Blue Period

Yatora is the perfect high school student, with good grades and lots of friends. It’s an effortless performance, and, ultimately…a dull one. But he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst — and he’s about to learn how savage and unforgiving art can be!

Art has changed the course of Yatora’s once dull life, and now he’s aiming for Japan’s most competitive art school. With entrance exams a year away, he’ll need to expand his limited eye for art, and quickly. He turns to new peers and the masters to envision pieces only he can produce, and soon dives into his first competition–the same one where his Art Club role model nearly scored last place. Among geniuses and lifelong art kids, does Yatora even stand a chance…?

Relief is short-lived for Yatora after his first competition, where his piece was higher ranked than he expected, but far from his dream school’s standards. While he’s prepared to give Ooba-sensei’s challenges everything he’s got…what if all he’s got is still not enough? With 100 days until university exams, he must seize what’s beyond—beyond his singular drive, learned technique, and hard work—to produce an answer only he can.

Yatora now has new materials in his tool box and a wider range of expression under his belt. But a week before the first exam, Ooba-sensei says he’s missing a crucial edge… With so much at stake, Yatora’s self-doubt brings him lower than ever before. Still, he has his fire, his resilience—and he might just get a lucky break, too.

Yatora makes the best of a bad situation during TUA’s first exam, and he must surpass these efforts for the second. But after all he’s gone through, Yatora is feeling a little out of sorts. To get back on track, he’ll have to step out of the studio and into new lighting… With the help of an old friend, Yatora bares his soul and some skin to take on his latest challenge: the nude self-portrait.

A surprising setback before the second exam shakes Yatora up, but after everything he’s been through, he must persevere. This time, the subject turns out to be something both new and familiar... But does an average guy like Yatora stand a chance against the geniuses and prodigies vying for a spot in the nation’s most competitive art school?

Tokyo University of the Arts is now Yatora’s campus, where each new encounter with colleagues, professors, and assignments challenges everything he’s ever known! Self-doubt and life’s hardships still lurk around every corner, but running into an old friend may just turn things around.

After a disappointing first assignment, Yatora is encouraged by Maki and is determined to move forward. His next assignment is a scenery of Tokyo. As he takes on new materials and methods, he also becomes exposed to new ways of seeing the city he thought he knew so well. Can Yatora finally evolve beyond the “exam art” that got him into art school…?

Summer whizzes by like a typhoon, and Yatora has learned that large-scale pieces—in production and concept—only come together with elbow grease and teamwork. TUA opens its gates once more for the second term and Yatora’s back at it… But he hasn’t picked up a brush in months!

Yatora prepares for the first-year show, where he’ll have to pass an open review from intimidating professors and celebrity guest lecturers. To make matters worse, the self-directed nature of the assignment is more stifling than freeing, and he’s no longer sure: Does he even like art? Why did he ever start? An all-nighter in Shibuya may hold the answer, but Yatora’s not with his usual boys...

Yatora’s first year at TUA has left his soul and his bank account drained. To recover, he takes a part-time job at a community art class, working for none other than his former mentor, Saeki-sensei. However, teaching painting to young students is a creative challenge on its own!

Yatora’s back on campus for year two and suprises abound. He’s greeted by an old friend and then gets bombarded with new friends, instructors, and assignments! But one day, when Yatora encounters an artists’ commune, he begins to question if TUA is really the right place for him...

Thanks to the influence of the guru-like leader of NO MARKs, Yatora is ready to return to TUA with a fresh perspective and renewed love for art—until a series of jarring events makes Yatora question his recent choices. But as he considers what is right or wrong in his pursuit of art, he finds the inspiration to take a bold new approach to his assignment on “guilt.”

For their second summer at TUA, Yatora and his art school friends stay at Momoyo’s family temple. There, Yatora enters an art contest with hopes for the cash prize and a professional debut. However, as he works on his piece, he learns of Yakumo’s friend Machiko—a remarkable young artist whose flame was extinguished too early.

As they continue their stay in Hiroshima and work on their competition and exhibition pieces, Yatora and his classmates grapple with the legacy of Machiko Sanada’s untimely death. While Yatora struggles in his mind and on the canvas, Yakumo and the others contend with the specter of the person who brought them together. However, through these challenges come surprising outcomes that set Yatora and Yakumo down paths of artistic and spiritual growth. New students no longer, they forge ahead on the journey toward adulthood.

Despite placing in his first-ever art competition with the work he completed in Hiroshima, Yatora continues to struggle with his skills and identity, even going so far as to question his future in the art world. This is only made worse by a new assignment where he must set up a show with an artist of his choice. However, never one to back down from a challenge, Yatora decides to prepare by working part-time in a seemingly foreign world where “drowning” may be just what he needs to succeed…

The final project for the second-year students was a “two-person show,” where students chose an artist to create an exhibition with. Yatora eventually chose Andy Warhol as his partner and dove into Kabuki-cho nightlife for research. His host club billboard piece was well-received, and his yearning to become an artist now grows even stronger…