Title: Drawing From Your Memory Vol. 2
Author: Shiki Kawabata
Publisher: Kodansha
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Sci-Fi
Publication Date: July 14, 2026
The Story
Haruta is on her third time loop, but she isn’t exactly covert about it. She makes the signs for the school festival before Arashi even comes to ask them about it. She also knows that the manga club is being targeted for shutting down, and how to save it. All of it happens in a way where even Yukishima wonders how she has so much insight. Then, the shocking part comes when Haruta actually confesses that she’s a time traveler to Arashi because she’s so desperate for help that she felt the need to convince someone about the events that had happened and what was to come. Of course, Arashi was skeptical about it, but despite how crazy it sounded, he wanted to know how he could possibly time leap as well because he has something he would like to undo, too.
With Arashi believing her about everything, the two of them begin to work on a way to figure out how the time leap triggers. Even though it’s obvious that the trigger is Yukishima, they also suspect a manga artist by the name of Maruo Gorilla, who is a famous gag mangaka. They suspect him because when they pick up the latest version of League magazine, one of the series that Arashi takes over when he becomes an editor in the future is completely missing and replaced with a different work from Maruo.
Yukishima then becomes threatened by Haruta’s insight and knowledge, so he aims to get serialized. When he gets accepted, he’s offered the chance to become Maruo’s assistant; however, he cannot bring himself to admit that it was Haruta who drew his backgrounds and not him, so he nearly works himself to the bone to learn how to do them, but in the end, turns down the offer… that is until Maruo himself shows up at the school to ask him to come work for him. Arashi and Haruta would also like to come observe to learn how to make manga, but it’s not just going to be a studio visit… they want them to make a storyboard to bring along, and they only have two weeks to do it!
Characters
There was a lot of development here with Arashi. We learned a lot about his background, and why he decided to believe Haruta when she confessed that she had come back through time. When Haruta tells him about how he became an editor, it makes him trigger a memory about his brother and what it could possibly mean for him. That’s when we learn about Arashi’s deepest regret, but his backstory isn’t all sadness and depression. We learned that even at an early age, he had an incredible knack for writing, so he wanted to become a novelist. Oddly enough, even though Haruta showed him the manga series he would become an editor for, he had no idea about them… and in fact, he didn’t even consider liking manga, to begin with. The trigger that turned him onto manga is missing, but with the way Haruta is acting, she may become the trigger that replaces the one that originally got him interested in it.
As for Yukishima, we don’t get much in the way of development for him, but it’s quite obvious that Haruta and Arashi’s efforts are causing some sort of butterfly effect and changing Yukishima’s future. He’s doing things and getting opportunities that were never presented to him in the first two timelines. This makes his impending death unpredictable, which is bad news for Haruta. They don’t know how much longer he has, or when it will happen, but it became quite obvious that his death is a trigger for Yukishima. When he was asked when he decided to start making manga, it was almost like a dark trigger went off inside him, and while it wasn’t blatantly stated outright, it became obvious that it had something to do with his death. It’s a morbid reason, but it fits the character quite well. It’s also sad because he’s working so hard at achieving something knowing full well that he won’t be alive long enough to fully enjoy the fruits of his labor.
As for Haruta, we also learn about her backstory as well as her little brother, Hajime’s. Needless to say, Hajime was the reason why she got into making manga, but it wasn’t because he simply looked up to her. There was a deeper reason to it all, one that filled her with a sense of joy and pride because she knew that making manga wasn’t just about bonding with her brother… it was about helping him fit in during a situation where he couldn’t become way more distant than he was. If that isn’t big sister vibes, then I don’t know what is.
Final Thoughts
While this was another amazing volume, the only issue I took with it was how easy Arashi believed Haruta’s story about being a time traveler. Sure, there were doubts, but it’s like he connected the dots a bit too quickly. Then again, the volume literally opens up with Arashi wondering if time travel was possible so that he could go back and fix something, so while he was reluctant, his quickness to believe her stems from a personal wish… because part of him wanted to believe it was possible.
One of the problems with time travel is that the more you change, the more the world responds to that change, and that’s exactly what we are seeing here. Right now, there is no confirmation that Haruta is experiencing what happened in Steins;Gate… meaning she’s moving to a world line that is being created by her changes, thus leaving the world line she left behind intact. Right now, it may seem that way as there are a few clues that would suggest as such.
First, Yukishima died at a different point in the second timeline. If it were the original timeline, unless a major event forced a change in his health, he should die at the same time, as it would be ordained in that timeline. The fact that he died at a different time suggests that this timeline wasn’t the same. The second clue is his Idea Notes book. Haruta possessed it in the original timeline, and in the second timeline, she admitted that she hadn’t touched it, thus eliminating it as the trigger for her time leap. But the mere fact that she never got it shows that the timeline was completely different. Now, in the third timeline, Yukishima has his debut and gets scouted by a mangaka, Arashi joins the manga club, and a whole slew of other events are completely different. A timeline won’t shift and change that much unless it was copied with those changes already made. So, that leads me to believe that Haruta is changing world lines, which is why the conditions are different every time… and that also leads me to believe that the answer lies in moving to a world line where Yukishima simply doesn’t die because it’s not part of that timeline’s rule set.
That could be the true end goal of the series, but I could also be overthinking things. The only way to find out for sure is to read on! Bring on Volume 3!
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