I Read a Blog About a Failed Aspiring Manga Artist and Wondered: Perhaps a Kind Workplace Is the Scariest of All

The other day, I read a blog by someone who had once aspired to become a manga artist.

It documented the 11 years they spent pursuing that dream, from the age of 18 to 29.

They did not attend university or get a regular job. Instead, they spent every day drawing manga. At one point, their work even received an honorable mention in a competition, and there were times when they felt that success might be just within reach.

But they never managed to close that final gap.

When I finished reading, what I felt was not so much sympathy as a realization that this was not a problem limited to the manga industry.

Beneath Every Successful Person Are Countless People Who Failed

Japanese manga is read around the world. Many titles, including One Piece and Demon Slayer, are well known overseas.

Yet only a tiny handful of artists reach the top. Beneath them must be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, who abandoned their dreams along the way.

What struck me about this particular blog was that the writer had made it as far as receiving an honorable mention.

At the very least, their work had reached a standard worthy of recognition in a publisher’s competition. Even so, it was not enough to secure a serialized manga.

The manga industry apparently places a great deal of value on youth. In one’s early twenties, an aspiring artist may be seen as a promising newcomer. By the late twenties, the perception begins to shift toward someone who still has not made a debut.

The artist continues to improve, while the judgment from those around them becomes harsher.

It is a rather cruel system.

Even After Ten Years of Effort, Your Résumé Is Almost Blank

What makes the situation even harsher is that the experience of pursuing a career as a manga artist is not necessarily recognized as professional experience in the wider job market.

At an ordinary company, ten years of work gives you ten years of employment history.

For an aspiring manga artist, however, even ten years as an assistant and several competition awards still leave you a newcomer if you have never had a commercial series of your own.

Your drawing skills improve, and your technical knowledge accumulates. Yet when you try to find a job at an ordinary company, you still face the problem of explaining those 11 years.

To them, those were 11 years spent staking their life on a dream. But there is no guarantee that an employer will value them in the same way.

The time spent making an effort and the achievements recognized by society are not the same thing.

Could a Kind Workplace Be More Frightening Than a Terrible One?

The part of the blog that made me think the most was the account of their years as an assistant.

The professional manga artist they worked for was a person of excellent character, and the studio was a very comfortable place to work.

At first, I thought, “Weren’t they lucky to find such a good mentor?” But perhaps that was precisely what made the situation frightening.

They could take part in creating manga they loved. They had a mentor they respected, colleagues around them, and enough income to live on.

With all those conditions in place, it would have been very difficult to leave.

“I will give it just one more year.”

Perhaps next year they would finally secure a series of their own. Thinking that way, they could find no reason to abandon their current environment.

By contrast, a terrible workplace makes you want to leave whether you like it or not. It can give you the push you need to think, “I cannot stay in a place like this,” and change your circumstances.

A bad environment drives people away, but a good environment keeps them there.

And the people keeping them there have no malicious intent whatsoever.

That, I thought, was the most difficult part.

The Irresponsible Advice That “Dreams Come True If You Never Give Up”

I was also struck by the part where they described turning 29, giving up their dream of becoming a manga artist, and beginning to consider employment at an ordinary company.

Until the day before, they had been a young person working toward a dream. The moment they began job hunting, they became “a person approaching 30 who has to work out how to explain a lack of employment history.”

The same problem occurs in every field where people pursue dreams: acting, music, professional sports, and entrepreneurship.

It reminded me of a phrase often heard in self-help advice.

“Your dream will come true if you never give up.”

I have never been able to like that phrase.

It sounds true if you look only at successful people. But those who use up years of their lives along the way never appear in the success stories.

Human life is finite in the first place.

If we lived for 500 years, there would be nothing wrong with spending a century trying to become a manga artist. If it did not work out, we could simply start another career.

In reality, however, even living to 100 is far from guaranteed.

When people tell us not to give up until we succeed, how many years do they imagine we have to live?

Leaving a Dream May Be Harder Than Pursuing One

Every week, we read new manga and enjoy new anime. Behind them are people who put down their pens without their names ever becoming known.

It takes courage to pursue a dream. But perhaps it takes even more courage to give up a dream after pursuing it for many years.

It is especially difficult when you have achievements suggesting that success may be close, when the people around you are kind, and when your daily life feels fulfilling.

You can escape when you are miserable. But when you are reasonably happy, it is difficult to find a reason to leave.

That is why, when we begin pursuing a dream, we also need to think about the point at which we will withdraw.

Of course, it would be difficult to expect such a level-headed judgment from an 18-year-old. They believe that they will be one of those who succeed.

And when you read an interview with a successful manga artist, the same kind of statement invariably appears:

“I am so glad I kept going and never gave up.”

Well, of course.

The people who kept going, never gave up, and still failed are never interviewed in the first place.