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... Saturdays. ⏎ How was the first episode? ⏎Caitlin Moore ⏎ Rating: 4.5 ⏎ Blue Period? Is that what the women in all the menstrual product commercials get? ⏎ Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all day! ⏎ Now that I've gotten that joke out of my system, I can give my real opinion, which is that the first episode of Blue Period is a truly excellent 25 minutes of anime storytelling. Yatora Yaguchi is a typical disaffected teen with piercings and dyed hair, smoking and running around with his delinquent friends at all hours of the night. He doesn't get much satisfaction or pride out of the good grades he works hard for, but also doesn't see much point in putting effort into hobbies that won't help secure a comfortable future. He thinks his childhood friend Yuka is just throwing her life away in the art club. ⏎ Then one morning, after a night out drinking and partying with his friends, he notices how different Shibuya looks just before dawn, when the city is still in bed. Something in him awakens, and for the first time, he finds himself driven to capture it for a school assignment and try at something for its own sake, rather than to gain approval. However, his family doesn't have a lot of money to pay for art school, and following his ion will be a rough road. ⏎ It's a familiar structure for shonen anime, elevated by a pitch-perfect script and strong visual storytelling. Yatora doesn't have a preternatural talent for art or start producing perfect pieces instantly; his early sketches show promise but are lacking in basic techniques like perspective. In fact, the people around him reject notions like “talent” altogether; the art club member he talks to explains that her ability comes from effort, study, and ion, not some inborn gift that only a few people are granted. Yatora, in turn, discovers not just the joy of finding something he cares about, but the vulnerability that comes from creating from the heart and the connection with others that risk can bring. The writing is full of humanity and humor; the only character making outside of Yatora's internal monologue is the art teacher, and then, that's kind of her job. Most of the dialogue is more subtle, conveying the characters' relationships without most of them having to be explained. ⏎ Blue Period's big glaring flaw also lies in the dialogue: Yatora and his old friend, Yuka. Yuka is a trans girl, or at least some stripe of nonbinary; either way, she doesn't go by the name he insists on calling her anymore. His dialogue with her is loaded with transphobia, saying he's “worried about [her]” because she's dressing like a girl, comparing it to her criticism of him smoking to fit in with his dirtbag friends. It's nasty and if it puts people off the show entirely, I wouldn't blame them. ⏎ In some ways, Blue Period reminds me of my favorite movie, Whisper of the Heart, in its recognition of the creation of art both as something deeply personal and a way to connect with others, and the fear and vulnerability in sharing it. I'm already invested in Yatora's journey. ⏎ James Beckett ⏎ Rating: 2.5 ⏎ Watching...