have your prototypical sports stories, your grounded in reality “slice of life”, stories of struggling singers/musicians, Relationships, school life, and even stories within stories on how to make a manga or anime that can come across as “meta” for some people. But now this time around we have an anime/manga story about art class or more specifically, painting, but also delves into the themes of passion, identity, and the differences between hard work and talent. But of course, above all else, how creating art and even sharing it can bring joy to people’s lives.

The Manga’s author, Tsubasa Yamaguchi’s themes to some degree, manages to properly delve into the everyday struggles artists face today and their resilient love for their craft. In combination with this, the story or at least two main characters this show seems to put in the spotlight on are by far its best strong points. As the story progresses, we see Yatori face his dreams head-on through constant thoughts of failure, self-doubt, and passion.

We also meet possibly one of the few open genderqueer characters in anime who caught me off guard named Ryuji Ayukawa (aka “Yuka” voiced by Marcy Edwards) whose story was presented better than Yatori’s when it comes to the relatable struggles and are relatable in the sense that its legitimate social problems that LGBTQ people often encounter when it comes to certain backward-thinking family members. The other supporting cast also affects the narrative’s overall tone aside from our two leads such as two tutors, three close friends of Yatori, and a bunch of people he met thanks to his new passion. Occasionally, we also get certain episodes focused on them as they confront their personal goals. Even Yatori’s unmotivated friends keep the story interesting but mostly in small doses.

As a whole, Blue Period is not a bad anime, but not perfect in execution. Similar to most character-driven anime, it’ll occasionally fall into a habit of forcing too much cliche drama out of the characters, which depending on your taste can make or break its realism and relatability. Some parts of the series felt really weird, more in terms of handling/pacing than what actually transpired which can feel too fast to comprehend. But at the very least, I thought all the school/exam episodes were fantastic. Upon research, the first season manages to adapt the first 25 chapters of the manga meaning there’s going to be lots of ground to cover. So if season 2 does happen, I do hope Seven Arcs steps its game up and learns from past mistakes…