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Comic Girls / こみっくがーるず

If last week's Animeta tried to paint a realistic picture of the Anime industry, the 2018 show Comic Girls has no such pretensions for the manga scene. We meet the aspiring manga artist Kaoruko Moeta (萌田 薫子) with the rather speaking nickname Chaos. Chaos has the look of a primary school student, though she has the age of a high-school student.

Perhaps because of her childlike appearance Chaos is extremely anxious, insecure, and, well, chaotic. She has few friends, doesn't find it easy to talk to others, and feels most at ease with animals. Nonetheless, in spite of her young age Chaos is a published artist who dreams of her own series.

However, she keeps ending up last in reader surveys, and her editor views her as weak in both her drawing and her story telling. She concludes that Chaos needs more real-life experience and more social interactions. She arranges for her to join a special dormitory for young manga artists, where Chaos and another aspiring mangaka, Koyume Kotzuka, will live together with two serialised, but equally teenage artists, Tsubasa Katsuki, who writes shounen, and Ruki Irokawa, whose pen name Big Boobies♥Himeko Chan says everything about the nature of her art.

The four girls are later joined by Suzu Fūra, a mangaka specialising to Chaos' great chagrin in horror stories. They are supervised by a housemother who is later revealed has been a yuri artist in her youth.

Over the 12 episodes we follow the girls and their growth as artists. We see Chaos struggling with her fears, and their blooming friendships — and in one case love — between the girls. Chaos' ideas still keep being rejected by her editor, but slowly she manages to escape her emotional shell at least somewhat.

While the storyline at times touches also on practical aspects of the art of drawing manga from the choice of pencils, over story boarding to drawing software, ultimately Comic Girls stays mostly in the well-worn pattern of "Cute Girls doing Cute Things".

Overall, I find this a nice enough show to watch also with kids, but not particularly memorable either — and not even pretending to give deeper insights into the world of manga art.

Official website (in Japanese)

P. S.: One day I hope to add a comment system to the log. Until then, please feel free to share your comments on Mastodon, where you can reach me under @temperedTea@mk.absturztau.be