Blue Period

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Japanese: ブルーピリオド

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: Jun 24, 2017 to ?

Genres: Award Winning, Drama

Themes: School, Visual Arts

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Afternoon

Authors: Yamaguchi, Tsubasa (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.60¹ (scored by 41,168 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #102²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #98

Members: 141,469

Favorites: 9,030

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Kodansha USA

Official Site

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Wikipedia

8.60

Ranked #102Popularity #98Members 141,469

MangaAfternoonYamaguchi, Tsubasa (Story & Art)

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Blue Period

Volume 1
$10.99

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Synopsis

Second-year high school student Yatora Yaguchi 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 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.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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BackgroundBlue Period was nominated for the 43rd Kodansha Manga Award in the General category in 2019. In the following year, the manga won the 13th Manga Taisho Award as well as the 44th Kodansha Manga Award in the General category.

The series has been published in English by Kodansha Comics USA since October 6, 2020. It has also been simulpub through K Manga. The manga has also been released in Spanish by Milky Way Ediciones since October 25, 2019; and in Polish by Waneko since September 6, 2021.

The manga was adapted into a Japanese live-action film that premiered on August 9, 2024.

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Yaguchi, Yatora

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Ayukawa, Ryuuji

Supporting

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Hashida, Haruka

Supporting

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Murai, Yakumo

Supporting

Mori, Maru

Supporting

Ooba, Mayu

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Saeki, Masako

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Miki, Kinemi

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Reviews

Jul 27, 2019

Lego_Leviathan

Recommended

Preliminary (8/? eps)

The story follows a high-school student named Yaguichi and how he falls in love with art. One thing that stands out the most is the relatability which you can have with the characters, knowing you're into something for the love of it and still not being good enough is something that most humans can relate to. Another aspect this manga covers very well is the interaction between characters and how that affects each of them. I would say the rambling about artistic aspects of the pricing of schools is a bit annoying but it's a necessary evil to understand the severity and the work needed.

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Oct 12, 2019

Stippling

Recommended

Preliminary (11/? eps)

A true hidden gem.

Blue Period is focused mainly on the discovery of the protagonist's true passion: art. The manga tries to introduce and explain what art is all about and give some viewpoint. With that, Yatora finds in art the excitement he was looking for while searching for what he wants to do for life.

Despite not being an art student, rather a frustrated one, I find myself being continually identified with the protagonist, his path to improve his skills and all the challenges that entails fully devoting himself to art. Not only because of the joys of fulfilling the objective of what you wanted to ...

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Jul 9, 2025

SteelingMax

Not Recommended

Preliminary (33/? eps)

Not sure why, but it seems my old review has been deleted.

I was really intrigued with the premise, i love art, I’d love to watch a story about artists, art itself and the process of art making, but after reading the manga, i think it’s just not very good at anything.

MC is very very plain, in a self-insert kind of way, has no personality whatsoever, feels like a isekai protagonist that just reincarnated, shows some doubt early on about following the career, but gets over it pretty fast, doesn’t even want to keep some back-up choices, in case he can’t make it.
I could understand the ... choice to make him like that, if the story is going to actually showcase the characters around him, and the MC is just a vehicle in which we see that happening, being the eyes of the audience, but that's not the case at all.

He gets 90% of the screen time of the series, only thinks about art and nothing more, is 150% focused, does nothing outside of art, leaves all friends behind, stops having fun, changes his life completely without a second thought just bc he saw a huge ass painting, being an artist becomes his entire personality, goes in a month, from not knowing anything about drawing, can’t even draw a stick figure, to intermediate level art, drawing complex shapes, shadows, values, actually painting, color theory, complex composition, design, not just drawing simple objects as they are, not just simple pencil/charcoal drawings.
For some reason he’s learned all these different things in a month or so, not years.
(i'm a professional concept artist for games and films)

The only saving grace is Ayukawa, but her character is mostly absent later on and only sporadically shows up here or there going long stretches without appearing.
The other side characters have even less screen time, and with the little time they have to develop, we don't even get to actually know close to nothing, making them not amount to much, we only see them as these one dimensional characters with one quirk characteristic each, it's also not like there are tons of side characters in the story and the story wouldn't have time to develop them.
From the ones that actually have some recurrence, we've got the school teacher, that later gets swapped for the prep school art teacher, and the three stooges(Miss Perfect/Edgy Boy/Art Buff) that get most of the time that was reserved for Ayukawa, before their introduction.
That makes it 4 side characters at most, at any time and they still can't develop them.

There is too much focus on the boring self-insert MC, maybe this is for teens with no self-confidence, that were interested in art at some point but thought it was too hard and just gave up, and this is your chance to live in the shoes of a very good artist that could do everything you could not, i wish it could've been an actual seinen story.

I do kind of like the very brief snippets of the behind scenes some of the art techniques, the life of an art student that goes to school/college for it, since i didn't go to art school or anything like that, and i mostly work digitally, plus also how very different people approach the same problem, all of the interesting things are weirdly usually scarce though, bc we’re stuck with the boring main character, which does things in a very straightforward, bland and simplistic way and hogs the focus all for himself, from the less boring characters that irregularly show up.

tl:dr
This is a power fantasy story, but for drawing.

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Poll: Blue Period Chapter 83 Discussion MegamiRem - Dec 24, 2025	2 replies	by Khunime »» Jan 1, 11:49 PM
Poll: Blue Period Chapter 82 Discussion doctor-funk-beat - Nov 26, 2025	5 replies	by garbomargo »» Dec 11, 2025 3:48 AM
Poll: Blue Period Chapter 81 Discussion ReMightyRon - Oct 24, 2025	2 replies	by _itsumaima4321 »» Nov 30, 2025 11:35 PM
Poll: Blue Period Chapter 29 Discussion MegamiRem - Feb 26, 2021	11 replies	by otakuweek »» Nov 6, 2025 12:16 PM
Poll: Blue Period Chapter 28 Discussion MegamiRem - Feb 7, 2021	16 replies	by otakuweek »» Nov 6, 2025 11:13 AM

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