REVIEW: ‘Draw This, Then Die!’ Is a Joyful Ode to Artists and Their Art

As is well documented, the act of creation is kind of a pain. From Whiplash’s musical obsessions to Michelangelo’s back-breaking work on the Sistine Chapel, there are plenty of tales about how hard it is to create art. The recent anime series Draw This, Then Die! acknowledges these hardships, but stands apart in capturing the sheer, unbridled satisfaction of making something. It’s a message communicated with such passion that even the cynics among us will find it difficult to avoid grinning like a dweeb for each twenty-four-minute episode.

This series is sweet, but never saccharine, balancing its optimism with occasional harsh realities. Still, underneath half-finished drafts, calloused drawing hands, and baggy eyelids, manga author Minoru Toyoda and Shin-Ei Animation communicate an essential truth with dazzling enthusiasm: creating art may suck at times, but if it gives even one lonely kid a reason to daydream, it’s worth it.

The story follows Ai Yasumi (Akira Sekine), a high school girl who loves manga. She owes comics a debt: after struggling to make friends, a character from her favorite story gives her the push she needs to reach out. While Ai is initially satisfied with enjoying her favorite medium as a reader, an unexpected run-in with the creator of her favorite manga makes her finally realize something: she can make her own.

Draw This, Then Die! brings together a cast of lovable, passionate goofballs.

Ai recruits a group of like-minded girls in her grade so they can take the manga world by storm — or, well, sort of. Ai’s mentor and manga club advisor, Rei Teshima (Saori Hayami), constantly reminds the group they’re here to draw as non-committal “hobbyist” so it doesn’t interfere with their studies.

Draw This, Then Die!’s immense charm starts with this cast of lovable goofballs. From the jump, Ai’s imagination pops off the screen, conveyed in flights of fancy that make it very easy to believe why she’s so drawn to manga. The first episode is a wonderful short story about how her favorite manga changed her life for the better, showing the small but essential ways fiction can open us up to a bigger world.

It doesn’t take long for Ai’s passion to spread to the other founding member of the manga club, and the rest of the cast has their own well-realized trials and tribulations surrounding bringing pen to paper. There’s Kokoro Fujimori (Saya Hitomi), a talented art student who struggles with social anxiety and overbearing parents who are against creating manga. Hikaru Sekiryuu (Inori Minase) is already a well-known indie author, but a complicated relationship with her mom causes her to push everyone else away.

Ms. Teshima, wonderfully voiced by Saori Hayami, is the perfect, cynical insert. 

When paired with Sachi Akafuku (Kanon Fujimura), who has no interest in making manga but is very good at appraising it, the four dive into this world with an earnestness that makes every little victory land like a triumph; Yasumi and Fujimori doing a happy dance as they sell an original manga to their first customer can bring out the proud parent in anyone.

Visually, Shin-Ei Animation’s rounded but not overly cutesy character designs match the series’ endearing tone, as gags intermix with heartfelt odes to the power of fiction. For fellow older viewers, their teacher, Ms. Teshima, acts as a perfect audience insert.

Over the course of Draw This, Then Die!, we watch her students’ unbridled passion chip away at well-earned cynicism. The ever-talented Saori Hayami gets at Teshima’s barely maintained self-seriousness, as she tries to stifle her excitement and keep her pupils from going down “the wrong path” that she took when she was younger.

The series understands the painstaking effort and sheer time that goes into creating art.

Every little win and creative victory is more than earned because writers Hiroko Fukuda, Aki Itami, and Kanichi Katō also convey the absurd amount of effort that goes into making even the simplest manga. There’s sketching, inking, making text bubbles with a fine-liner, and then placing screentone before cutting, scraping, and adjusting the fine details with whiteout; it’s hours of work for just four pages.

Despite the series’ optimistic outlook, it isn’t naïve or overly idealistic. Despite her passion, Yasumi’s art is a mess at first, and her stories lack cohesion. It’s only when she combines her efforts with Fujimori that the two take full advantage of each other’s strengths.

In a more grave series of flashbacks centered on Teshima, Draw This, Then Die! earns its surprisingly metal title. We see years of self-doubt, depression, and severe overwork, as her similar passion for creating manga tips into self-destructive obsession. “I’ll draw this, then die!” she exclaims as she pours every ounce of herself into her work.

With its abundance of charm, Draw This, Then Die! is an undeniable standout.

Despite the tone shift, these flashbacks leave room for the show’s usual humor and uplifting vibe. Watching Teshima’s career unfold in parallel provides a nice dramatic counterbalance to the more lighthearted antics of the main series. It’s not quite as emotionally devastating as something like Look Back, which tackles similar subject matter, but the series is more than another enjoyable, but weightless hobby show.

In a summer lineup full of surprises (and at least one depressing endzone fumble — Goodbye, Lara), Draw This, Then Die! is this season’s biggest out-of-nowhere gem, landing right when we need it most. As we move deeper into a grim era overrun with AI-generated slop, it’s more important than ever to remember why people make things. Despite the long nights and ink-stained hands, there’s joy in the act of creation.

Draw This, Then Die! Season 1 is available to stream now on Crunchyroll.