Blue Period volume 12 - Tsubasa Yamaguchi

 Summer break, and his part-time teacher job, are over, so Yatora prepares for his second year at TUA (Tokyo University of Arts).

And that also means it is a return for me to the beloved manga, one I truly enjoy reading.

 

Arriving back at the university, he runs into Maki.  She has recollected and refocussed herself, and transferred to TUA through sculpture courses.  He also meets her friend Fuu, whom he had briefly ran into in the past together with Yuka.

 

As they get to meet their new teachers, one of them, the refined Inukai, is kind of a big name as he is one of the vice-presidents of the school.  Afterwards, he returns to Maki, getting to know people actually not in the oil painting course like himself.

But then Inukai gives them their first assignment, making no less then 500 drawings in two weeks time.  Yatora struggles to find a concept to tie them all together though, as he drops by Maki in the sculpture atelier and seeing the piece she is working on.  He seeks advice both from her as from his friend Yakumo to motivate himself to get started on the assignment.  But on the train home, he just starts drawing people he sees, and having found his concept does this for the whole 500 drawings.

During review, Inukai tells Yatora that he needs to focus less on himself and take a broader look at art that others have been creating as there next assignment is all about "guilt".  Running into two other students he met at maki's, he joins them to visit Fuji-san.  She runs an art collective called No Marks, and he lends a hand setting up for their exhibition.  As he misses his last train back, he stays over for the night at the collective.  The next morning, he learns more about her, like how she views museums.  As he learns her insights on the evolution of art, he decides he will attend the event No Marks is running the evening after, getting a fresh view on art in the process.  And he learns his end of the first year work actually made an impression on her.

 

 

Thinking over his art, he has skipped school for 2 weeks now, staying over at No Marks.  But he gets ever more comfortable in the group, their shared house style and people, and especially Fuji's opinions and views on art.  He even starts doubting if TUA is actually the right place for him, and when he finds a ticket to a solo artist that is self-taught, he goes to see the exposition.  There he sees Inukai as well, but the professor doesn't seem to recognise him.  

He realises he is falling in love with art and wants to become part of Fuji's circle.  But then his fellow TUA student, who made him doubt if the school was something for him or not, unexpectantly tells him he won't be visiting No Marks anymore without sharing his reasoning...

What influence this will have on Yatora and what decision he will make we will hopefully find out in the next volume of this highly enjoyable art manga!