Blue period vol 2 by tsubasa yamaguchi

In volume 2, Yatora attends a summer prep academy to help hone his skills for the TUA (Tokyo University of the Arts). The classes focus on oil paintings, which is one part of the lengthy admissions process to get into the university. The instructor, Ooba-sensei, doesn’t pull any punches when letting Yatora know that his art is lacking in composition, originality, and expression. She urges him to study composition, and to look at art to figure out what he likes. Yatora goes to a couple of museums with some classmates and finds a few pieces he likes. He also practices with tons of different art pieces and enrages his classmates with his lack of understanding of composition, but by the end of the volume, he's done a lot of hard work and improved moderately in these important aspects of creating art.

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I checked out volume 2 just to make sure this series is not for me, and it isn’t. There’s still a lot of explanation in this volume, which might be appealing to readers who are interested in art or have a background in it, but for me, this is missing a little more substance in terms of character development. We get a little bit of Yatora as he tries to figure out his artistic voice, and as he has conversations with the adults in his life about going to art school, but the rest of the characters surrounding Yatora are underdeveloped and sort of blend together in personality.

Sara’s Rating: 6/10
Suitability Level: Grades 10-12

Reviews of previous volumes in this series: vol 1

Publisher: Kodansha
Publication date: December 22, 2017
ISBN: 9781646511129 (Paperback)

Tags: Rating: 6/10, Suitability: High School, Manga, School Life, Realistic Fiction, Kodansha