Draw This, Then Die!

Episode 5

This episode did a great job of covering a lot of ground without an exhausting pace like last week's. It kept the focus on one main idea, but resolved a lot of character-related issues that naturally would have popped up in the pursuit of that goal. The goal is for the girls to go to this manga event, but they can't until they get permission from their parents, which means they need to talk to their parents about being in the manga club. The main two people that needed to have that conversation with their parents were Yasumi and Fujimori. While Yasumi's talk with her parents was played a bit more for comedy, Fujimori's was a lot more serious given the setup that was done in episode two

I would be lying if I said that the manga that Fujimori drew to express herself wasn't incredibly sweet. If anything, that was the perfect way to figuratively and literally communicate the message of the show: that art can be used to express yourself in ways we never considered before. Unfortunately, for all of the buildup that this confrontation had, it resolved itself a little too easily. Fujimori's mom just reads the manga and then agrees to let her continue drawing manga, but there's no real resolution to the situation. Was she just hard on Fujimori because this show is full of stern women? I don't know, and it feels like a missed opportunity.

So the show didn't go in the direction that I thought it was going to with Yasumi and Hikaru's relationship. If anything, the end of this episode resolved any weird tension that most of the girls would've had with each other. I do like how the episode just casually dropped facts about Hikaru like they were nothing. Not only was she held back a year, but I'm pretty sure her mom is the same manga artist that Miss Teshima ran into when she was younger. I can only imagine how that confrontation will go. Still, I'm glad that the girls were able to accomplish their goals by working together, and the fact that the episode still had plenty of quiet moments to let the characters breathe from working so hard was a nice touch. Overall, it still feels like the show is trying to find a perfect narrative balance, but this was definitely a better step in the right direction.

Rating:

Draw This, Then Die! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.