Job talk, art talk, the heart of OEL manga

i keep quitting my day job

I have never worked anywhere longer than 6 months. I’m too addicted to novelty. As soon as I start feeling comfortable, I know it’s time to leave.

Let me tell you about the cycle I’ve been stuck in for the entirety of my adult life: work whatever entry-level job for a little bit, take as many shifts as I can, save up, quit, and then fuck off to work on manga. I’ve pushed myself to work on manga while employed, but it’s way easier to make manga when I don’t have to work.

If you look at my resume, it is not impressive.

Manga wasn’t just something emotionally fulfilling. I saw it as the only “real” job I could do.

And this on-and-off freeter lifestyle/aspiring mangaka is a little more common in Japan, but they’ve also got that stronger sense of commitment to The Day Job. So even if I could defend this peculiar lifestyle choice as “actually, very normal overseas,” well, I look like a screwup no matter how you slice it.

But I could never get too demoralized by my manga getting constantly rejected. I saw each manga oneshot as building towards the next, unlocking something else, constantly learning something new. It’s exciting. I always feel like if I just tweaked this and applied what that editor said, then surely, next time I’ll get it.

Years later: I still haven’t “got it,” but the feeling that I’m “almost there” still exists.

But its not all cloyingly giddy, ganbatte, dattebayou all the time. I’d feel broken to work so hard at something and constantly fail. If this is the only thing I’m qualified to do, the art form that feels “right”, the big damn ikigai, then why do I suck at it. Why am I not serialized. Why is the farthest I could get is being an assistant.

I will say this feeling of “why do I suck” is especially profound when I would try to draw handsome male characters. Manga is a tough field— and there’s plenty of second-place oneshots that are outright brilliant, but their author didn’t get serialized. A lot of getting serialized is right place/right time. So, nothin’ personal.

But, dude. I should be able to draw pretty boys. Why can’t I draw pretty boys.

I outright suck at facial anatomy, and the more I dwelled on this and tried and failed the worse I would feel. In an ideal world all of my ikemen would look like they belong on the cover of Ten Count.

the height of artistic achievement

What the fuck is wrong with me? Why are all of my stylish male characters so doughy?? Why can’t I draw like this?!?! I’m too damn old to still struggle with the “how to draw an anime face” part of my Art Journey, but here I am, clenching the tablet pen and getting way the hell too worked up because, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t make it happen. Why can so many people draw like this, but I can’t?

Is Ten Count’s art style the way it is because Rihito Takarai is a woman? Is it because she’s Japanese? Am I doomed to never innately understand this art style because I am both American and male? This sucks and I hate it. Why the fuck can’t I draw beautiful yaoi men?!

Because of this, I have felt empathetic to the argument that “International manga is not ~real~ manga.” When you grow up in Japan, manga is everywhere. There is no “drawing in the manga art style.” There’s just “drawing.” There is no need to drill it into your head that this is how to draw, because it’s coming naturally.

My absolute and catastrophic zetsubou over being unable to internalize a decent ikemen art style is firsthand experience of that claim.

However: I am also incredibly stupid. Younger artists are growing up with anime and manga as a part of their everyday life. There’s less of “seeking out” anime as a niche art form when it’s like, right there, as its own category on Netflix.

Yes: It’s not to the extent of living in Japan.

But: there are plenty of sharp, promising artists who pick up on this and have an innate understanding of manga.

And to further the zetsubou: I may not innately understand manga, but what the fuck else do I have? American comics suck. I may be participating in manga as an outsider, but I’m way the hell more involved with manga than any other art form.

Anyway, about my day jobs.

When I’d return to work after my latest failed stint at being a hotshot mangaka (or, less frequently, art commissions), I’d enter my job with a sense of relief. There’s nothing personal going on here. I can do my work and get paid and I’m not walking away from this questioning my intrinsic worth as a human and cursing the circumstances of my birth. I’m here to work the cash register/the grill/the charm, because putting me here is cheaper than a robot.

But eventually it’d start to wear at me and I’d get bored. I’d hear that Siren’s song of manga and want to try again and give it my all and I’d have it in me that this time will be different.

But it never was different.

Getting hired at Lumebento to write my light novel was the most “different” my life’s ever felt.

Side note: I didn’t apply to be a light novelist— I just saw they did light novels and chose to do that over manga.

Side note 2: I studied the “How to draw moe” art book up and down for the months leading up to my serialization. I might not understand the BL art style, but I could maybe draw okay moe-style, especially if it’s only 2-3 drawings a month.

it also helps that Ushida-hime is about 90% boobs

So I went all in on this light novel, and meeting the monthly deadline was a struggle (If I did Polymonfur as a manga, I would not have survived). Extended writers block lead to an extended hiatus, and that lead to being dropped. My first paid stint as a writer is over.

But thanks to that light novel I opened my Substack. I needed to get the word out about my book.

And I thought it was pretty lame that most of my posts were just me carnival barking to the tune of “New update! Check it out!!!” so I started writing about more stuff.

Seriously, this blog only got good once I started crying about Saturday AM

And adapting select Substack essays for YouTube netted me way more success than I could’ve imagined (not to get too big of a head over my fast monetization, but getting anyone to look at my shit who isn’t one of my besties is, like, a miracle).

So, here I am. Soon I’ll hit 6 months on YouTube. I don’t know if I should start counting it as a “job” from the point I opened my account, or I was monetized, or once ad revenue is paying me minimum wage. But I’m here and I’m not feeling particularly bored, even if I’m drawing a lot less lately.

There’s also the validation of— what the fuck, I’m kind of good at this? I’m not good at anything. Youtuber is a “dream job” for, like, everyone, and there’s plenty of people who give it a go and completely fail. I don’t deserve this. So I need to try my best, right?

I’m asking because I’m still not totally sure and this could all be a big fluke and I get demonetized tomorrow.

And when a youtube channel starts to get some traction, there’s the question of “when are you gonna make the leap and go fulltime?” And I guess I already have. Kind of. I wasn’t working a day job at the moment, but that’s something I’m used to. There was no dramatic handing in a resignation letter, I just wasn’t doing anything else.

I am privileged enough to not feel particularly bothered by economic instability. I have a low standard of living. If times get tough I will unceremoniously go back to work. If times get really tough I’ll live out of a car (I’ve suffered through worse).

My only hesitation in sharing this is that I don’t want it to give the impression that I’m more “available” than I actually am. I like going on adventures! I like being outside! If I don’t update for a few weeks then that means I’ve taken the cheapest flight to anywhere and am just, like, hanging out. I don’t want to fall into that loop of feeling like I need to report my absence and start treating the Internet like I need to call in sick from school.

While I deeply appreciate all support and comments, I don’t want anyone to feel slighted because I didn’t respond quickly or at all. I want to keep expectations low and discourage pushiness.

(please note, I’m not talking about Substack comments. Everyone here is cool. No one on Substack is going to have that id-driven response of typing up an angry rant after seeing a clickbaity title/thumbnail, and everyone here always has something good to say).

Either way, I do not enjoy being online. Ideally I would spend zero time online.

But I know I need to get over that if I want to make Youtube work. I’m not at the point of being able to just drop a video and fuck off— that is, I need to monitor video performance, if a video’s performing poorly, I need to adjust the title/thumbnail. And it can be difficult to just bounce in and out of the Youtube Studio control panel when the comments section is right there.

theres so much overstimulating shit on the screen and all I wanna do is reply to that commenter who’s never seen “What’s Opera Doc (1957)”

Regardless, I still want to make YouTube a vehicle for something bigger (This reasoning is exactly what’s guiding my current animation project).

My ideal scenario: I make one video a week, and can fuck off and draw manga the rest of the time.

So in the end, it still comes back to manga.

But I promise I’m taking Youtube seriously and want this to work.

Thank you for reading.