Hello my fellow kids, and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 113: Weakness and Attitude, in which we are so fucking back, baby.

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Weakness and Attitude Summary

Eiji….isn’t good?

Picking up directly from the last chapter, Shujin notes that the one-shot isn’t very good. Saiko thought it was all right, surprising Shujin.

The assistants ask to sneak a peek out of curiosity. All three read it. Moriya thinks it’s peak Nizuma. Orihara thinks it’s got a vibe, but according to the rule of threes, Kato believes it’s a stinker.

Hattori comes in as the voice of exposition: how you approach a story can affect what impression it leaves on you. You will probably be disappointed if you go in expecting a romance. Kato’s convinced even she could make a better romance than it.

It works as a battle, but then that’s redundant with both Crow and +Natural in circulation. Moriya points out that the fight scenes were the ones he enjoyed most. Saiko has a mild epiphany.

Hattori goes further: the main character does things in the name of love, but there is no emotional resonance to bounce off of. Also, Romance protagonists need to be more relatable and down to earth due to the genre.

Moriya’s surprised to realize that even Eiji has blindspots; Orihara agrees.

Despite that, it still might get votes on the strength of its battle sequences, but again, the other battle manga Nizuma writes will siphon off votes, that being the case. Hattori’s conclusion? A Fleeting Moment – ashirogi’s manga – is much better.

On Friday, April 10th, the survey results come in: Love Power A to Z placed ninth, the lowest of Eiji’s career. Shujin and Saiko are disappointed by his failure and see any victory as meaningless, now. They do, however, think that Aoki’s one-shot is going to be the most difficult to beat.

Hattori thinks Hiramaru is also going to give them trouble, as well. He saw their storyboard.

Eiji has a fit after hearing from Yujiro that his one-shot did poorly, if not a total flop. Eiji asks what he did wrong. Yujiro asks him about his romantic experience.

He liked a girl in elementary school.

Eiji, asexual icon, confirmed.

He draws a picture of his beloved, a, uhm, homely girl named Tokie from his second-grade class with whom he once played dodgeball.

Nice.

Yujiro asks if he’s been in love since. Nope.

Eiji is mangasexual, obviously.

Yujiro explains to Eiji that having experience with the subject is key to success, so he needs more experience with love. He’s going to have to stick with battle manga since that’s what people enjoyed most about Love Power. Eiji agrees: the action sequences were the best part to draw. Yujiro takes the next chapter of Crow and tells Eiji not to worry about his failure.

Eiji does not take the advice.

The Final Verdict

On April 17th, Aoki’s one-shot surveys are in. God Given placed second. PCP got sixth. Shujin’s surprised to hear she got second. Saiko sees the story as great, and her art’s better and better. Kaya hopes they can outdo her. She’s nervous.

Ruh roh.

Saiko reminds the audience he has to place first to get another series.

Finally, their day comes on April 24th. They discuss whether they’ll succeed and debate the early and final results. Then the phone rings, and…

Ninth.

*Sad trumpet noises*

Saiko’s devastated that they’ve lost. Saiko’s not disappointed about the one-shot doing well, but it’s not nearly enough to beat Aoki. Their goose is cooked and officially confirmed by Hattori. The two boys sigh dramatically. DRAMATICALLY I TELL YOU, while Kaya watches the two silently.

Kaya tries to lighten the mood. They haven’t seen all the one-shots yet, and there is still the final survey. They might get second place. Shujin goes along with it, however, halfheartedly.

On May 1st, at Hiramaru’s studio, Yoshida congratulates Hiramaruon getting first while Hiramaru watches his own anime. Jesus.

Yoshida thinks he could get enough momentum to start a new series. Hiramaru points out he’d have to win and Aoki got second. Yoshida agrees with him but thinks that Third is good enough to get considered. Hiramaru tries to defend himself: it’ll be compared to Aoki’s story. There’s no way it’ll work.

Yoshida tells him not to worry. He wrote a gag manga, so there is no overlap at all.

Shujin gets the call about Hiramaru getting there.

Goose. Meet Oven. They are cooked.

A Post-Game Analysis

The boys get the final results on June 5th. Shujin comments on the spring weather.

Nice.

They look at the results.

Aoki easily wins first, followed by Hiramaru. Arai’s in third, and the boys are in fourth. They take solace in having beaten Iwase and Eiji, although that doesn’t mean much. Saiko rationalizes that his hopes dropped once they got ninth. Shujin had the same feeling when Aoki got second.

Shujin observes that Eiji and Saiko’s one-shots are both about requited love and that maybe unrequited love is a better thing to do.

Saiko tries another rationalization: at least PCP‘s okay.

Shujin asks if he was planning to draw Fleeting Moment while still working on PCP. Not with these results.

Shujin reminds Saiko that he got fourth among professional mangaka. The middle of professionals is very fucking good. In a bit of on-the-nose self-disclosure from Ohba, Shujin admits that he’s so bad at Romances that he’d try to write a – genuinely horrific – story about how many girls a handsome guy can secretly date at once. Saiko thinks that’s more their speed, though. (eek)

Shujin likes that because it was Saiko’s work, they were able to broaden their horizons outside their usual style for once. Saiko thinks that’s a good way to look at it.

Shujin also reminds him that this was a way to prove he could do two series at once. Saiko probably could do that, now. Saiko thinks he could do it. Barely, though. But he’s not even sure what they want to write about.

Shujin asks if Saiko wants to marry Miho soon. He wants it as soon as possible. Shujin does the math: they wanted an anime at 18, and they’re now 21. If they get a new series now, it’d take 3 years until they got another anime. They’d be 24, which is still young for marriage.

Saiko asks Shujin what he thinks the happiest time of his life was. Shujin believes it’s the serialization of Detective Trap.

Saiko clarifies: that was the happiest moment. The happiest time was when he sat next to Azuki in ninth grade. Shujin is unsurprised about his hurry to get married, but he tells Saiko there’s no rush right now. Saiko wonders if Shujin regrets his early marriage.

Shujin’s talking about the next series, not his marriage. They should take their time with it. They’ve been going balls to the wall with manga since ninth grade; they haven’t led normal lives. Now, they’ve managed to grab some free time for themselves. They should take advantage of it. It’ll also narrow their worldview just to do manga all the time.

Saiko reads between the lines: It’s time they lived a little. Yeah, find a new hobby, something to enjoy life with. Saiko gets it, but he’s obsessed with manga and his girlfriend. He does agree, however, that they shouldn’t rush the process. They decide to focus on beating Eiji with PCP, and they’ll get ready for something else if a great idea rolls along.

Saiko thinks PCP getting an anime would be the best possible solution, but that’s unlikely. Shujin offers a potential compromise: Anime, or their manga lasting 5 years. Saiko won’t allow any compromises *sigh*.

Saiko asks if married couples start acting more alike because Kaya said something similar. Shujin knew he wouldn’t go for it. She said that, too

At that moment, Kaya comes with some soda and the boys decide to enjoy a moment of relaxation and it’s wonderful.

Saiko, however, muses on taking things slow and easy.

Of Mice and Men

At Hiramaru’s, Hiramaru resists Yoshida’s urging to start a new series. His placement in the contest is good enough for serialization. Hiramaru uses a bullshit rationalization about how if it ain’t first, it’s last and how he’ll never beat One Piece.

….wat.

He wants to make a huge hit that will be so successful that he never has to work again. Yoshida reminds him he can’t take the easy way out and that manga takes dedication. Hiramaru debates about whether he should just give up and draw a new manga while taking his time with the storyboards forever. Also, Yoshida tells Shim he’ll never make something super successful because he’s a gag mangaka through and through.

Hiramaru surrenders. He’ll try to get a series with You Won’t Fool Me and ask for the script for tea time with Aoki. Yoshida tells him to go without the script.

Hiramaru freaks out that Yoshida’s reneging on the agreement. It’s a minor change of plans. Hiramaru wants Yoshida to admit he never wrote a script and that it was just blank. Yoshida tries limply to defend himself, but Hiramaru isn’t having it.

Yoshida then pile drives him: can he actually hold a conversation with Aoki tete-a-tete?

NO. That’s the point of the script.

Yoshida promises to accompany Hiramaru, which will put Aoki at ease and make her think it’s nice of him to include Yoshida. He offers to sit and pass notes under the table with great advice. It’s the best strategy they can hope for, rather than memorizing a huge script and fumbling throughout the entire conversation.

Hirmaaru’s interested but wants a guarantee that Aoki will marry him.

Nothing in life is guaranteed, especially when it comes to love.

Hiramaru confirms the meeting with Aoki as being on June 12th, at 3:00 PM, at his place, apparently without having called Aoki. Her editor will be coming, too; Hiramaru is flabbergasted.

Fukuda’s Grace note

Fukuda laments getting second to last place. Yujiro giggles because neither he nor Nizuma has enough experience with love to write about it. Fukuda reminds him he’s the Romeo of Hiroshima (pfft), and also, Aoki’s never gone out with anybody before. That’s a great point, except she also reads more romance than Fukuda does.

Fukuda’s annoyed that Yujiro seems to be in such good spirits.

Well, he has good reason to be: Road Racer Giri is getting an anime.

The Fukuda crew collectively gasps. Yujiro gives them the skinny: it’s coming out sometime in the fall. The fine print isn’t done yet, but it’s final. The assistants congratulate Fukuda and ask for a pay raise.

Smart, nice.

Yujiro takes the draft with him. Fukuda calls out for Yujiro as he leaves and hits him with this face;

He genuinely thanks Yujiro for his encouragement and focus on drawing what he wants. Yujiro gets annoyed and thinks it is unlike Fukuda to act this way.

Iwase’s Rage, The Boy’s Maturity, and a Caper?

Iwase is furious at her Editor’s meeting for getting last place. Miura tries to placate her: the boys didn’t vote for it, and Fukuda and her issues coincided with several new series starting, so they didn’t stick out as much. Loveta & Peace scored third and, being similar to her work, siphoned off votes from her.

Iwase finds none of those reasons valid, and she vows to write another romance. Miura is shocked and points out she doesn’t need to.

She will, anyway. She won’t forgive herself for this.

Poor girl.

On June 11th, at the studio, the boys learn that Road Racer Giri is getting an anime. They’re happy for Fukuda. Hattori consoles them because he knows they want anime, so it’s probably frustrating to hear about this. Still, he wanted them to know.

They want to move on to the next discussion of PCP, where the group enters sixth grade. Hattori was sure the boys would ask about getting another series once they heard about Road Racer Giri getting anime.

Hattori wants to know what’s wrong. The boys don’t know what he means, even though it’s obvious. So he asks them why they aren’t acting like their usual selves. Something’s off.

The boys explain that they’re taking things at their own pace. They are not going to rush, and they’re not going to give up on an anime. When the time comes for the series, they’ll make it count. Saiko’s going to work hard on drawing faster. And Shujin wants PCP to beat Crow. They’ll use this opportunity to find more influence so when the time is right, and they get the right chance, they’ll know exactly what to do.

They’re saving up their strength. After all, they’re only 21.

I love this. I love this so much. AIEEEE

Hattori’s surprised at the great attitude.

On Friday, June 12th, Yamahisa asks Yoshida about the big party. Yes, the two need to get to Hiramaru’s place. Yamahisa has an issue. He can’t get in touch with Aoki, and it goes straight to voice mail.

Yoshida wonders if she had changed her mind. No, she’s been looking forward to this for a while. Yoshida wonders if she’s lying, but Yamahisa says she isn’t the type. Yoshida calls Hiramaru. He also goes straight to voicemail.

Yoshida assumes they’ve eloped or Hiramaru has kidnapped Aoki. This is an emergency. They need to go. Stat!

On that thrilling note, the chapter concludes.

Weakness and Attitude Reaction

We are so fucking back baby.

Oh man, this chapter was such a fucking relief after the last 10ish weeks of varying levels of frustration. There are so many great moments to get to, and I don’t know where to start.

We are going to talk about the cliffhanger, I swear, but lets start with the most satisfying moment of this entire chapter.

The post-game analysis.

Now, I will admit I am a giant sucker for sequences in which characters aren’t doing much of anything and just chillaxing and living life. I find those moments of actual quiet, where it feels like reality itself is resting, where the characters are just with themselves and their thoughts to add so much contour to any given story. Stories are, by design, always active, and loud, and filled with noise emotionally and literally.

I don’t know about you, but I always hear noise, even when I’m reading. It’s the sound of my emotions reacting to the story.

And that’s good. It keeps you engaged and with the characters – assuming the story isn’t boring and/or shit – but it also means there isn’t much time to reflect on everything happening.

But that sequence where the boys are just laying down in the grass relaxing, even in a moment of self-pity, has this self-realized quality. It’s quiet and reflective and a little bit meditative.

But it’s also the moment where they finally reconcile, in a really healthy way I’ll add, that their approach isn’t working. They failed, but they also didn’t fail.

And that almost makes me like this arc more.

But what I really loved is Kaya coming with soda and having them just take a beat to enjoy life. It’s so rare that just taking things easy is encouraged, and welcome, especially in a Japanese context (woof). But here we have this little moment of genuine peace. I just ate it up. I’ve been laying in the sun a lot to force myself to slow down, and when I do that, I feel so much better about everything.

Truly an underrated activity.

Anyway I also loved the conversation that the boys had about Miho and Saiko. It was a mature discussion on how long the process of being a creative truly is, and it was so refreshing that they discussed it without pretense or miscommunication. They actually took stock of their situation, and, by the end of the chapter, changed it.

Smother me in it, baby.

But that leads into my favorite thing from this chapter

The Boys Emotional Level up

We finally got the level up I have been dreaming about for ages. It is the thing I have wanted most from this arc, but in general since they announced they wanted to do two series.

The boys…are not going to do two series. And it’s fucking wonderful. It’s so fucking wonderful. It’s so so so fucking wonderful that I might do a little dance.

And it’s wonderful for all the reasons that the post-game analysis is wonderful and it almost justifies all the annoying bullshit this arc has had in it. A 13 chapter arc for Ohba is long. And to have it go in so many wrong directions – from Saiko’s creative rut to Shujin’s frustration to Shiratori’s leveling up.

in the context of “We do not have the bandwidth to do a second series” it works like a fucking charm.

And to spill a little tea right now. I’m being pulled in several directions by life right now. It’s mostly things I want to do, but as a result of my doing all these things, I’ve had very little time to decompress and relax.

This has made me enormously stressed out over the last several months as I try to find balance between all the things that bring me joy.

Which is also why I have been so frustrated by the boys decision to pursue something that is overtly unhealthy for them: just because you have a handle on your present circumstances does not mean that you will have a handle on it after adding more responsibility to your life.

And even though this arc is so goddamn frustrating, it also really underscores just how important it is to recognize: the more stuff you add to do your to do list, the more you have to do.

Which makes the fact that the way the boys finally recognize it- in a slow, happy moment of peace on a hillside, and just thinking about their present circumstances – so much more important and satisfying: you need moments of calm, peace, and relaxation to process the intense busy moments in your life.

Taoism, baby. Balance is key. And the notion that the boys are finding balance – especially as mangaka – is extremely, extremely satisfying.

But more to the point. The boy’s focus is now in the right place. And it’s a realization I had recently myself.

As I’ve said. I’ve been all over the place. But when you sit down, go slow, and focus on one thing, you can really put yourself into that thing, and make it real good. And that’s what I want to do. I want to make good stuff. That good stuff will lead to more good stuff, and then good will be had by all.

And it’ll be….good.

Words. I have them.

I could continue going on about the sequence with Hattori and his welcome shock at their change. But there are other things in this chapter we have to discuss, since it was such a loaded chapter.

Let’s start with…

Fukuda’s grace note.

So let’s start with him.

This was more of a grace note for him, than most other characters in this chapter. And perhaps that’s by design.

The Romeo of Hiroshima was OBVIOUSLY going to lose and lose hard. And he did. And the fact that he thought he had a chance is as funny as Yujiro finds it.

But the entire sequence with Yujiro and Fukuda filled me with that rare warmth that comes from seeing two people who’ve known each other for a long time comfortably roast each other while one of them has genuinely good news.

It’s a very niche vibe, and it’s a vibe I adore.

And I like it because, as I’ve developed relationships with people, falling into a comfortable niche of gentle roasting is just a really pleasant vibe to be in.

but more importantly, seeing Fukuda respond to the anime announcement was just gosh darn heartwarming.

Fukuda has been a bit of a footnote for a while now, so to see him get a legit win – even if it’s ultimately a plot contrivance to reveal the boys are going to hold their horses and put all their effort into their one series.

But it was still just mega sweet and I loved it.

As for the others .

Eiji, Iwase, and Shonen Romance

Quick note about Iwase: poor girl. Pat pat. She just can’t catch a break, can she. Mild flanderization is annoying, though.

As for Eiji, he gave us a bunch to chew on. Namely, the importance of targeting a demographic and also writing what you know.

Although this chapter actually obliquely points out that writing what you know doesn’t guarantee success – see Saiko hitting the middle of the pack next to Eiji – you should have some emotional knowledge of what you’re writing about.

Which is the actual point of writing what you know.

Most people take “write what you know” literally, and assume that, when given that advice they should write only about the things about which they have intimate, first hand knowledge.

The problem with that is that people are fucking boring for the most part and live mundane, banal lives without much in the way of *interesting* narrative conflict.

So what’s a genre writer to do, that being the case?

You plunge your EMOTIONAL experiences of things. You may not be a pirate, but you know what it feels like to be alone. You don’t know how to swing a sword, but you probably know what it feels like to get frustrated by learning a new skill and not getting it instantly. You might not know how to drive a space-ship, but you probably know the feeling of driving out on the open road.

And that’s the key to writing what you know: you write from an emotional core so that people resonate with your work.

Saiko took the prompt too literally, and Eiji wrote what he knew as well: Shonen manga.

And they failed.

This is where writing what you know has to be paired with an understanding of who you are writing for. It’s no coincidence that the two who admierd Eiji’s comics were boys, and the one who didn’t was Kato. Kato being a piece of work notwithstanding, she actually knows Shojo manga, and she worked with Aoki, our resident romance genius.

Whatever you are writing, you are writing with an unspoken contract between you and the reader that you will write with at least some knowledge of the genre you are working in.

Eiji knows shonen, but he doesn’t understand romance innately because he doesn’t have any emotional experience. He is in love with manga, and is a delightful trickster god with a sixth sense for it.

Saiko knows the emotional core of romance, but he doesn’t know how to write, just yet.

I’ll also briefly touch on the fact that Ohba outed himself, again, as being at the very least self-aware in his sexism. The idea that Shujin wanted to write sounded absolutely heinous, and I think that Ohba would not be above writing it. But by that same token, the series also recognizes what makes a good romance: it has to be pretty grounded.

Which means we can briefly talk about why josei romance are the best, hands down.

Josei – for older girls – is great at Romance because it’s emotionally mature, and often about the emotional experience of falling in love, rather than the external elements. You get it in shojo, too. But often romance is handled so much more maturely because the authors are mindful of the complexities of romance. Chihayafuru immediately comes to mind because it handles romance as a complicated series of emotional beats internally, that bubble to the surface over time. There is also Otoyomegatari, which does an excellent job of it.

And Blue Box, which is shonen, but whatever, it’s still got the emotional maturity down pat. Neener neener.

And the boys will….never understand that. And they are not there yet either. So it’s really a matter of time before they get to the point where they could feasibly write romance. But they don’t event want to, so it’s not a skill worth cultivating.

But there are two characters who are writing what they know, and it works.

Hiramaru and Aoki

What a clean fuckin segue, if I do say so myself.

Aoki knows romance, and she’s also generally emotionally literate. Also, this was a transparent arc to get her back into serialization so that she would remain a character in the series. I know there are other serialized characters like Takahama and poor Arai, who still is barely a character at this point just to give the world some detail who don’t get any screentime.

But Aoki has been one of the big four of Team Fukuda since the beginning. So it makes sense that she and Hiramaru need to be given a reason to remain relevant. And if they’re not making manga, they’re not particularly relevant to the story.

So this is a play to keep them relevant.

but it works because the characters are both setup for success by being themselves .Whether that’s Hiramaru’s pure pessimism and negativity as it applies to romance, or Aoki’s genuine interest in romance. That’s probably why Yamahisa was less of a scuzzball these last few chapters

And in that sense, I’m okay with the fact that they get the win.

What I’m quite a bit less certain about is Hiramaru and Yoshida.

As we’ve discussed, regularly, aggressively, and without scruple, the bits with Yoshida and Hiramaru have grown on me, like a fungus, against my will, but nevertheless.

And now we finally see a break in routine.

On the one hand, I’m a little excited to see Hiramaru seemingly recognize in a *real* way that Yoshida’s manipulations are callous at best, and actively coercive at worst. And that it’s really, profoundly shitty to manipulate someone this way, even if it is heightened for drama.

On the other hand, the series treatment of women and romance has been extremely hit or miss. I’m still frustrated with myself for enjoying chapter 38 and that was almost 4 years ago, now. So the “elopement” or “kidnapping” could either be very good, or extremely bad. And whe I say extremely bad, I mean it could be a huge fucking dumpster fire.

So I am sort of excited to see how this plays out. It’s unlike Hiramaru to be active I his life. And seeing him do something is interesting.

I just don’t want it to be another case of Nakai.

Who, for the record, will come back, that’s just the law of conservation of characters

But not for awhile, I hope.

In any event, we’re running long.

Hopefully the next chapter is a good one.

Until next time

Peace