Hiya homie and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 112: Punch and Striking Out, in which this silly arc ends in a silly way, but I’m still okay with it, I swear, you guys. For realsies.

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Punch and Striking Out Summary

Hit Me!

Picking up directly after the last chapter, Shujin’s ready to win the Super L(R)eader’s Love Fest!

Saiko asks to be punched in the face.

Womp womp.

Shujin, understandably confused, asks what Saiko’s deal is. Saiko admits *gasp* to the fact that it was a mistake to have Shujin work on Loveta. Shujin points out that it all worked out in the end (because it had to but whatever) and Saiko also recognizes that it did work; but for a while he was worried that Shujin was prioritizing Shiratori over him, and PCP…b-baka.

Shujin wants to know what’s up with the confession, then punches Saiko in the face–KAPOW.

Saiko accuses Shujin of not putting in his best effort with that punch, pointing out that he absolutely bodied Ishizawa forty-ish chapters ago. Shujin explains it was the best, he just needs to protect the money-maker, his right hand.

(lol).

Saiko thinks it still wasn’t overly decisive. Shujin explains that since they’ve been writing manga, he’s been losing strength; even playing with Peace left him winded.

He asks Saiko to hit him.

These two dingbats.

Saiko asks why, and Shujin explains that it’s just what guys their age “do”. Saiko – nor I – understand what that means, at all. Shujin seems to think this is a thing. Saiko thinks he’s reading too much manga.

*clears throat*.

Shujin wants Saiko to hit him, but Saiko doesn’t know if he’s ever actually hit anybody. Shujin thinks that’s lame. But Shujin realizes that because he has an older brother he’s used to throwing punches. Shujin decides it’s too stuffy in the studio and asks him to come to Momiji park. Saiko resists but Shujin reminds him who asked to punch who.

The Dumbest Fight (Continued)

At the park Saiko makes a rule: after the first punch, anything goes. Saiko throws a punch and Shujin blocks; reflexes baby. Shujin gets a good gut punch in and Saiko keels over calling it unfair. Shujin points out that they are….uhm, fighting, and that anything goes. They apologize to each other and act like total goobers, but Saiko gets a decent upper cut in there.

Shujin points out not to aim for the chin. Bad etiquette. Amateur fighters, bro. Saiko apologizes.

Jesus. These two.

Meanwhile, Kaya cycles by for a perfect sitcom moment, freaking out about the end of Ashirogi and tries to get them to stop.

The fight concludes.

Back at the studio, Kaya rightfully scolds Shujin for having such an idiotic rationalization for fighting and, as a martial artist, she thinks their punches were some weak sauce. Shujin makes the connection that fighting is not a great way to build friendship. If it were the case, wars would make nations grow closer. These mangaka are not fit for these things. Saiko is especially ill equipped.

Kaya asks if they’re feeling better, though, to which the boys admit that yes, they do feel better. Shujin chalks it up to their dedication to each other going haywire, but Saiko takes the blame for pushing Shujin to do Loveta. Shujin takes equal blame for reviewing Shiratori’s storyboards and then dealing with Shiratori’s mom the way he did.

Kaya sees that maybe the fight had some benefits after all, seeing how much the boys stick up for each other.

Shujin moves on to less dumb things like reviewing their one-shot. He suggests giving Kengo a funny friend to confide in as a first step. Saiko connects the dots between Shujin’s notes and Hattori’s critiques. Even though the idea was intentional, it’s unnecessarily limiting and doesn’t create a more typical romance people can relate to.

Saiko asks about Sayaka, but Shujin’s less concerned about her reticence. it’s more a matter of dynamism of the scene. Kaya watches contentedly as the boys exchange notes on their one-shot and Saiko gets a lecture that would make me proud.

Hattori’s Frustrations

At Jump Editorial, Miura learns from Aida that Shiratori is going to work on Loveta by himself. Miura asks Hattori if that was the plan. No. It was all Shujin. The kid could make a good editor one day. Hattori needs to find an office and assistants for him as well. Somebody (unclear who) tells Hattori to take good care of him. He’s a good kid.

At that same moment, Shiratori calls Hattori. Miura thinks that Shiratori is probably lost and in need of an assist.

But the opposite is true: Shiratori’s getting help from Kaya’s dad and has a two-bedroom place for a potential studio. It’s close to his current living quarters. Hattori’s fine with that. Shiratori agrees, but doesn’t have the capital to pay for it, so he’ll need the preparation fund that Hattori told him about before. He also has a former classmate at his art school who also dropped out to make manga. The guy is experienced, so he only really needs one more assistant.

Hattori is surprised by how under wraps Shiratori has things. Hattori’s also surprised to see he’s gotten so confident and together since starting as an assistant. Yujiro comes by and thinks Hattori should have put him on his own to start.

When asked why, Yujiro explains that Eiji used his magic manga sense ™ to tell him that Loveta was “Shiratori Sensei’s Work”. None of them understand what that means.

Three days later, Ashirogi have finally gotten the one-shot right where they want it. Shujin has no more notes. Saiko’s impressed by Shujin’s abilities and asks if he can show it to Hattori. Shujin thinks he should and start inking too if he’s confident about it.

Hattori agrees with Shujin, although he’s uncertain how it will play with a larger audience, being so radically different from their usual work. He’s personally pleased with it, though. Now it’s all about making the art amazing.

Hattori also confirms that once all seven stories have run in the super leaders love fest, they’ll be ranked according to the reader’s survey. Saiko asks if they can submit it as a potential draft for a series if it does well.

Hattori is frustrated and flatly tells the they can’t quit PCP and they can’t handle two series at once. Jump will also almost certainly not let them do that. That said, with Nizuma having two series it’s not an out and out impossibility.

They’re shocked, but Hattori says it wouldn’t be fair to other artists if only Nizuma could do it. More to the point, Hattori could try his best to convince them it’s foolish, but if they won they would be drafting storyboards the moment they heard.

Hattori reminds them that it’s all contingent on whether they get first place. Saiko misreads the subtext and asks Shujin to see if they can make it even better. Hattori also suggests inking now, although he thinks it goes without saying. He then offers to lend a hand and take another look at the storyboard.

Team Fukuda Checks In

Meanwhile, Fukuda comes up with a Yankee romance featuring the number one thug falling in love with a rich girl but has to give up his brawling ways. But when he gets beaten up she joins in the fun. Fukuda thinks he’s cracked the code for romance.

Good for him.

Yamahisa gives *sigh* design notes for the Angel to be made sexier. Aoki asks if that means pantie shots, but, surprisingly, Yamahisa thinks the character is attractive enough as it is, and it won’t be necessary.

Yujiro, meanwhile, picks up the complete one-shot that Eiji wrote and is shocked he’s already done. But of course he is, Yujiro, remember the manga we’re reading?

Eiji sings about love but Yujiro is uncertain whether the one-shot is any good. He assumes so because Eiji….well, is Eiji, but he’s still uncertain.

Meanwhile, Iwase chews Miura out because the art of a *checks notes* middle schooler is misogynistic. Aside from having giant knockers she’s way too sexy to be a…*checks again* middle schooler.

I swear to fucking god.

Miura doesn’t understand the issue because of course he doesn’t, but Iwase is unsatisfied with Mr. Happongi’s “Work”. Iwase asks if Nakai is available; she’d much rather use him.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I don’t like where this is going.

Fortunately, Miura quashes that by explaining he quit the biz for good. When asked why, Miura chalks it up to his age – being almost 40 – and his issues with pretty women. Yikes.

Iwase sees an opportunity and takes it: Nakai will be perfect.

Double yikes.

Miura, actually like a good editor, decides to step in and tells her he’ll ask Happongi to tone-down the sexiness of the *checks notes one more time* middle school aged heroine.

Fuck me, dude.

At Hiramaru’s studio, Hiramaru is aghast when Yoshida tells him to prepare a draft for serialization just in case. Yoshida ain’t playing. Aoki and Hiramaru’s Manga are both coming to a conclusion. If he places first it’s the logical next step. Hiramaru asks for a worst case scenario. Yoshida explains that it wouldn’t, and that the government has no interest in teen love, as he assumes Hiramaru is talking about his manga.

Hiramaru is asking about what happens if he gets first place. Yoshida is grumpy at the idea he’s still so resistant to serialization. Hiramaru thinks he has a trump card since his tea party with Aoki has already been setup.

Yoshida takes a different tactic: He threatens to make sure Hiramaru will never work in manga again. Hiramaru’s genuinely shocked by the change in tactics.

It isn’t that good

In Issue #14, the Super Leaders Love Fest is announced with the line up for the manga. Starting with Eiji, then going to Aoki, followed by our bois Ashirogi, then Hiramaru, Iwase and Happongi, Fukuda, and finally Arai, who isn’t currently in Jump

Moriya is enticed by the idea of a one-shot by Eiji and Hiramaru, although he can’t imagine what they would even write. Kato bemoans her lack of boyfriend. Orihara just stares at Saiko, who is possessed by the Manga Kami to work on his one-shot.

Saiko gives the assistants the go-ahead to leave.

On the way home from the studio, Kaya and Shujin discuss the new one-shot. She asks how it’s going and she wants a status update on two possible series. She admits that she wants for them to get an anime too, for perfectly understandable reasons. Shujin explains he’s not confident they’ll be allowed to run two series. He also lets her know Hattori’s condition of first place.

She asks if he thinks it’s possible. Shujin won’t be sure until they give it a shot. Romance isn’t their usual bag, either. They might have done a great job, but if someone is better, they won’t get first. All their competition – particularly Aoki, and Iwase – are going to be pretty challenging to beat. Kaya notices that he’s not as confident as usual. Until he tells her he’s confident that they’ll win.

Kaya admits she wants our two chief dingbats to get married soon. Shujin agrees.

As do I. But we still got….a lot more chapters to go.

On Tuesday, March 31st, the boys submit the final draft of the one-shot on the deadline. He gives them the go ahead to turn into PCP on Thursday. As for the samples, he provides a copy of Eiji’s Love Power A to Z. Moriya admires his work ethic and ability.

Hattori notes that a fifth of that entire magazines is his manga. Which is wild. Objectively. Shujin wants to know how the story is.

Hattori tells them to find out for themselves.

The boys read with bated breath. Saiko’s frightened by how diametrically opposed it is to the work they’ve submitted. Kazeto draws power from the love they share.

Shujin sees Eiji’s optimism in the story. But he doesn’t think it’s that good.

*needle scratch* wat?

On that note, the chapter concludes.

Punch and Striking Out Summary

We’re Almost Through the Worst of It, I can feel it

I can feel it in my bones, baby. I can feel that….feeling. The feeling of almost being done with an arc that isn’t great – I’m looking at you volume 6. And getting back to something better.

In this case, we’re finally pivoting back to the manga, again (yay) and not the silly overwrought character drama of Saiko and Shujin’s almost breakup.

Speaking of. That opening was sillier than shit.

I feel like the series, being so self-aware, sometimes falls into the trap of thinking its self awareness can extend to gags that don’t work. But I’m not giving it the benefit of the doubt in this case. It’s sincerely just a wrong note, and the fact that they turned their “fight” into a sitcom bit with Kaya coming in at the exact wrong moment doesn’t really negate that fact.

That said, I chuckled at the absurdity of the fight, and the fact that Saiko and Shujin felt the need to fight.

It honestly felt more for the audience, than for them. One of the tensions of writing a story is that you are writing for the audience, rather than for the characters, but you have to still make the characters act in a way that is believable in-universe.

That balance is hard to land organically, and often, the artifice of story has to win out over verisimilitude. For instance, in the prequel trilogies: the sword fights are highly regarded by the general movie-going public even though, by all counts, the sword fights in the prequels are just really complicated ballet.

A real sword fight is tense, short, and violent. There aren’t flashy moves, just an earnest desire to kill the opponent. And in a real sword fight, one aims for the opponent’s body, not the sword.

This is why I prefer the original trilogy sword fights. Which are actual sword fights in which two swordfighters are earnestly trying to kill each other.

But I love ehte choreography in the prequel trilogies because I’m a huge fan of dance (I contain multitudes) and I like the ballet of it. It’s pretty to look at.

But they’re aiming for each other’s swords. It’s obvious. There’s no tension.

Which is why I feel like Ohba felt he had to include this fight. These two mooks are acting like dopey weirdos and we were building up to some big brouhaha where they fall out, and then Shujin anti-climactically came in and was all like “My bad”.

So they had a “fight”.

I get that it’s serious humor, but it definitely felt manufactured.

However, I am thrilled that best girl Kaya looks so happy again. That’s nice. And we’re getting back to the Ashirogi dynamic that is the heart of the story. Also, she should have Aikido’d their ass into the future.

Although…

The Second Series things is fraying my nerves

Yeah, so I’m getting annoyed with the second series talk and it’s still not totally clear to me whether they’ll get a second series or not, but this narrative beat seems to suggest, at least at this point, that it is a possibility.

Which means that it’s possible that Saiko and Shujin will win this competition.

I really don’t want that.

Right now, it seems like the series is seriously toying with the idea of making this romance a thing. I’m actually glad to see that Hattori is losing patience over all this talk as well. So, I am kind of hopeful that we’ll be able to get around it. But yeah, it’s not looking great, right now, at the very least.

I was more optimistic about them soundly losing and not getting first. And part of me still, sort of, thinks that it won’t happen. Again, this is honen and romance isn’t their thing, and this arc is more about Hiramaru and Aoki getting a shot to be serialized again and it just ended up a tournament arc. But blegh.

I think, narratively, a second series would really just make worse my complaints about rehashing, because almost all the stuff that a second series would entail would be overwork and Saiko and Shujin getting torn between which series to focus on, and there would be other manufactured drama.

What I’m saying is that I really don’t want a second series.

But there was a saving grace to this chapter.

Team Fukuda and Shiratori

So one of the things I actually enjoyed is that Shiratori is finally, well and truly, wrapped up narratively, and we won’ have to put up with him for the rest of the series, except as a side character because the law of conservation of characters demands it. But the fact that Shujin so thoroughly prepared him for the real world was a genuine relief.

Although, I think narratively they had to do that because otherwise he would still be hanging onto the story and dragging it down, and he’s already done enough.

You’re likable shiratori, but I’m not that into you.

But honestly, the real joy of this chapter was seeing Team Fukuda being put into an impossible situation courtesy of the silliest tournament arc we have had in the series to date. And I think the romance angle is *maybe* a hint that the story wants Aoki to win? Probably, maybe. She’s the romance girl.

But of all the interactions with the editors that we get almost every chapter, it was, really, seeing Yamahisa and Aoki’s discussion which gave me the most peace.

Mostly because it almost feels like Yamahisa is growing up the slightest bit.

What I mean by that is that even though he still had a note to make the angel character *sexier* (ew), he was still okay with not shamelessly using panty shots to curry favor. And that’s a nice change of pace for his character. Most of his interactions with Aoki of late have been…dare I say it? Pleasant, because he’s not acting like a shameless scumbag.

And part of me thinks it might have to do with the fracas with Shizuka a few chapters ago. Maybe. Or maybe it’s because Yamahisa is growing as an editor, but him being less shamelessly misogynistic is just genuinely refreshing.

The same cannot be said for Miura, who, since departing the boys company has somehow gotten even more obscene and caricatured than ever. I’ve genuinely come to grow irritated with Miura, who embodies all the worst traits of mangaka editors and none of their virtues. But the fact that he couldn’t see how absolutely awful Happongi’s work for a LITERAL MIDDLE SCHOOLER is disgusting.

For once, Iwase’s over the top rage is perfectly justified. It’s fucking disgusting how Happongi drew the character.

And to make matters worse, Miura isn’t really giving her any useful notes to speak of. He’ just keeping her from going off the rails. With the exception of that one thing I’m going to talk about below.

By contrast Yamahisa seems like the most accommodating and thoughtful editor of the bunch, even though that always goes to my baby Hattori (love ya).

One thing that did bring a genuine yikes out of me, and reminded me that they haven’t *technically* gotten rid of him yet is…..Nakai.

A Brief Aside on Nakai

So Nakai has been mentioned in passing by Iwase, who has no problem using him to advance her own ends. On the one hand, I appreciate the ruthlessness and mercenary nature she’s engaging with to get the best work done.

But also, I have a feeling…..I got a feeling, a feeling deep inside, oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah…

Oh no.

Nakai’s coming back, isn’ t he?

It may not be in the next few chatpers. It might not be until the very end of the story where it turns out he turned his whole life around and became super rbuff and cool out in the boonies.

But I suspect, deeply, that if he’s being mentioned again, it’s priming us for his return. And I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

Chapter 38 i.e. the one where I was moved by his behavior was many years ago at this point, and I no longer find anything good about Nakai. he’s demonstrated himself to be a monster who can’t learn from his mistakes.

But he’s probably coming back.

And the way it’s framed here, I see him as trying to pursue Iwase, or something equally heinous. And the idea of Iwase using her femininity to get him to work just puts me in a very bad mood.

So here’s to praying that also doesn’t happen

But back to Hiramaru!

Hiramaru and Eiji and the Readers Fest

So I will admit, I’ve basically gotten into the Yoshida/Hiramaru gag and find it funny, and I’m just shutting off my brain to the problematic shit that is part of it. It is what it is.

It was nice to see Yoshida changing tactics to keep his mangaka in line. Since it’s pretty clear that Hiramaru is probably not going to listen to the usual carrot. It’s time for the stick. And that shock is a nice little jolt to the dynamic that has grown stale.

Plus, he’s got a date with Aoki, so how is Yoshida going to leverage him otherwise?

In any event, it was a comparative bright spot after the mess with Miura. I didn’t mention Fukuda because the Romeo of Hiroshima is obviously and punishingly going to get his ass beaten into the ground to the point where I don’t even think the narrative will try anything to fix it. So he’s just fodder.

But Eiji is a more interesting story.

I like how they’re treating Eiji’s one-shot in this chapter because tehy’re recognizing – smartly – how to show that Eiji is going to lose, not through his failures as a mangaka but because everyone believes he’s too good to fail.

It’s pretty clear to me that Eiji is going to lose because Eiji is Manga-sexual and has no understanding of legitimate romance outside of what he’s seen with Saiko. So he’s going to bomb.

and Yujiro can sense it, the narrative makes it clear that his intuition is something off; but he also knows that Eiji is a magician when it comes to predicting manga – they even do that this chapter with the “Loveta is Shiratori’s work, not Shujin’s” bit which might be worth commenting on, but this narrative resolved it, so it’s not really worth going into. So instead of listening to his own gut, he assumes that the actual issues is with him.

That’s a super believable thing to do for someone who is consistently and aggressively successful. it’s not even that Yujiro could tell him to edit the work into something better, it’s that he just….knows Eiji is super successful so why would he even bother questioning whether his intuition is onto something or not?

That’s a beautiful beat, which makes the fact that Shujin thinks the one-shot is not very good at the end of the chapter rmuch more satisfying.

Because I wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger.

Unlike the last decade of chapters I’ve bitched about, this is Bakuman doing what it does best: setting up plot points through meticulous subtle plotting, and paying it off at the exact right moment.

Is that technically what happened with the Saiko/Shujin stuff and Loveta? yes, again, I have to reiterate so many times because I”m afraid of being a negative Nancy that even though I did’ like it was still well handled.

But this was handled so much better, and it makes me long for that dynamic to come back in some meaningful way soon.

I think we’re close. I can fee the tenor of the chapters changing, and that leaves me very hopeful.

Let’s see if my optimism bears fruit.

Also, Aoki is probably going to get first now that I think about it.

And if that’ the case, I’m going to party.

Until next time

Peace