If there's one type of story I'm quite fond of, it's stories about other artists. From Look Back to Blue Period, they often serve as a window into the creative's mind. If “write what you know” is practically law, this is just taking that literally. And while that could come off snobby, recent titles like Love Through a Prism and Akane-banashi show that there's a persistence and passion to these stories that appeals to general audiences. Eren the Southpaw is not one of these shows. Much like Oshi no Ko, it aims to be a cautionary tale where passion isn't enough in an industry that requires geniuses to succeed. But whereas Oshi no Ko felt like a reality check to aspiring artists, this felt like the bitter ramblings of someone chewed up and spat out by the machine. The result is a work that speaks from experience, but with little creative spark left to give.

First, I want to acknowledge that this is a very ambitious story. It follows multiple characters pursuing different creative fields at different times in their life. While it's mainly focused on the world of ad agencies, it's deeply connected to both the fashion industry and modern art scene. A downtrodden graphic designer waiting for their time to shine meets a model who wants life to end at her peak, both of whom met through a compulsive graffiti artist now making a name for herself in the Big Apple whose promoter was in the graphic designer's high school art club. You don't get that kind of sentence from just any show about artists: it's the kind of complex web that comes with discussing art as a business. If nothing else, I applaud them for tackling the broader entertainment industry rather than just one part of it.

And for what it's worth, it gets things mostly right when it comes to the business side. The creator, Kappy, comes from an advertising background, so he's very much aware of both the office politics surrounding a pitch and what it takes to get a good campaign going. Billboard ads can sometimes be more effective than TV commercials depending on the product, and celebrities can be too overwhelming as models for something everyone uses. Even a fully tested strategy can bomb if it doesn't fit the client's demographic. Credit for a newcomer's projects is repeatedly overwritten by more experienced staff, almost like name-brand actors accruing more confidence in a film. Despite relying on cooperation with teammates, only the most tenacious ones get their chance to be a rising star. It's a harsh environment that would usually garner sympathy from me, if it weren't for how unbearable I found these characters.

Part of this comes down to how it's told, because this jumps across timelines like a game of hopscotch. Ostensibly it takes place in the mid-2000s, beginning in the late 90s (sometimes 80s) and reaching the early 2010s. But that's not how it's treated in the actual edit. You'll finish one episode in 2004, start the next one in 2007, only to slip into 1992 after the opening starts. There's not a set timeline to cut back to. It just drops you into the past or future whenever it feels like it. This attempt at non-chronological storytelling hurts any attempt at dramatic build-up, because things only matter after it suddenly remembers to tell you. Is it old characters recounting their past or new characters glimpsing into their future? Neither, because all related story threads get shoved into the same ep. Any chance to get attached to the characters is violently interrupted by these time skips.

What doesn't help is how these characters fall under the show's discussion about talent. The main character, Koichi, dwells on what it means to create when they know they're no genius. He's constantly coming across talented people, so he wants to be just like them. He's an easily influenced individual who tries to fill the void of his own lack of talent by imitating others. A part of me does understand where he's coming from: it's hard to confront the feeling that only some people are special. The issue is that it becomes his only character trait. Sure, he tells himself that guts is all he has, but most of the story has him being strung along, seduced, or beaten mentally to resemble whoever leans over him. So when the story expected me to cheer for him regaining his creative spark, it was too little, too late. In trying to make him feel grounded, they made him a doormat.

Still, that's almost preferable compared to how they portray geniuses. They're all written as dysfunctional psychopaths who managed to bulldoze their way through raw talent alone. No one is more indicative of this issue than Eren herself. To put it bluntly, she's incredibly dislikable. I get that she has a one-track mind, but she's completely oblivious to how much she disregards others, despite having the gall to expect that from others. Her whole deal is that she sees her talent as a curse, because her dad threw his life away for the sake of his art. This has given her an almost supernatural sense of whether an artist gives everything to their art, because it makes no sense that someone like her who finds drawing to be painful could do better. It's the kind of perspective that would work in something more satirical and over-the-top like a Nisio Isin series, but it feels incredibly tone deaf in a series insisting that it's brutally real.

These two flavors of pathetically normal and obnoxiously weird apply to most of the cast. Akari's obsession with beauty comes with a self-imposed suicide counter, and Yanagi is a one-person black company who shamed his superior for attending his mom's funeral instead of work. Towards the end, we get a gym-bro photographer spitting out wanna-be Solo Leveling quotes. Meanwhile, Koichi's ex-girlfriend Sayuri only gets revealed as his lover the same episode they break up. We didn't even know they were together while Akari was putting the moves on Koichi until the episode right after they had their tryst. In fact, that episode is meant to explain why she had such animosity for her childhood friend Eren 5 episodes after they had already graduated high school. It's like their story is being told entirely through slander posts.

To be fair, some normal characters maintain some dignity here. Kamiya is the one gifted mentor to Koichi that actually prepares him for what's to come, and his first co-worker, Miichan, often indicated when Koichi was about to lose it. Eren's art teacher, Ryuuta, also confronted her struggle with a level-headed perspective that shaped her toward the right path. So why do many of its most prominent characters seem like the version of what their biggest hater wants them to sound like? In my opinion, it comes from a place of pain. This is an environment the creator was entrenched in before making his way out as a mangaka. I can buy that these are experiences the writer has heard of or personally gone through, and that these are how they must've looked to him. But when trying to tell their part of the story, it feels like he never got a chance to really talk to them. So we're stuck with a story where the pain is real, but the enemies feel like cartoons. And that makes the attempts at dropping truth bombs harder to take seriously.

Visually, however, this series looks pretty distinct. The realistic character designs had me expecting a more natural color palette, but Toshimasa Suzuki seems to have taken some cues from his time at SHAFT with RWBY: Ice Queendom. Blues, yellows, and reds shift closer to green, purple, and orange. Everyone's lit harshly like the spotlight is on them, often leaving the window open for more sunlight. Sometimes characters even take over drawing what's on screen. Much like his RWBY series, though, the overall quality is inconsistent. Towards the end, there's stiff animation, unfinished CG backgrounds, or off-model drawings. But considering the mangaka personally invested in this production, the highlights are mostly worth it. Eren's graffiti sessions in particular stand out for their lifelike parkour animation, culminating in her literally spray painting her way to the next frame.

The music is also nothing to scoff at. ALI's “Funkin Beautiful” uses their trademark jazzy sound to portray the seductive allure of the entertainment industry. At the same time, Ima Mulasaki's “New Walk” caps off each episode with a soulful voice gesturing to a brighter future. But what I really want to highlight is the soundtrack. Pasocom Music Club is primarily a synthpop duo that did ending themes for series like Yurei Deco, but recently dipped into anime scores with Naoko Yamada's Modern Love Story Tokyo short. I guess her connection to kensuke ushio rubbed off on them, because the sound of this series is very reminiscent of DEVILMAN crybaby. Whether it's boardroom pitches or runway sets, the music has a thumping intensity that makes each of these feel like sink-or-swim moments. Even when I lost investment in the characters, I felt for them a little because of these songs.

While definitely an ambitious attempt to tackle multiple fields in the art and entertainment industry, this series is a victim of messy story structure and a mentally draining cast. By the end, the series tries to end on a message to all the artists who couldn't become geniuses: continue pursuing your passions until you make something you're proud of. My question is this: why wasn't more of that passion on-screen? So much time is spent lashing out at an industry that puts creatives through a meat grinder that it feels like their desire to create is a curse. I'm not opposed to works being harsh to their readers, but tough love only works when said work spends time speaking to them rather than at them. While I think it was written with good intentions, it's drowned out by the sheer bitterness on display. There's a difference between “being real” with your audience and calling a rant your motivational speech.