PAPERDAWN

Huh, not gonna lie, I didn't expect this Japanese kids show from 2001 to actually make racism part of an episode's dilemma.

They handled it really, really well, honestly. Tamaki didn't need to be explained in nauseum why she was wrong. She just sorta realized that it was a shitty comment to make. The resolution wasn't really her just giving a half-assed apology either. It was her going out of her way to make it up to her AND her friend in a clever way. Really good episode. Tamaki may be awesome. I mean, the racist part isn't so awesome, but she's like 5, i can forgive her. She learned.

I always thought I sort of dodged the "awkward phase" of being online. But not at all. 2012-2014 I was insufferable on this damn site. It's not bad enough to be damning. It just makes me go, "Why did i say that?" like psycho-analyzing what kind person I was trying to be.

It's oddly therapeutic. Kinda reminding my now 30 year old self that I was a kid back then. Obviously, still figuring myself out and obviously obviously embarrassing myself in the process.

That being said, my art around that era was really bad. Like really really bad. Like, "this is a kid that was told they were a good artist at such a young age that they don't feel they need to improve" bad. I feel my progress as an artist was soooo slow. At least compared to other artists. I feel I had the brain for the creative part of art, just not for the actual skill expression of art. That was a long process of learning. And I don't even particularly feel like a "skilled" artist now. Just a cartoonist with some fancy digital art techniques.