My Favorite Fall 2021 Anime will possibly be my favorite anime of the year, even though its not among those bloody action adventure stories I love so well. Especially since I got a little spoiler on tomorrow morning's episode. Netflix is airing this anime and let me say that it is groundbreaking in a lot of ways. It is a slice of life anime, which takes their characters a bit more serious...but I have never seen a transsexual character treated seriously before in an anime. Usually, in shonen (boys adventure) anime, they are the comical characters. Blue Period is different. It's different in a lot of ways. Leveling up in this anime isn't learning a new fight move or a new supernatural ability. Leveling up, for main character Yaguchi Yatora, means learning about stuff like stippling, using a roller. impasto (he hasn't learned this yet in the anime), proportion, perspective, and style. Yaguchi has decided, rather abruptly, that rather than drifting into adulthood in a dead end job and continuing to be a delinquent (although a delinquent with good grades) he is inspired by his friend Ryuji (trans girl character) and another classmate to do art. So he joins the art club in his 3rd year with the overwhelming goal of getting into one of Tokyo's most prestigious art colleges. The stress art students endure is highlighted (Yaguchi breaks out in hives he is yet to recover from, one classmate is hospitalized, and Ryuji walks out of the college first exam). It also highlights Ryuji's stress of being a trans person in a country that doesn't accept them well in very realistic fashion. I knew in the first episode that Ryuji was probably trans due to the name. People refer to them as Ryuji (almost always, 99% of the time a male name in Japanese...it kind of means dragon child, by the way). We see them going on a date with another student in epsiode 2...but in episode 3, the young man breaks up with them and we see just how close of a friend Yaguchu is to Ryuji. This is a heart-rending scene, and I found it on YouTube. I thought then that this anime was doing something different. Probably even the manga, when it came out in Japan in 2017. I'd never seen a anime devoted to art before. Stylistically, it's gorgeous. The painting scenes and the insight into the art world (even from the perspective of students visiting art shows and museums for inspiration) is fascinating. Their teachers are inspiring and the other students are quirky as hell...as you'd expect from creatives. We creative types are wacky. Some of us are proud of it! I'm looking forward to Episode 9 (Wandering Knife) tomorrow morning but from the spoiler I received online, I may need a pack of tissues by my side, as Ryuji will have some heavy-hearted issues to work through and hopefully a good friend will be there for them. I'll leave you with this. Another thing that makes an anime for me are the opening and closing songs and animations. The opening and closing sequences of this debut season of Blue Period are f*$%ing awesome! I found them on YT also, and will post as my wrap up, consecutively. I highly recommend this show...even for people who are new to anime and wonder if they would like it. Realistic, entertaining, emotional and with believable characters you can grow to empathize with and love.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
anime n' mangaI blog about a lot of regular, harmless sci-fi and fantasy anime n' manga, but I'll throw the occasional yaoi n' yuri (gay) posts in here. 'Cus I like that shit too. archives
December 2021
categories
All
|