Blue Period volume 8 - Tsubasa Yamaguchi

 Time to dive into the next volume of this excellent series!

And the more I read it, the more it touches my inner self, how weird that might sound.

After the disappointment of his first assignment piece, Yatora has been cheered up by Maki, tackling his second piece: the scenery of Tokyo.  Yakumo, a narcisstic boy in his course, takes an intrest in him as they visit the Edo Tokyo Museum.  Not intrested in the assignment topic, Yatora suddenly gets a revelation and inspiration after seeing an exhibit of the Kabuki form of art.

When the intermediate reviews are due, he has an oil painting and his sketchbook, but struggles for the maquette he wants to make of Shibuya, the subject of his blue painting that started his journey into arts.  The review goes better then with his first assignment, showing him the directions he could take to continue his project.  He asks his classmate Hacchan for advice, resulting in them and Yakumo to go fishing.  

Thanks to Yakumo, who he gets to know better, he sees his art again through refreshed eyes, and ends up with an okay review even though his maquette didn't reach his own expectations.  But the cultural festival is around the corner as summer break arrives, and they must create a portable shrine, happi coats and a foodstall.  Yatora is assigned to the shrine building team led by Kinemi, the girl that during the entrance exams throw his mirror on the ground by accident.

But more students start dropping out of helping, putting all the work on her shoulders and causing her to go down with a heatstroke due to the long days she pulled to make up for the deficit in help.  This makes Aizawa to step up and try to lead the project, but she keeps a lot of the work for herself as well.  To make matters worse, a typhoon heads their way while they are behind schedule already.

Yatora cancels his planned trip with his friends to help out more, but when the typhoon hits their shrine gets damaged.  Kinemi, returned from her illness, lifts their spirits, and they get back to the job at hand.  Bunking at Tanashi's place, Yatora and Kinemi have a good talk together.  But with the final days approaching, everyone is reaching their limit, and the shrine still needs to be painted.  But unexpectedly, help arrives with Yakumo...

There was also an extra short story, taking place between the reviews and the start of the festival works, about a classtrip and a curry contest which was a good laugh. 

This was another great volume, and I will dive into the next one immediatly as I just want to know how this plays out further!