Yatora Yaguchi

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* Anime
* Manga
* Stage Play

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矢口八虎

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*Yaguchi Yatora*

* High School
* University

**Yatora Yaguchi** (矢 (や) 口 (ぐち)  () 八 (や) 虎 (とら) , *Yaguchi Yatora*?) is the protagonist of the manga series Blue Period. He is a second-year high school student with remarkably high grades despite his delinquent lifestyle. Yatora feels like his life is dull and predictable until he comes across his senpai, Maru Mori, painting in the school's art club. He discovers his passion for painting and dedicates his remaining school years to it, aiming to pass the Tokyo University of the Arts entrance exam.

## **Appearance**

Yatora is a young man of medium height and build. His hair has a messy cut and, though it is naturally dark, he bleaches it platinum blonde. Yatora has yellow eyes and long eyelashes. He wears contact lenses but on a few occasions switches to glasses.

Yatora wears a black jacket with a white crumpled shirt and a loose black tie. In cold weather, Yatora uses a plain, dark overcoat and, when not in his uniform, he's often seen wearing plain sweats and hoodies. For hot weather, he owns a letterman jacket and wears plain t-shirts and Bermudas. He wears a matching pair of golden ring piercings on each ear helix and a red round piercing on his left ear tragus.

When painting, Yatora prefers to wear coveralls with the sleeves tied around his waist.

## **Personality**

Although Yatora is very hardworking and looks composed, there is an underlying insecure part of him that is further exposed when he starts making art. He has an extroverted nature and can easily understand what others are looking for in a relationship, further adapting himself in order to please everyone around him. For that reason, he tends to oppress his own feelings and wishes. Yatora relies a lot on his studied social skills whenever he is under a stressful or unfamiliar situation, but when he is caught by surprise or can't keep up his composed act he has an emotional outburst, often resulting in him crying and speaking more honestly. Yatora is especially hard on himself, putting high standards on himself while constantly undervaluing his own work and comparing himself to others, which ends up overwhelming him. Whilst comparing himself with others, he has great respect and admires the art that others around him create. His selfless and worried nature is better shown when he goes on a trip with Ayukawa, despite it being in the middle of exam season and him breaking out in rashes due to extreme stress.

## **Plot**

(Arc lengths are not confirmed and their names are provisional)

## **Relationships**

### Koigakubo, Utashima, and Sumida

Koigakubo, Utashima, and Sumida are Yatora's close friends in high school. They often go out to watch football games, smoke, and drink until early morning. Though they are close, due to Yatora's attitude in the beginning of the story, their relationship feels shallow, as he cannot bring himself to express how he really feels.

When Yatora is facing difficulties and feeling insecure, he tends to go out with the group for drinks. Despite Yatora hiding his real intentions, the group can see through him, fully supporting him and feeling inspired by his choice to study art.

Koigakubo understands Yatora especially well among the group and always confronts him, giving him advice when Yatora eventually opens up.

### Ryuji Ayukawa

Yuka and Yatora meet on the first year of high school. Yatora thinks that Yuka is weird at first, but the two begin to bond after Yatora joins the art club, and much of it is developed when Yuka invites him to go on a vacation with them to the seaside. They currently are good friends, and have mutual respect for one another.

### Maru Mori

Mori is the upperclassman who inspires Yatora to do art. Yatora begin to grow interests on art when he sees Mori's angel painting in the art room unintentionally. Mori is a huge influence on Yatora and one of the people who he looks up to.

### Marie Yaguchi

Yatora's mother. The two share a healthy and close relationship. Mrs. Yaguchi was unsupportive of her son's art career at first, but quickly switched sides after seeing what art meant to him. She is very supportive of Yatora.

### Yotasuke Takahashi

Takahashi and Yatora see each other as friendly rivals. Yatora describes Takahashi as a genius. It is also known later in the story that Yatora, along with Haruka Hashida, is the only contact in Takahashi's phone other than his family members.

When running into his school friends during the culture festival, he was about to introduce Yotasuke as his closest friend, but got embarrassed and cut himself off, saying Yotasuke was the person he was closest to at the school.

In chapter 42, Yatora has been able to understand how he loved art after spending a whole night with Takahashi in Shibuya. Takahashi really seems to be important to Yatora, for exemple simply getting a compliment from him really makes Yatora happy and it’s also said "Seeing Yotasuke-kun’s eyes dyed in blue is enough to make me happy" after discovering again the wonderful blue of Shibuya’s early morning light.

### Haruka Hashida

Haruka is Yatora's friend from cram school. Although sometimes Yatora sees him as a weird person because of his art fetish, Yatora learns a lot of things from him; especially how to observe things. Judging from their interactions, Yatora and Haruka can be seen as close friends.

### Maki Kuwana

Maki is Yatora's friend from cram school. Yatora adores Maki's skill.

## **Etymology**

* The name **Yatora** means "eight" (八) (**ya**) and "tiger" (虎) (**tora**).
* Yatora's surname **Yaguchi** means "arrow" (矢) (**ya**) and "mouth, entrance" (口) (**kuchi**/**guchi**).

## **Trivia**

* Yatora gets drunk from drinking coffee .
* Yatora enjoys exercising, but he dislikes track and field .
* Yatora dislikes mint flavored things, so he uses toothpaste for kids.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 4, page 18
2. ↑ Chapter 23, page 3
3. ↑ Chapter 29
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Official art
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Volume 1 extras
6. ↑ Chapter 8, page 15