Yatora Yaguchi is a capable second-year. He goes out as much as he likes, keeps his grades near the top, and gets on with everyone. The trouble is that none of it interests him.
One morning he paints the blue light over Shibuya, and the art club recognises what he made. It is the first time something he did has landed with anyone, and he settles on a goal: the oil painting course at Tokyo University of the Arts, the hardest art faculty in the country to enter.
The subject here is training rather than talent. How many drawings it takes to improve, what the prep school costs, why the parents have to be persuaded, all of it is on the page. Because drawing is treated as a career path instead of a hobby, the practical exam sits where another manga would put a championship final.
The supporting cast carry their own problems. Ryuji Ayukawa is caught between self-expression and family expectation, and Yotasuke Takahashi is ahead of Yatora and unhappy about being there. Every time two characters compete, the winner is drawn as uneasy as the loser.
Tsubasa Yamaguchi began the series in Kodanshaโs monthly Afternoon on 24 June 2017 and continues it today. It took the 13th Manga Taisho and the general category of the 44th Kodansha Manga Award, with a nomination for the 24th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. Seven Arcs animated twelve episodes released from 25 September 2021.
There is something here for readers who will never touch a canvas. The manga shows, without softening it, what you actually have to carry after you say out loud that you want to do the thing you love for a living.
