A new visual of the 2021 anime adaptation of Tsubasa Yamaguchi's award-winning art 2017 manga Blue Period has been revealed, along with news regarding the staff working on said adaptation.
The visual featured in the May issue of Kodansha's Afternoon magazine depicts the protagonist, Yatora, standing alone in an empty city in front of a blank white canvas, the entire world tinted blue, with nothing but the art supplies in his hands and by his feet.
Serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine in June 2017, Blue Period stars Yatora, a high school student bored with how perfectly his life is going. The plot kicks off the moment he stumbles across the art room and sees a painting. From that one look alone, his life is completely changed. He finds himself desiring to try his hand at painting, eventually dipping his toes into the art world through his school's art club, with a goal of applying to a college of arts as his school of choice.
Since its publication, Blue Period has reached nine volumes of manga in Japan. It has also been nominated for and won numerous awards. In 2019, the manga was nominated for the Manga Taishō Award and later won the award in 2020. In that same year, it was nominated for the 24th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and the manga took home the Best General Manga award in the 44th Kodansha Manga Awards.
Seven Arcs, the Tokyo-based animation studio that had previously adapted works such as Kenjiro Hata's Fly Me to the Moon and Kei Ohkubo's Arte, will produce Blue Period's anime adaptation.
Leading the production as chief director will be Koji Masunari, known for his time working as the director of both Kamichu! and Magi: The Kingdom of Magic. Alongside him, Katsuya Asano, who directed Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS from Episode 14 until the show's conclusion, will act as director for the show. Reiko Yoshida, writer of Digimon Adventure: Bokura no War Game, will both pen and oversee the scripts, while character designs will be handled by Tomoyuki Shitaya of Food Wars! fame.
While an exact release date for Blue Period's anime has not been revealed yet, the show is set to premiere sometime this year. Those looking to get into the series can read the first two volumes of the manga, published by Kodansha USA, with the third volume coming on April 27.
Source: Afternoon magazine, via Funimation