Content considerations: Violence; grief.
What’s it about? With everyone telling him that he can’t make a living off his art, high schooler Kyoichi is indifferent about life after graduation. But when he sees fellow classmate Eren’s striking graffiti, it inspires him to hone his skills and aim higher, to hell with the naysayers. Little does he know that Eren is desperate to stop making art and has no time for Kyoichi’s shonen-style rivalry.
The opening song for Eren the Southpaw is a jazzy bop called “Funkin’ Beautiful,” packed with exuberant saxophones and trumpets. It’s a shame it clashes so awkwardly with the more slow-paced, almost morose opening animation, all gloomy colors and looming walls.
The opening is a tidy summary for the rest of the premiere: a combination of intriguing-on-paper elements that nevertheless struggle to find a cohesive identity, leading to a show that is (so far) less than the sum of its parts. It’s never bad—and sometimes it’s pretty good—but it doesn’t seem to have found its voice yet.
Southpaw’s premiere follows three high school artists, showing the world from each of their perspectives for at least a portion of this premiere. The shifting perspective provides character depth and keeps the story from feeling like a “girl exists to inspire boy”-type narrative, but it also leaves the episode a bit rushed and disjointed, as the characters’ different attitudes shift the tone dramatically at times.
Kyoichi begins apathetically, discouraged by his parents’ insistence that people can’t make a career out of drawing. Eren quickly reignites his passion, though, revealing an inner child yearning for a shonen-like story of respected rivals pushing each other to fulfil their grand dreams. He’s at once arrogant and insecure in a way that feels endearingly true to high school.
Eren’s primary emotion is anger laced with grief over her father’s death. She tells us she’s desperate to “forget about the arts,” but can’t stop herself from spontaneous graffiti, and rages at anyone she perceives as making “bad” art. She even physically attacks Kyoichi when he tries to prove he’s capable of improvement. Her story is complex and not fully told in this first episode, but she brings a rawness and tension whenever she’s on screen, all sharp angles and dark colors.
Sayuri forms the final point in our triangle, bridging the gap as Kyoichi’s art clubmate and Eren’s childhood friend. Like Kyoichi and Eren, she’s a bundle of contradictions, declaring herself “good at everything” in one sentence and then “average” in the next. She sees both herself and Kyoichi as people who “aren’t protagonists” and claims that’s what she likes about him—but when she thinks it, the look on her face is more of pain than peace.
Despite their varying attitudes, what ties Kyoichi, Eren, and Sayuri together—and forms the thematic backbone of this episode—is that all three are dealing with the moment in young adulthood when the passions of childhood crash against the practical realities of adulthood, particularly when those passions aren’t easily turned into jobs. Their reactions are different, but their conflict is similar.
So, if the episode seems tonally disjointed, maybe that’s the point. These kids can’t find a way to fit the thing they love into their futures, and so they fluctuate from resignation to rage, with one passionately insisting they can “become something” even as the other passionately insists it’s impossible. It’s teen angst and ennui all splashed together on the same canvas.
…Except, here’s the thing: this episode appears to be a prologue. The high school scenes all take place in 1998 (“A period piece!” I announce over the sound of my joints creaking), but the episode opens with a brief, violent scene in 2010 where Kyoichi gets the snot kicked out of him. I have no idea how we get from the teen dreams to the adult nightmare, but it doesn’t leave me feeling optimistic for our cast.
Like the narrative, the production is competent but lacking a strong sense of identity. There are a few standout storyboards but fairly minimal animation, which tends to work better with more colorful or abstract shows. Southpaw’s more realistic art style and earthy color palette would have really benefited from more expressive, fluid character animation to enhance the sense of realism. As it is, it’s mostly just unremarkable.
There’s a lot of potential in this premiere—plenty to delve into in terms of plot beats and character development, to say nothing of its artistic themes and focus on graffiti—but it’s a murky kind of potential, with no clear sense of direction in terms of story or tone. I watched the episode at a wary arm’s length, wanting to embrace it but never able to do so.
Will Southpaw latch on to Kyoichi’s sparkle-eyed inner child and find a hopeful way forward? Or will the premiere’s cynical undercurrent take center stage and turn this into a joyless outing for all involved? This one’s likely gonna need a three-episode check-in before we can say with any kind of confidence what kind of a show it’s going to be.
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