This is one of those shows that I quite want to like, but am still in the process of working out if I actually do.
Blue Period is an interesting series. It’s one of those titles that clearly has a lot of potential, but that has more of a slow-burn pace and may take some time for that potential to fully reveal itself. This is by no means a bad thing, but it does mean I came out of the premiere liking some of what I saw but not feeling totally sold on the series as a whole.
I think a lot of this has to do with the characters themselves. See, they’re not a particularly likeable bunch, at least not to me – especially the two leads, Yatora and Ryuuji. I didn’t really understand their antagonistic relationship, since the audience never sees them interact prior. I have to assume they’ve had run-ins before given the way they were speaking to each other, but since this is never shown on screen or even alluded to in any way, I just didn’t really ‘get’ where their immediate and highly vocal animosity came from. Aside from this though, I also wanted to slap Yatora a couple of times, especially since his altercation with Ryuuji came across as vaguely sexist given some of his comments.
On the other hand, me not personally liking the characters doesn’t mean they’re not relatable. I got more invested in Yatora towards the end of the episode – he made several observations about society and art that really resonated with me – and if his story involves plenty of character development aside from his budding artistic talent, so much the better. Plus, his goofball friends seem like legit cool guys. They have this tough-guy delinquent/bad boy attitude, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad friends; in fact, they appear to be surprisingly loyal and supportive guys (good for them!).
Overall, while this isn’t my favourite premiere of the season, I finished the episode with a relatively positive first impression, even if it didn’t really start off that way, and I’ll definitely be giving this at least a couple more episodes to see how things progress.
Score: 6/10
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That’s pretty much my experience, too. I haven’t really settled down with the show, yet. I’ve had mixed experiences with culture club shows lately. I really grew into Kono Oto Tomare eventually, though I wished they’d put the Koto a bit more prominently; on the other hand, I sort of grew bored with the story of Those Snow White Notes, but the Shamisen parts remained great to the end. In this show I was fine with the story, though it’s not really the main draw; but I did like the art aspect. I’m not sure how the balance is going to work out for me yet. The show had production issues as early as episode 2, so I’m still not sure. I’m also unsure whether the show’s going to be club show for very much longer, or if we’re in the prologue phase, and it’s going to be an art school show in the end. Wait and see is the game here.
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I never watched Kono Oto Tomare, but I gave up Those Snow White Notes pretty quickly, although I agree, the shamisen parts were excellent. I guess now that I think about it, it’s been a while since I’ve watched a school culture club-type story. I’m hoping Blue Period does grow on me a bit more over the next couple of episodes.
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I’ve been curious about this one. Thanks for giving me something to think about. Maybe I’ll try it later today.
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Cool, hope you enjoy. 🙂
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