Sora wo Matotte - Vol. 4 Ch. 23 - The Deep End

[ExchiEnjoyer]

The world doesn't revolve around you lil bro. Sit your goofy ass down 🙏

 

[DPLBatoDex]

Many Thanks @princess_daphie for the new chapter, it's been far too long since the last release.

This chapter, I feel, is another necessary development for Haro for his growth as an Artist and the refinement of his craft: he needs to actually develop his "aesthetic identity," the aspect of his work that will identify him to the people who view his art. He is now technically sound in his drawing of nudes, but he now needs to inject his personal "flair" into his art that describes himself as a person through his art.

I also agree with @Funky_Cosmonaut on their analysis of Haro and Kazari art pieces:

Haro's work shows his obvious love of nudes, as that's where all the effort went. The rest suffers horribly. The "classroom" in the piece isn't apparent, and I honestly thought he just forgot to blend or erase the perspective lines. Not gonna lie, I actually laughed when I saw it. I also have to criticize how he seems to default towards torsos and hasn't graduated to full-body drawings. As a result, it feels objectifying by removing emotion or identity from the matter. It doesn't matter how well he can draw a nude, if it feels empty and it's placed in an empty setting.


Kazari doesn't fair much better. While he has a far more all-around consistant and technically impressive work, there's a sterility here. He's properly framed by the nudes around him, with enough dynamism in both the implication of movement and their overlap with the mid-ground. Simultaneously, he misses the theme by cutting the classroom out of the picture, and elevates himself as the subject.


In the end, they're mirrors of each other: Haro wants to make art, but he refuses to learn. Kazari wants to learn all the techniques, but he only makes drawings, not ART.

There is one thing in this chapter that's bothered me & that needs to be fixed: the text typeset in the first speech bubble on Page 18. This is a considerable oversight for the text here to not fit inside the bubble.

Hopefully I won't have to wait too long to see the resolution to this chapter's cliffhanger.

 

[Sloth295]

hitting a wall at your own backyard, can say I feel ya

 

[misopogon]

Dude's art is very one note, he needs a wake up call to realise there's more to art than just nudes. A gut punch that it's happening before the hot sensei though.

 

[xikarra]

My only understanding of visual arts comes from photography and even I can tell Haro’s piece was shit. Like not even underwhelming but like actively, offensively bad.

There is nothing there apart from technical ability and that’s the least one would expect in art school. Composition is shit, pose is shit, background-foreground juxtaposition is shit, the background might as well not be there. Also a nude portrait without the head or limbs? Really? The torso is probably the least visually interesting part of the body.

 

[Mieglen]

Honestly, him saying that was his best work in my mind meant that he is stuck in his old way of thinking.

That may have been his best work in his small bubble, but, given his current mentality, he’s just but an unpolished gem trying to “improve” by staying inside the stagnant pond of water, only occasionally moved by the ripples of water when a new character jumps into the stagnant pool, causing ripples to form.

 

[musicfreak12]

Obviously the MC will lose, that's the point of this "humbled" arc. But... How did the rival win? The painting make no sense. You are sitting, painting, surrounded by.... Nude milf? Looks almost AI generated lol. "Yeah let's put past present future in that, that will make sense" wtf

I prefer gao works out of all that honestly, the art style is unique and her interpretation, as weird as it is, is most interesting than all of them

 

[southaccel]

ask him to draw something like his city and he would end up drawing tits just because, the mc is such a one trick pony he's hard to cheer for him

 

[Litreara]

I really didn’t expect so much criticism of Haro when I read this chapter. Out of nowhere, everyone turned into an art critic, and suddenly Haro’s being treated like he has no clue what he’s doing. Also, some people need to reread it, because they seem to have forgotten this:

Yes, he’s only going to paint nudes. Besides nudes being what power his artistic drive, he also has to pass the entrance exam by drawing/painting them.

 

[koollast]

Someone needs to tell MC that he's got the spirit for art but his creativity is atrocious

Also thanks again for TL, here's hoping the next chapter doesn't take too long

 

[Soneca]

I guess always having a nude as the centerpiece of his works (and usually the torso, but not always, ex: the baseball glove one) finally came to bite him in some way. Haro's works usually were the best when he had a subject and themes handed to him from the occasion he used as inspiration for what he was painting/drawing at the time, here he had none of that (and having to come up with those on the spot, on your own, with time pressure, is much more difficult), and this should be a good learning experience for him, as it'll make him realise the skills he's lacking, and how he might've either misinterpreted Amami-sensei's (gramps-sensei) words, or how limited his perspective has been up until now, even if it was developing little by little. In his work it feels like he tried to say so much, in a grandiose way, that he wasn't able to communicate anything at all, feels like almost everything he tried to portray ended up still staying inside his own head (it honestly can happen with anyone).

I was a bit surprised with the attitude here on the comments as well, people weren't being this agressive on previous chapters, I believe Haro's attitude from his shock, interrupting the reviewing session in a disrespectful manner, really got to some people. He could've waited for the end, but it wasn't really harmful in any way, he didn't contest the decision, and we didn't linger on it, props to the teacher (whose name I forgot, my apologies) for being sensitive about it and giving him some good feedback given the circumstances.

A shame we didn't get any spotlight on the other works that were selected as the best, only Kazari's and Gao's. And of the two, I honestly liked Gao's more, though I think in a formal setting it would be Kazari's that'd be judged as the more accomplished work, not just by a technical aspect, but in a compositional sense, Gao's is very expressive, with a nice insight, but it's still very simple, and with no limitations being imposed besides the theme, she could've done a lot more with it.

And this is just my opinion, and I'm no professional. Thank you very much for the scanlation, it's nice to see this series is back.

 

[Hootanic]

Sometimes, these little setbacks are what you need to make a giant leap forward.

 

[TheDarkStar]

Just wanted to give a huge thanks to @princess_daphie. I just binged it and loved it. My biggest critique or maybe I should say hope is that Mayu is developed more. She was introduced pretty early on and although a bit of her backstory was hinted at, considering how many chapters she appears in, she’s really underdeveloped as a character. Gao (who I also love) was introduced much more recently and it feels like we got to know much more about her.

 

[Kushikime]

Thanks for the chapter !! I’m kind of glad he lost because he will actually have to look within and that will ultimately help him with his goals. Good stuff.

 

[Panino]

Of course Rei will blast Kazaki painting, and I already hate it.

His style may not be "personal" like some would like, but it is HIS style, he has all the right to draw like that. In the future his style may change, it may or may not become more "personal" or "expressive", this doesn't matter. It'll happen when he wants to do something different.


I don't get why Rei has so much hope in Haro, the dude is an idiot.

 

[Panino]

It's honestly BS. Because Art is an interpretation that doesn't survive the test of time. No one can agree on what the "classics" really mean because it's partly a context of the time it was created, and then when viewed, those times change and so does the interpretation.

To me this is simply a story of someone who has a habit - literally a fetish for nudes without context, and does what he wants. He's clearly not a hero with clay feet, so he's a peg to get whacked at. Whether that whacking molds him or destroys him seems to be the question, but for now, it's all about destroying individuality for the sake of art nouveau (the villain's work).

Oh and in case you think I'm just pissed about it (yeah I am) I did read more than a few raws ahead,

Spoiler: Here's the outcome

The witch calls the villain's work essentially trite - it's technically superior, but it has no soul. It has no meaning. Our hard-headed MC on the other hand? She doesn't outright praise him, but says essentially what I wrote above - "You cant help but draw what you want to draw. Thank you for this, I'm looking forward to more." Oh, and the annoying gal whose Dad didn't want her to be an artist? She came in second.

So there you go. It's nice to be able to have read between the lines and actually be validated by the Raws. Let's move on.

Spoiler: Ok I can't help myself

But there is a big connection between the villain's hot sister and a major character. That's all. It will become self-evident in the next few chapters. But more importantly, does he get to see her nude? Heh. All I can say is the villain gets his comeuppance but not in the way you think.

But admit, at least the Office Worker side story was cute.

 

[ITSigno]

It’s not that he’s a beginner. It’s just that he didn’t understand the instructions and just drew whatever comes into his mind.

Part of the problem is his tunnel vision and seeming unseriousness.

Like it or not, Art Schools in College/Uni have their own metrics for judging artworks. People have repeatedly told him what he needs to do if he wants to be accepted, but he keeps trying to do his own thing and hoping that doing the bare minimum of lip service to the requirements will suffice. And everyone keeps telling him it's not.

He has improved since the beginning, but he has years and years of bad habits from doing this stuff in isolation. All of his competition in that room has been attending art classes and/or competing with others for years.

Even his choice of art classes was dumb. The old guy may be great, but MC was basically operating on his own until Gao showed up.

MC needs to wake up and realize that if he wants to improve and be accepted, he's gonna have to start following the rules...

Edit: Just want to add that all of the regular students attending the art classes there know exactly what the instructor expects so that does give them a bit of an advantage. It's going to be pretty similar at other art classes as well, though. MC just doesn't have enough experience or enough flexibility to incorporate those expectations yet. He'll probably get there eventually (it is a manga, afterall) but he's way behind his contemporaries.

 

[KyoHisagi]

So MC got humbled because "I don't see you in this painting", meanwhile he rival was praised for being petty? Sounds fair (not). Teach acknowledged it was not the expression of an artistic self, It was the way to get back at MC

 

[Fallenstreet01]

Excellent chapter, author finally addressed Haro's main problem: he's too naive in understanding his lackings and too arrogant to improve them.

He sat down there, thinking he had improved his skill at adding themes into his nudes enough to pass this exam easily, only to be slapped with the one truth many have already said but he has willfully ignored all along: he focus in nudity way too much!

He did not understood the theme at all, sure he got the classroom alright and it was a clever interpretation of "wearing the world" but what is in there is not himself, it's just his worldview, and that's not the same at all. We, as readers, know that Haro is obsessed with nudes and it's one of his core beliefs, but how were the judges and outsiders supposed to know that? Is there something in that painting that can say, with full certainty, that Haro is there, in that classroom, "wearing the world"? Of course not, there's just a unknown naked girl there.

I really hope next chapter, Rio puts the final nail of his naivety coffin and forces him to accept his shortcomings and start from zero.

 

[DjAlexDubCheck]

I guess always having a nude as the centerpiece of his works (and usually the torso, but not always, ex: the baseball glove one) finally came to bite him in some way. Haro's works usually were the best when he had a subject and themes handed to him from the occasion he used as inspiration for what he was painting/drawing at the time, here he had none of that (and having to come up with those on the spot, on your own, with time pressure, is much more difficult), and this should be a good learning experience for him, as it'll make him realise the skills he's lacking, and how he might've either misinterpreted Amami-sensei's (gramps-sensei) words, or how limited his perspective has been up until now, even if it was developing little by little. In his work it feels like he tried to say so much, in a grandiose way, that he wasn't able to communicate anything at all, feels like almost everything he tried to portray ended up still staying inside his own head (it honestly can happen with anyone).

I was a bit surprised with the attitude here on the comments as well, people weren't being this agressive on previous chapters

Possibly a lot of failed artists who felt like shit hit both the fan and too close to home