Draw This, Then Die!

Episodes 1-3

Whether it's anime, manga or silly cartoons, inspiration can come from anywhere. That inspiration can drive us to come out of our shells, it can inspire us to create our own unique art or it could sometimes fill us with so much passion that we end up burning out. What I love about this series is that within three episodes, it effectively manages to cover a wide spectrum of the influence that art can have on people at various different stages in their life. Despite the bright color palette and overly cartoony designs, it's also not afraid to touch on some really depressing subject matter in a way that hits very close to home for me personally. This season has a lot of really heavy hitters, but so far, this is shaping up to be a favorite of mine.

The first two episodes specifically revolve around Yasumi's relationship with her teacher Miss Teshima with the latter being discovered as the author of the manga that inspired the former. In a lot of ways, this is the more typical part of the show; the jaded adult who doesn't want her students to get hurt by ambition the same way that she was, so she overcorrects and is just hard on any creative venture. However, I like the fact that episode two has her soften up to the idea of her students drawing and engaging with manga. She's still a little bit annoying in the sense that her stern attitude is very predictable and too much of an over correction at times. But it is understandable, especially when episode three gets into a little bit more of the specifics of Teshima's complex relationship with manga.

I like that the show lays out a lot of context, but still keeps it a little bit vague with regards to what exactly Teshima's problem was. It's not that she didn't have passion or that she wasn't driven or committed. I would argue the problem was that she potentially just didn't know exactly what she wanted to write or create. Passion can be an amazing fuel that drives us, but without direction, it's just a lot of energy being burnt out on paper. Teshima spent so many years working on different manga and manuscripts, but she couldn't answer simple questions like why she was writing or what she was writing for. Some people internalize that in a negative way while other people might think that the answer is so obvious that it doesn't need to be answered. After all, it looked like other creators understood what Teshima was drawing, but that doesn't always translate well to judges or a general audience. So she got burnt out and jaded. I'm assuming her character arc for the show is going to be about revitalizing that passion with maybe a bit more of that carefree spirit that Yasumi brings to manga. Yasumi is on the opposite side of the spectrum where she has a lot of passion untouched by that jadedness, but will she eventually run into that as the show goes on?

The first half of episode three actually shows the opposite of this, though, so it's a beautiful balancing act utilizing the character Fujimori. This is a character who has had all the passion sucked out of her life because of her family and her quiet disposition. However, reading a badly drawn, yet incredibly passionate manga by Yasumi gave her enough confidence to wanna pursue something for her own sake. It's not a matter of whether or not art is good or bad, it's a matter of whether that art can inspire that emotional response in people. You'll never convince me that a work of art is terrible if it manages to get people to pursue something that they never originally thought of pursuing. Yes, it's not going to resonate with everybody, but it could have the potential to resonate with at least one person in a way that supersedes all of the people that laughed at it.

I mean, hell, I'm talking about this show because it's obviously already left a strong impact on me just three episodes in. I'm paying very close attention to this show because I love art that is about how art inspires us. Maybe I'm a fan of the meta commentary, but reading or watching stuff like this does genuinely inspire me to work harder at the things that I'm doing. After finishing episode three, I felt the need to sit down and start working on my own projects. If every episode in the upcoming weeks continues to elicit that emotional response, then I am going to get a lot of work done.

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