©とよ田みのる／小学館／王島南高校漫研
I will admit, I wasn’t really expecting a majority of this episode to be an extended flashback featuring Teshima’s early days as an assistant, but it is a welcome addition nonetheless. I love that the show is continuously peeling back the layers of Teshima’s character, showcasing the different ways that her creative spark was smothered out during her experiences as a young manga creator. It almost feels a bit random, but considering that last episode ended with her running into a few people from her past, it does make sense. The show is laying it on thick that the experiences that these young girls are going through mirror what Teshima went through. Except this time, the episode does take on a whole different vibe compared to previously established flashbacks.
Previous flashbacks involving Teshima were all about her spiraling, but it’s nice to know that her past wasn’t completely filled with anger or desperation. For about a year, she ended up working with a manga creator that she strongly looked up to named Hebichika, and it looks like working as an assistant was where Teshima ended up developing a lot of the technical skills necessary in order to improve the artistry of her manga. She learned everything from drawing straight lines to creating elaborate backgrounds. It was even during this time that she realized that her eyesight wasn’t as good as she thought it would be and it’s where she ended up getting her iconic glasses. However, I like the fact that this episode is still consistent with what I know about Teshima’s character despite taking on a much more cheerful tone.
I was originally worried that Teshima was going to use her infatuation with this manga creator as an excuse to side step her own responsibilities. But if anything, it seemed to have both a positive and negative impact on her own creative output. In a lot of ways, I’m sure it was motivating, and I like the fact that Teshima was working desperately on her own manga this whole time, so that the experiences she had as an assistant didn’t go to waste. But on the other hand, it was a negative experience because working in that environment clearly didn’t contribute well to her mental health. Despite Hebichika’s cheerful demeanor and supposed genius as a manga creator, she was a terrible boss. She gave poor instructions based on feelings, she didn’t really seem to take anyone’s mental or physical health into consideration, and she was extremely prone to just changing things on a dime. Granted, her spontaneity seemed to contribute to why she was so successful, but creators like this are usually outliers, so working under someone like that can make it very difficult for you to find your own creative spark, which I still think is the root of Teshima’s problem.
Teshima did seem to have a talent for drawing manga, but the problem was that I still don’t think she ever really found what it was that she herself wanted to write. She was taking suggestions from Hebichika and from her editor, but during most of this episode, I don’t think she ever verbally expresses something that she wanted to make. She had this lump of clay and just threw on whatever she was told to put on it without actually considering how those parts could match together or what the final product would look like. She was just building something for the sake of building something instead of envisioning a finished product and trying to figure out how to get there. It’s funny realizing that she was making almost all of the same mistakes creatively that she criticizes her students for.
The only time Teshima seems to have any passion is out of spite, so after reaching a breaking point, she was able to create a manga with the sole intention of getting back at her former mentor. I can read that final scene where Hebichika refuses to read Teshima’s manga in two ways. On the one hand, it could be seen as a sign of respect because she acknowledges that Teshima now has that creative fire in her eyes and calling Teshima by her actual name is a sign that she sees her as some kind of equal. But on the other hand, I still can’t really read Teshima’s thought process as healthy. She’s still not really creating things for herself, it’s always because of how someone else responds to her or how someone else makes her feel negative. I still don’t get the sense that Teshima actually enjoys manga so Hebichika saying that Teshima can try and kill her could be read as an acknowledgment that is never going to happen. I like that there is more to Teshima’s backstory, and I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time before the show reveals the definitive breaking point where she fully gives up. I am waiting for that moment to rip out my heart and step on it because even when the show tries to frame things in a cheerful way, it never shies away from being uncomfortably real about how daunting being a creator actually is.
Rating:
Bolts also streams regularly on Twitch as the indie VtuberBolts The Mechanic where they talk about and play retro media!
Draw This, Then Die! is currently streaming on
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