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I often see a lot of people address Blue Period for it's topics on art, about how it really speaks to that experience and I agree whole heartedly. I'm not really interested in that, I wanna talk about Blue Period as a surrealist experience, that is relates to the artistic mind.
Often times in the manga the issues it tackles are a flat out assault on our perception of self expression. When you cheer for others why do we feel elated? Where's the fun? Who's bothering to ask a question like that when fun is fun? Passionate people is who.
Not doing something purely because you want to. It's a pretty troubling, stuck in the endless loop of demands you have to meet and the business with this loop means you're not getting a word in. No cheer for words that aren't yours.
When Yaguchi goes into his Blue world or draws his neighboorhood, it's an almost out of body surreal experience as he swims fully through a reality that's boundless and you can see he finally feels alive. It's his first honest expression.
Of course that truthful perception is just a waste of time, it's not gonna build a reputable future. Yaguchi knows this yet he's forced to indulge because of his passion. It's a hopeless paradox of finding love but knowing it won't garauntee your happiness.
Most stories like to give clean answers to questions like that but Blue period isn't interested in that, Blue period answers the hopeless query with a Hopeful one. "Why decide one is hopeless when the others are too?" It takes a melancholy fact and turns it into a motivation.
I think this nature of surrealist problems being answered by surreal solutions is a major strength to blue period's value as a piece and what takes it far far beyond it's mere subject matter. Sure the specific problems are art focused but these surrealist narrative ideas allow-
for Blue period to punch not just above it's weight but full on branch out despite it's intense focus. The narrative abstractly tackles Yamaguchi's issues and the dialogue feels so adept as to make it so if you simply changed a few words around, anybody's struggle would line up.
Cause we've all been there, practicing something where everyone else feels infinitely better. Yamaguchi embodies this passion threatened by inadequacy concept. Which makes his arc of discovering his true passion, Having it threatened by genius, only to reconcile. It's great.
On another note, I love how the aggressive smear of dark screentones contrasted with the whites help Blue Period's art feel just as surreal as it's story, the soft grain of them in the curved random shapes gives everything defined shape especially posing. Great manga, Please read
