Tsubasa Yamaguchi wrote and illustrated the manga Blue Period. Since June 2017, the series has been serialized in Monthly Afternoon, Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine. Kodansha announced the official English release in November 2019, and the translated edition of Volume 1 was released in October 2020.
The plot revolves around Yatora Yaguchi, who is the ideal high school student, with good grades and a large group of friends. It’s a natural performance, and, in the end… a boring one But one day, he wanders into the art room, and a lone picture catches his eye, introducing him to a new type of beauty. He rushes in deep, compelled, and consumed—and he’s about to discover how vicious and unforgiving art can be.
Watch the trailer for the season here:
The plot of the series mainly revolves around the characters that Yatora interacts with for the whole season. Here is a rundown of the characters that Yatora encounters as he searches his path through the arts
Yatora Yaguchi
The protagonist of the manga series Blue Period is Yatora Yaguchi. Despite his rebellious lifestyle, he is a second-year high school student with amazingly high grades. Yatora’s life seems monotonous and predictable until he sees his senpai, Maru Mori, drawing at the school’s art club. He realizes his passion for painting and devotes his remaining school years to it, hoping to pass the entrance exam at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Although Yatora appears to be hardworking and composed, there is an uneasy aspect of him that emerges when he begins creating art. He has an extroverted personality and can readily comprehend what others want in a relationship, changing himself to please everyone around him. As a result, he suppresses his own feelings and desires. Yatora is exceptionally hard on himself, holding himself to high standards while constantly undervaluing his own effort and comparing himself to others, which overwhelms him. While comparing himself to others, he respects and admires the art created by those around him.
Yotasuke Takahashi
One of Yaguchi’s first known rivals and friends. Yotasuke Takahashi is a student at Geidai, Tokyo University of the Arts, and a former member of Yatora Yaguchi’s cram school.
Yotasuke is a petite young man with short black hair parted down the center and long bangs brushed to each side of his face. His complexion is pale, and his eyes are dark greenish-blue. He also has a beauty mark beneath each eye and thin, black brows.
Yotasuke has a reserved and shy nature, but he also appears to be standoffish and easily angered. He is blunt and frequently says things as they are in his head, without attempting to explain what he means to others.
Yatora and Yotasuke are both painting in the same room during the second exam. Yotasuke is surprised to see Yaguchi’s painting and tells him about it during the break—the first time he has complimented Yatora on his art. They keep eating and do not see each other again until the final exam and admission announcement.
Ryuji Ayukawa
Yatora’s classmate and fellow art club member Ryuji Ayukawa, better known as Yuka-chan, invited him to the art club. Yuka is an expert in Japanese art.
Yuka is lively and appears confident, despite many underlying worries. Yuka attracts a lot of attention by acting in a generally adorable and showy style.
Yuka’s grandma, who is the person Yuka is closest to, impacted her decision to pursue Japanese art. Yuka will frequently put on a cheerful face in front of others, but when put in a difficult position, Yuka becomes boisterous and impulsive.
Maru Mori
Maru Mori is a former art club member and senior at Yatora Yaguchi who graduated to attend Musahino Painting University, where she pursued religious art. Mori is a quiet and pleasant young lady who was kind to Yatora Yaguchi on their first meeting. She is well-versed in ancient art techniques and believes that there is no such thing as ability, only skill and experience, which she brings up after Yatora displays envy of her creative abilities.
She specializes in oil painting and plans to pursue it as a college major after she graduates. It has been observed that when she is doing work, she is highly focused to the point of appearing frightening.
Mori was initially observed taking her artwork to the art club area. She and Yatora had a talk in which she discloses that she does not consider herself talented, but that she thinks about art more than other people. Mori is the catalyst for Yatora Yaguchi’s interest in art. She kept working on her art club, intending to apply to Gendai, Tama, and Mau.
Mori attended a cram school the next summer and finished sixth last. Nonetheless, Musashino University accepts her for religious works.
Mayu Ooba
Mayu Ooba is an instructor at the Tokyo Art Institute cram school where Yatora Yaguchi studies, preparing her students for art school applications and entrance tests.
Ooba has short, bobbed black hair with square bangs hanging over her forehead, small eyes, and is exceptionally tall, reaching the top of most door frames.
She is frequently seen with an apron on. Ooba is a highly quirky, carefree, and wise instructor who is forthright and boisterous and genuinely cares about her students and her trade. She frequently says weird animal trivia, especially during stressful moments.
Maki Kuwana
Maki Kuwana is a former student of Yatora Yaguchi’s cram school. Maki, despite appearing positive, lively, and a little eccentric suffers from an inferiority complex toward her older sister. As a result, she is highly emotional, lacks self-confidence in her abilities, and fails to recognize how her artistic breakthroughs inspire those around her, especially her sister. Maki, on the other hand, has been shown as talented and hardworking, being one of the few who managed to surprise and inspire Yatora with her focused stare while working on her piece in cram school.
Maki is also incredibly warm and caring, willing to go above and above for those she cares about.
She is also concerned about the well-being of others around her. She hurriedly carried Yatora’s equipment up the stairs without even blinking an eye when she witnessed his plight on the first day of their second exam. Maki hails from a family of accomplished artists. The bulk of them attended the Tokyo University of the Arts, as is well known. Her older sister passed the test on her first attempt, despite her sister’s refusal to compare themselves. Maki has a lot of issues with her inferiority complex in comparison to her older sister, but she doesn’t tell her.
Haruka Hashida
Hashida is another former student of the cram school Yatora attended, he is one of his friends. He is known because of his extremely suggestive nature, but he creates extraordinary art.
Haruka is extremely quirky, and others frequently perceive him as strange because of his obsession with art. He has a cheery and detached demeanor. He also enjoys annoying and irritating his cram school classmates. Despite this, he frequently spends time with them and is generally pleasant. When we see Haruka again during the Geidai festival, Yatora Yaguchi says that despite Hashida not attending the school, Haruka obviously knows more people than him in Geidai and identifies him as having celebrity-like status. Haruka has been like this since high school, according to Yotasuke Takahashi.
Despite his colorful and jovial personality, Hashida is frequently observed disguising his feelings with observations.
Blue Period is an extremely beautiful anime that dives into artists and the way they think. It is a representation not only of how art moves everyone but also of how artists give their all to produce art that seeps deep into the soul of its viewers.
Read More: What is Blue Period Anime About?
