Blue Period volume 10 - Tsubasa Yamaguchi

 Aaaah Blue Period, how I enjoy thee!

And already we come to the 10th volume of the series, having moved well beyond the excellent anime adaption now, and the finals of Yatora's first year at TUA coming up.

During a talk with Takahashi, he asks him if he likes making art, a question to which he hadn't espected the reply he got, and is seriously taken aback by it.  All Takahashi would really like is that people would get to know the real person he is, and  not just the one based on the assumptions they make judged on his talent for art.

Takahashi has a talk with one of his teachers about the end term project, while Yatora struggles on deciding exactly what he would like to do.  When visiting the school's rabbit pen, Takahashi relaxes, and actually starts to bond with Okamoto, another boy in his class that he never really noticed before, playing Pokemon and the like.  At home, he rebukes his mom for the first time ever, and these internal struggles with himself result in him blowing up the bridges again that he was starting to build.  

When Yatora, kind-off out of guilt initially, asks him out for an all nighter, he is amazed Takahashi actually accepts the proposal.  Arriving in Shibuya, they visit firstly an art exhibition by Konatsu Ono, a famous conceptual artist that will be a guest lecturer at their finals piece presentation.  As they go museum hopping, yatora realises for the first time what it is to really "feel" art.  Glad he could spend this evening out with Takahashi, he has a firmer idea what art is to him, and he changes his end of the year project so late in, deciding to make a painting instead of the 3D structure he wanted to create, working on it throughout the new year.

 

 

And then the reviews are about to begin! To his own suprise, he isn't burned down in the comments.  He has created a painting of the sportsbar he and his friends frequent.  And while Takahashi gets critiqued for his work, he rebukes the teacher to drive home the point behind his painting.  Yet in the end, they all pass and are allowed to progress to the second year of TUA.

Takahashi starts rebuilding the frail bridges he had been building before, the commentary on his piece having opened his eyes somewhat.  Yatora starts looking for a part-time job, and as he calls the number on a flyer he found for an art assistant, he gets his high school teacher miss Saeki on the other end of the phone...

This is kind of what I love about this series, you have your two main characters who are vastly different, and as they walk the path of their career, the supporting cast keeps changing, like it does with real people during the course of the years.  I'm curious what the next instalment shall bring, something I will be finding out in the not so far future!