Learning to Draw – Eren the Southpaw
Despite what has been posted on this blog within this year, I have been watching current anime! Not as much as I used to, but I still watch at least one or two shows per season. In fact, you can cast your eyes on my postings from 2025 on this very blog for proof that this is the case! But since I’m always slow as hell, I won’t be talking about The Ghost in the Shell or Steel Ball Run–the show I want to look at is from spring of this year–Hidarikiki no Eren (Eren the Southpaw).
For the uninitiated, Eren follows the lives of Asakura Kōichi and the titular Yamagishi Eren. Eren has a natural ability for art–specifically graffiti–but lacks the social chops or finances to take the straightforward path into the art world. However, through her sheer talent, she finds a way. Meanwhile Kōichi lacks talent, and his goals for pursuing art are more focused around becoming a star ad designer–that said, through hard work, he manages to find his way into the world he wants to be in.
The story is told in a nonlinear style, and follows the characters from their student years through to adulthood. Despite Eren being the titular character, the anime primarily focuses on Kōichi’s journey, with a bunch of other crazy and mentally unstable characters thrown in for good measure. Given the original manga[1]Which has two versions–an initial run drawn by an amateur artist, and a redrawn version that ran in Shōnen Jump+. is 26 volumes, I assume the anime only covers a portion of the story.
Anyway, this one wasn’t on my radar–but my partner in crime was keen to watch it, likely due to part of it being set in Yokohama[2]Where my partner in crime is from. and its examination of the art school experience. My partner graduated from an art school, and I spent one and a half years of my life in the art school trenches, so there was already a magical connection. But beyond that, this show has several other elements that connected with me–and probably also a very specific group of people.
Art is Hard
If you’ve been following me for a while, you will know of my old webcomic, and the fact that I liked to draw. And I still like drawing! But part of why I quit art school in the middle was because I was faced with the reality that I didn’t have enough talent to hack it in the real world as an artist[3]That said, I would love to get back to drawing and restart the comic but… *gestures at adult life in general*. As alluded to earlier, part of this show does focus on the leads as youngsters making their way through art education, and deliberately contrasts Kōichi’s lack of talent with Eren’s overflowing natural talent. This gap in talent between myself and my peers put me off of pursuing art professionally, but for our boy Kōichi, it acts as inspiration. Needless to say, the depiction of him trying hard to improve against Eren’s effortless talent did strike a chord in yours truly.
Working at Agencies Sucks
It’s this part that really got me–while the finer details of the show are starting to escape me at this point, one scene I keenly remember is a smash cut from a shot of the bright and bushy-tailed Kōichi as a student, to a shot of him sitting in front of a computer at his ad agency in the middle of the night, with rough stubble and heavy bags under his eyes. Much of my career has been in an agency setting, and this scene shot me through the heart. While I’ve never pulled all-nighters at the office[4]…yet…, scenes of Kōichi and his coworkers losing their minds in the middle of the night trying to meet deadlines, the team getting shit from other departments, and the inevitable company dinners soaked in booze that get toxic real quick are all rich with a palpable realism. I’ve been there.
Humans are Gross
Eren covers a decent chunk of young Kōichi’s life, and as alluded to above, introduces us to a whole bunch of people from both his academic and professional life. And yeah, many of them suck–in a really relatable way. The first two examples that stick out are Kamiya and Yanagi–both different varieties of the quintessential ad agency asshole. Kamiya is the hotshot creator type, while Yanagi is a sadistic drill sergeant–and they’re both about intense power harassment, just in different ways. As is a running theme in this post, their characterization is extremely close to life, as are the office politics that develop around them. Meanwhile, another character that falls under the “gross human” umbrella is Kishi Akari, a lady from Kōichi’s school days. A model from a rich family, she’s extremely aware that she’s a hot young woman, and uses her sexuality quite nonchalantly, but ultimately to cope. On the whole, while there is some degree of anime exaggeration to how these characters are portrayed, their irrational behavior, their weaknesses, and their strong emotions all hit home in a very grounded way.
Vibez
The show is set primarily throughout the 2000s, so between the fashion and the tech, it does feel like a nice throwback to the era of Japan I fell in love with. Furthermore, the show has a cool stylized approach to its use of color and deployment of more impressionistic, simple backgrounds that lovingly frame this story about the pursuit of artistic talent in a… uh… artistic way.
Don’t get me wrong–this show is not without its flaws. For one, the artwork weirdly starts out quite poor, and gets better as the show progresses–a strange rarity in anime. This lack of quality is a bit disappointing as the show is a Production I.G joint, but it’s also clearly billed as a joint project with their offshoot Signal.MD, so maybe that’s where the issues come in–I’m not at all knowledgeable about anime studios anymore, so I’d appreciate any insight on this. Regardless, given the first couple of episodes quite frankly look like ass, I can see people dropping off. But it does start to look consistently solid as it enters the back half of its story.
Also… you’ll probably notice that I didn’t mention Eren much in what was highlighted above. As mentioned at the top, she’s not actually the main focus of the anime, and more or less disappears for a large chunk of the runtime. By the time we get to see her back in action and actually show off her stuff, the show ends. Again, there is a manga out there that obviously continues the story, but it would have been nice for the anime to try and work in a bit more of her story.
But small quibbles aside, Hidarikiki no Eren is a good show–but perhaps only to someone who is exactly like me! Now that I’m invested, I may continue on with the comic. And it seems there was also a live-action drama version of it that dropped back in 2019 that could be worth checking out. But in a perfect world, I’d like to see another season of this anime! And maybe with more consistent artwork next time.
