English Dub Review: Arte “I Want to Be an Apprentice & A New Life”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Arte is a young noblewoman with a passion for drawing living in Florence at the age of the Renaissance. Upon her father’s passing, her mother burns her sketches and tells her that she should be focused on marrying a man. Arte refuses to live like a bird in a cage and hoes out to seek an apprenticeship from one of the master artists who all refuse to accept her because of her gender. However a master painter, Leo is suggested by a master painter that he take her on as an apprentice. After looking at her sketches he asks for her reason for becoming an artist and gives her a seemingly impossible task. Arte completes the task much to his surprise and she reveals that she would rather go hungry and work as a painter than live a life trapped in a cage. Leo accepts her as his first apprentice and she moves out to start her apprenticeship.

In the second episode, Arte meets another apprentice, Angelo who works at the famous Master Danilo’s workshop. He offers to help her with pulling the cart but she refuses and returns to work on her shed without any help. Then we follow his perspective as he comes home to his sisters who ask him to take care of the heavy lifting tasks. Meanwhile, Arte faces the challenges of heavy lifting and misogyny when she asks permission from Danilo to observe and sketch his sculpture to which the famous master artist refuses. The next day she tries again when Danilo gives her a heavy task of moving ten bags of clay that even two men struggle to carry over. However, she completes the task much to the awe of the people in the workshop with her and Danilo agrees to let her draw his sculpture. Angelo returns home and upon his sister’s requests says that they can try to do it themselves.

Our Take:

The first two episodes were a great start to Arte pursuing her dream, and the world she occupies in Florence during the Renaissance era. It’s refreshing to see Arte chase after her dream and not be confined to the era’s norm of women needing to marry a man in order to live a decent life. Her persistence and determination to find a master painter to mentor her so that she can live independently is a sight to see and made me root for her.

The misogyny of the Renaissance oozes from almost all of the master painters who Arte requests apprenticeships, and they even throw out of their workshops without seeing her sketches. However Leo, a master painter stumbles onto the scene and gets stuck with her. From the start, he doesn’t belittle her because she’s a woman and even views her sketches before asking why she wants to become an artist. Understandably her initial reason seemed flimsy which irritates Leo who gives her a hard task expecting her to quit. When she actually completes the task and reveals her real reason for becoming an artist, Arte reminds him of his younger self. It’s a good scene to set up the teacher and student bond and a step forward for Arte’s dream.

There are minor jabs from local people as they see Arte pulling a cart with the materials for her old shed in the second episode. It further emphasizes how much of an outlier Arte is in society. However, she never gives up and finds a better method to pull the cart which later helps her with Danilo’s challenge. Now as much as I enjoy seeing Arte prove these men wrong with her determination, I would rather see her work on her apprenticeship with Leo than watch her have to prove to another misogynistic artist in order to view their art. Those scenes could get old fast if they happen in every episode.

The episodes switch from different people’s perspectives which gives us the audience several views on the society of Florence. We see how an apprenticeship at a famous artist’s workshop was through the scenes with Angelo. Furthermore, the narration was enough to provide basic information on the work of an apprentice learning their trade. The anime is a good historical anime for those interested in the Renaissance era. The voice acting is great from Arte’s cheerful voice to Leo’s gruff voice. The anime also has a lovely shot of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in the opening. Hopefully, the next episode will be as informative as the first two.