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 Me, pretending to be an artist... well, it's true that a few followers and fans of my work did treat me as one back in the day.

Anyway, drawing is the one thing I can barely manage to do that resembles any kind of creative work.

Many people paid me for commissions. More often than not, I couldn't deliver work that met their expectations or satisfied me personally. Even when the payment was received and the commission was formally completed, I was left with a lingering sense of guilt and inadequacy as an artist.


But if we're talking about whether my work is poor or good, there's no doubt I fall squarely on the poor side of the line dividing all artists.

I believe I can't become a truly confident, genuine artist unless I tackle fundamental technical improvements.

I should understand pretty well what I need to do for that.

So why can't I do it? Why am I progressing so slowly, remaining unskilled?

I never trusted the praise people once gave me. I thought they couldn't possibly mean it. It seemed exaggerated, meant to please the listener, but utterly lacking in sincerity. It felt like unrealistic, over-the-top praise. You're just baiting me to steal what others have, right? What you really want is for me to promote your existence to my followers as a reward, so you're just preemptively handing out praise, aren't you?

Well, that's the kind of thinking I have.

I digressed, but I'll continue a bit longer.

Out of distrust for fellow artists who approached me with insincere praise, I decided to completely ignore that kind of relationship. While continuing to post illustrations, I maintained that attitude toward fellow artist followers for a year or two.

Eventually, the reach of my posted work became no different from the average impressions of an account with 50 followers.

I have 16,000 followers, but only about 10 actually see my posts on their timelines and react. Yet, the moment an influencer retweets me, even the very people who followed me themselves start acting like they're thinking, “If that influencer is retweeting it, it must be good art... though I didn't think so when I saw it earlier, and I'm still half-skeptical.”

This isn't just indifference or nobody looking—it feels more like, "I, with over 100,000 followers, went out of my way to hype you up as a god-tier artist or genius when you were struggling with 5,000 followers. You don't give me anything back? You ungrateful piece of trash, you ungrateful brat. I won't unfollow you, but I'll ignore every single one of your posts until you're so miserable you delete your account. Learn your place."

I know this is a rotten way of thinking.

But honestly, one of those influencers who praised me as a god or genius with sickeningly sweet compliments? When you actually read his usual rambling, self-indulgent posts, he's just a terrible middle-aged man. From a twisted middle-aged man who constantly sneers at others' struggles, sorrows, and pains with “You're stupid, that's why it happened. Serves you right,” there's no way genuine, natural respect for others could ever come out. And yeah, it's not necessarily wrong that I didn't say, "I'm so happy you called me a genius! Everyone! This is the amazing influencer who called me a genius!" wasn't necessarily wrong. Would I really be happy if some jerk like that made me popular by entertaining him?

But yeah, this is the majority of middle-aged men in Japan. They enjoy entertainment using women's bodies as motifs, yet think women themselves are idiots – natural misogynists. So when a woman in an anime makes a wise choice or a conscious statement against his intentions, he panics.

The root of the problem, or rather the misfortune, lies less in this individual old man than in the zeitgeist itself. It's the inevitability that such a banally evil spirit, precisely because it's banally evil, can amass over 100,000 followers.



Alright, back to the topic.

Fundamentally, the reasons my drawing skills aren't improving as I'd like are physical ailments, aging, unexplained illnesses, and art supplies that used to work freely now completely refusing to cooperate.


This got too long, so I'll continue next time.


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