Blue Period Why The Anime Cut A Character

Blue Period: Why The Anime Cut A Character

The Netflix adaptation of the coming-of-age manga, Blue Period, cuts out a minor character. How is this omission significant to Yaguchi’s character?

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Blue Period Why The Anime Cut A Character

The first episode of the highly-anticipated Netflix adaptation of the manga series, Blue Period, cuts out a character who is fairly important in the original source material. Based on Tsubasa Yamaguchi’s eponymous coming-of-age manga, Blue Period centers on high-school student Yatora Yaguchi, who rediscovers a lust for life by delving into the beautiful world of art. Episode 1, dubbed “Awakening to the Joy of Painting”, sets the tone of the series by establishing key characters and fleshing out Yaguchi’s mental landscape. As the anime follows a weekly release schedule, only the first episode of the anime is available for streaming on Netflix, so far.

While Yaguchi is relatively popular in school, managing to maintain a consistent record of high grades, he views his existence as dull, listless, and monotonous. Despite living out a somewhat careless and delinquent lifestyle, Yaguchi is hardworking in terms of his endeavors, whilst harboring underlying insecurities that prevent him from embracing his innermost desires. This aspect of his character is further exacerbated when he is exposed to the unrelenting realm of art, as painting is a transformative process that forces the artist to experience the highs and lows of existence simultaneously.

While it is understandable that the Netflix anime adaptation is bound to be more compact and compressed in terms of character arcs, the total absence of a particular character undercuts Yaguchi’s personality to a certain extent. The character is that of Sakamoto, one of Yaguchi’s high school classmates, who teaches him to study so that he is able to attain good grades in his exams. While Sakamoto is a minor character, and his omission does not make that much of a difference on a grander scale, his presence would have helped established the nuances of the protagonist’s character better.

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Sakamoto’s presence not only establishes Yaguchi’s sociability but also positions him as someone willing to employ his studied social skills to maintain a certain level of control over his life. When left alone, Yaguchi’s thoughts are clearly more turbulent than he lets on to be, as he constantly suppresses his core desires to meet societal expectations of success and repute. A people pleaser, Yaguchi is unable to process his emotions in an honest or forthcoming manner, as he is often at a loss when faced with stressful or unfamiliar situations. While the anime touches upon these aspects of Yaguchi’s character, a passing reference to Sakamoto could have further underlined this innate gap between appearance and reality in terms of Yaguchi’s personality.

Throughout the course of Blue Period, Yaguchi undergoes an immense transformation, as he is pulled towards a new direction after he witnesses a striking painting created by his senpai, Maru Mori. Initially reluctant to choose art as a serious professional endeavor, Yaguchi is constantly hard on himself and lacks confidence, much like Izuku “Deku” Midoriya of My Hero Academia, as he cannot help but compare his skills to that of others. However, with time, he realizes that due to the pursuit of painting, for the first time, he feels alive, his heart thumping with renewed zeal for life. This realization brings about a shift in Yaguchi’s perspective, allowing him to blossom forth as an artist and a more balanced, well-rounded human being.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/blue-period-anime-cut-sakamoto-character-time/

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