Howdy, howdy, howdy, and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 114: Love’s Path and Pedestrian Bridge, in which I am very, very happy, and the series peaks.

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Love’s Path and Pedestrian Bridge Summary

Aoki’s Been Kidnapped?!

Yoshida rushes out of the Jump offices and brings Yamahisa in tow: Hiramaru has kidnapped Aoki! Yamahisa doesn’t understand what he means and asks where they’re going.

Yoshida explains that Hiramaru fooled them and is meeting with Aoki alone for their tea date.

The horror.

Yamahisa matches my sarcasm, reminding Yoshida that Aoki and Hiramaru are both consenting adults, which makes it precisely zero of their business. Yoshida continues this little manzai bit by pointing out Hiramaru is committed to marrying Aoki. Yamahisaa asks what is wrong with that.

The answer?

EVERYTHING.

Hiramaru will never draw manga again and he’ll force Aoki into a torrid life of financial servitude as the only breadwinner while he wastes a way as a pathetic house husband.

The horror. The horror.

Yoshida throws Yamahisa a helmet as he begins to argue this moronic point. Yamahisa asks if Yoshida seriously drove his motorcycle to work today.

No one said he couldn’t. *Puts on aviators*. Get on, Yamahisa.

Yamahisa, remaining calm and rational, opts not to interfere with this—the most surprising character growth in the series to date.

Yoshida’s fine with that. But he’s going to end Hiramaru’s whole romantic career. He pulls up his – sigh – literal lo-jack Hiramaru tracker and sees Hiramaru driving in his Porsche, probably with Aoki in tow. Yoshida’s incensed before he has a horrifying realization.

If Hiramaru plans to confess his feelings this could be worse than he thought. Yamahisa tells him to be careful as Yoshida drives off.

One Hour Before

Hiramaru’s on the phone with Aoki, dressed up with his Porsche.

Aoki’s surprised to hear he came to pick her up; she hasn’t even put on her makeup. Hirmaru lets her go at her own pace while he muses on Yoshida’s continued deception of promising to win Aoki over but never delivering on the goods. He’s lost all trust in his editor. He’s convinced that Yoshida wanted to tag along to sabotage any potential for connection.

Aoki comes out, cute as a button and apologizes for the delay. Hiramaru doesn’t mind at all.

Hiramaru then gets, surprisingly endearingly, nervous as he brings up their abrupt change of plans and asks her to go to a cafe with him. He then asks for her to be honest with him: how much has Yoshida told her about this?

She’s clueless. Derp.

He then asks whether she was given orders on what to say.

Nothing. Hiramaru’s shocked. Aoki mentions that Yamahisa wanted the meeting to be used to encourage Hiramaru to start a new series. Hiramaru assumes that his worst guess is true. SABOTAGE.

A TRAP. He’s been bamboozled. Fooled. Betrayed. He imagines the nefarious plotting as only Hiramaru can.

Hiramaru, horrified, offers to call off the whole thing entirely and leave her alone to go home. Aoki, understandably, doesn’t understand.

Hiramaru then offers that if she wants to go, she needs to turn off her phone. Aoki has never seen Hiramaru this serious before.

That seriousness persuades her. She turns it off and downplays it, saying she does not want to mix work and pleasure.

Bamboozled!

Back in the present, Yoshida approaches Hiramaru’s porsche only to find that it’s not Hiramaru driving but

FUKUDA and YASUOKA? Dun dun dunnnnn.

Yasoka explains that Hiramaru sold his Porsche for 100,000 yen if Yasuoka drove it around town. So he jumped on the offer. Yoshida asks where Hiramaru is now. For some reason, Yasuoka thinks he bought a new car specifically for today.

Yoshida’s surprised by Hiramaru’s unexpected ingenuity and quick thinking. If he’s serious enough to buy a new car, Yoshida’s goose might be proverbially cooked.

Yoshida explains the situation to the boys. Yasuoka doesn’t understand what the issue is (because there isn’t one), but Yoshida points out that Hiramaru will be hollowed out completely if Aoki rejects his advances. That’s his chief concern, and definitely not manga or anything.

Fukuda reasons out that if Hiramaru did get rejected he’d use it as an excuse to not draw manga. Yoshida points out that that is exactly what would happen. Yoshida asks if they have any clues.

Neither knows, but Fukuda offers to check with the rest of team Fukuda, not that he thinks they’ll have any more info than he does.

Yasuoka wonders if they should interfere at all.

FUCK NO.

Fukuda wants to cheer on his friend, and he is worried that Hiramaru, being himself, will blow his shit up badly. Yasuoka sees through this transparent desire to engage with drama. But Fukuda calls up Ashirogi first.

Saiko gets the skinny from Fukuda and worries about the date with Aoki. For Aoki’s sake.

Bless his heart, he’s right.

He asks where they might have gone, though. Shujin, eavesdropping like a good partner looks through an address book and thinks they might be at the open cafe in Aoyama.

A cafe that appears in both Aoki’s and Hiramaru’s stories has date scenes in that exact location.

The plot thickens.

Fukuda wonders if it could be that straightforward. But he’s reminded that Hiramaru is… Hiramaru. Fukuda thinks it’s worth a shot; he doesn’t want Hiramaru engaging in a double suicide or anything.

Holy Jesus, that’s dark. Saiko reacts to that obviously dark assumption, which freaks Kaya and SHujin out.

Kaya takes that joke seriously, especially since both of their series just ended. Shujin wonders if that’d be enough for them to kill themselves, but he decides to start looking for Hiramaru as well to prevent a tragedy from happening!

Saiko is thoroughly unconvinced, but since they turned their chapter in, he doesn’t mind joining the hunt.

Genuinely fucking hilarious. Peak comedy right here.

A Tea Date in Aoyama

Yoshida gets the news about Aoyama and, although it seems farfetched, will investigate without any other clues. Fukuda asked Eiji, who, in true Eiji fashion, predicted Aoyama as well.

With Eiji’s sixth sense, Yoshida is confident that it’s in Aoyama and bolts over there.

Meanwhile in….Aoyama, Hiramaru, and Aoki have a pleasant, if awkward, tea date. Hiramaru is mustering up the courage to confess his feelings to her, and he even gets her a gift from Tiffany’s

At that moment, Yoshida speeds by, but he’s on the opposite side of the road and needs to make a U-turn. Hiramaru calmly informs Aoki that they need to leave.

They haven’t finished their tea yet.

Hiramaru drops a 10,000-yen note (of course), grabs Aoki’s hand, and bolts as she sees Yoshida.

Aoki is surprised and moderately flustered by Hiramaru grabbing her hand. as they high-tail it in his new Porsche.

They speed through the streets. But Yoshida’s gaining.

They have to ditch the car. She’s confused, wasn’t it expensive? And he just bought it.

For that one drive with her, it was worth it.

God damn. That is smooth.

He guides her to the pedestrian bridge, where Yoshida can’t get them. As they go up the stairs, Hiramaru asks if she can run in those shoes. She’s fine; She actually likes this a bit. Teehee.

When asked what she means, she explains that she feels like she’s a heroine in a romance. She’s excited.

Aw

Confessions On The Pedestrian Bridge

Yoshida announces that Hiramaru is cornered. THERE IS NO ESCAPE. Hiramaru wants to know what gives. Why is Yoshida doing this?

Yoshida says it’s due to his worry for Hiramaru. Hiramaru ain’ having that. All Yoshida cares about it making Hiramaru draw manga to advance his own career. That’s why he doesn’t want it working out with Miss Aoki. Yoshida doesn’t know what’s wrong with that.

Yikes.

Hiramaru wants a break, for once, and Aoki admitted that this tea party was just planned for that reason.

Aoki mentally notes that she didn’t *actually* say that, but six of one, half a dozen of he other I suppose. Hiramaru thinks they were planning to screw up his future happiness together.

Yoshida agrees: Hiramaru could get another series, which is a great thing. Hiramaru still wants a break, just a couple of years off. That’s too long, and his new manga You Won’t Fool Me could have a bright future.

Aoki backs Yoshida up: he can’t give up on drawing manga. Finally, Hiramaru’s tune starts to change.

Yoshida begs for Hiramaru to listen to him. Hiramaru refuses.

Yoshida promises to tell him his genuine feelings, no fibs, half-truths, or minced words. Hiramaru thinks that means he’s lying most of the time. Which Yoshida doesn’t deny.

Lol.

Yoshida confesses that HIramaru is the kind of talent that only comes every 2-3 years. Hiramaru wants him to admit it’s 10, but Yoshida’s being perfectly honest. A white lie here would have been good.

I am dying.

Yoshida admits he knows Hiramaru despises work. Hiramaru agrees. And Yoshida also knows Hiramaru wants to quit. Also true, it’s his dream.

But Yoshida confesses that despite his distaste for it, Hiramaru’s work is always great. He’s never met a genius like Hiramaru in his whole life. He draws only because he’s absolutely forced to, and yet everything is top-tier. Yoshida genuinely can’t get over his unbelievable raw talent.

Hiramaru is moved and shocked by these genuine, heartfelt words that are also fucking me up.

Hiramaru crumples. Yoshida doesn’t understand what it’s like to draw a weekly series. He agrees: he’ll never understand.

He doesn’t understand how much Hiramaru hates drawing or how excited he was about this moment with Aoki. There are no deadlines, so there is nothing to worry about.

Today was the most fun Hiramaru’s ever had in his life. Aoki feels all sorts of ways about that statement.

Yoshida asks him: would it have really been that great without all the struggles that came before?

Without Manga, Hiramaru would never have had this opportunity in the first place. She only agreed to meet with him because of the effort he’s put into his work. Yoshida asks Hiramaru to think about what made today so memorable. Would Aoki run away with a Hiramaru who never drew manga?

Hiramaru doesn’t understand the hand bit. He asks Aoki if they held hands.

She tells him yes for a moment. He asks when, and then Aoki busts out this adorable face:

Confession on a Pedestrian Bridge, II

Yoshida tries to steer the conversation back to the main point: if Hiramaru continues to work as a mangaka, there will be more moments like this. Aoki will never date a person who doesn’t work.

Aoki confirms that much. Hiramaru laments his shit luck. Yoshida goes in for the kill: Hiramaru has to continue making manga.

Hiramaru admits that he knows he’ll do it. Manga has brought him this far, and he’s grateful to Yoshida (aww), but he’s been waiting too long for this chance. A chance to say something. He’s got to tell Aoki something. Now.

Yoshida’s in shock. Hiramaru wouldn’t.

He begs Hiramaru not to do this. If she turns him down, he won’t be able to work or do anything. It’s better that they stay friends for now.

Hiramaru enters crisis mode: what if she turns him down? But he’s resolved. He has to try.

Fucking hell yeah, brother.

Hiramaru yells at Yoshida to stop using Hiramaru’s love life as a carrot to get him to work. Stop using Aoki as bait. It isn’t fair to her. He begs Yoshida to stop manipulating him. He’s a man, he has to do what he has to do.

FUCKING HELL YEAH BROTHER. I’m so happy.

Yoshida begs him to reconsider. His dreams and hopes will be dashed.

A shout for Hiramaru. TEAM FUKUDA’S here playing a support role: Shujin, Saiko, Kaya, Yasuoka, and Fukuda all come to cheer him on. Fukuda tells him not to worry about getting turned down. Fukuda’s been rejected hundreds of times.

Saiko doubles down: A real man wouldn’t back down—Hiramaru’s in tears.

Hiramaru gets on one knee and admits to Aoki that he’s thought she was beautiful since the day they first met and has loved her ever since. Will she go out with him?

A moment. And then.

SHE SAYS YES.

WE’RE IN BOYS, GALS, AND EVERYONE IN BETWEEN.

She’d be glad to do so; she had a lovely time and wants to do it again. Hiramaru hugs Yoshida in delight. Yoshida’s paralyzed with shock that that actually worked.

Fukuda is pumped, and the boys are convinced that Hiramaru’s work will only get even better; there will be more competition.

Aoki then asks Hiramaru to keep drawing manga, which Hiramaru agrees to as this beautiful chapter concludes.

Love’s Path and Pedestrian Bridge Reaction

Incredible Chapter

I was wrong about everything. They knew what they were doing.

This might be my favorite chapter in the series. And I don’t know what’s coming next – I hope some good stuff based on what I’ve heard – but this chapter did a whole fuck of a lot for my assessment of many of the things that this series has struggled with, persistently, throughout its run: women, romance, and the carrot of dating.

If I hadn’t been writing about this series over the last five years, this moment would not have had such a profound impact on me. But as I’ve spent half a decade doing this recap series, I’ve had to spend an amount of time with these characters that I would classify as uncommon for the regular manga enjoyer, unless they are a super fan of x, y, or z property. Then I don’t even hold the remotest candle.

But because I dissect this series – or do my best to do so – I am thinking critically about everything.

Women have been the most persistent failings of this series to date, and it’s not even close.

There are some dumb shonen moments, plot beats that don’t line up, and character retcons that don’t work.

But I’ve had to litigate, chapter by chapter, the struggle of reading this series from a romance perspective.

So, finally, we have a chapter in which it’s like they read my future mind and addressed their biggest pain point with writing romance in such a way that feels like an incredible climax.

I feel so good, y’all. I can’t help it.

And I know it’s not perfect – we’ll talk about some of the issues with it- but this was such a beautiful, satisfying chapter and I want to relish in the feeling of reading something so powerful.

Let’s start with the good points that are why I love it so specifically:

Hiramaru’s Initiative

Bakuman has always paid lip service to the fact that Saiko and Miho’s relationship, under normal circumstances, would be completely non-functional. It’s not that young lovers can’t be in a long-distance relationship and make it work. But as I’ve learned – the hard way, I must add – good relationships are built on shared mutual experiences.

You build relationships by being in close proximity with someone, making memories, going out, living life, and doing things. If you spend all your time talking to someone and never doing anything with them, a relationship does not form.

This lesson has been drilled into me because, in my youth, I thought that simply talking was enough and that talking would lead to a relationship. That never happened. The only times I made relationships happen were through action, by taking people out, engaging with them, and making memories.

And Hiramaru is doing precisely that.

He’s doing something for Aoki. He’s not just talking to her and blandly fantasizing about doing things. He’s doing things. He’s also outsmarting Yoshida in the process and creating a romantic adventure for his paramour.

While I’m not 100% sure if I buy that Aoki would actually like Hiramaru – they are, in many ways, the ultimate odd couple – I do think that, as a fan of Romance, she would be quite taken with Hiramaru treating her like the heroine of a romance and, at the very least, would be willing to see where things go.

Just look at her having fun throughout the whole chapter. Sure, she’s mildly confused, but she’s also just going with it. And even though it’s a little exaggerated, she sees this silly chase as just that—silly.

And it’s a big ol’ romantic gesture, sure, but it could speak to more. He’s doing things. If Saiko did this with Miho, I would be over the moon. Because relationship maintenance—while less sexy—is just as important as the courtship phase.

But more importantly, Hiramaru is not acting like a giant creep. This brings me to something that’s way more important and reinforces my enjoyment of this chapter.

Nakai and Hiramaru

I am not going to lie. I know Nakai is going to come back. Not because I’m spoiled, but because, narratively, it makes sense. Especially since a few chapters ago, he was doing nothing at his parents’ house out on the apple farm.

And he is a big reason why I enjoyed this chapter—or, I should say, his absence.

I think it’s brilliant on Ohba’s part to pivot the inevitable romance for Aoki from Nakai to Hiramaru. And it almost makes me hope that this conflict will not reoccur as Aoki and Hiramaru become an item.

Now, I don’t think Hiramaru is a great person. He’s an annoying lush with a pessimistic streak and is goofy in a way I don’t like.

But unlike Nakai, he’s not an inappropriate stalker. He’s just a bit of a negative asshole.

Nakai’s tenure in the story was marked by incredibly creepy, harassing behavior. And it got so bad that the story had to acknowledge it, which is rare for a shonen series, in which casual sexism is usually pretty par for the course.

But the series still toyed with the idea that he and Aoki would somehow end up together—an idea I find absolutely heinous. Nakai is, when all is said and done, a predator.

So the fact that Hiramaru isn’t great doesn’t bother me because this chapter showed me he was no predator. His interest in Aoki is ankle-deep, and I’m not sure they have anything in common, but he’s taking the risk anyway. Which, y’know, is what dating is supposed to be like.

Metafiction and Acknowledgement of Bait

This chapter is what I would classify as the final climax to Bakuman’s longest arc—the Two Series arc—at 14 chapters, and in many ways, it almost justifies the decision to make the Super Leaders Fest a romance fest. Because…guess what?

Say it with me, my love.

METAFICTION is here.

I probably should have guessed that the tournament arc about Shonen Romance would end with, uhm…shonen romance in the most bombastic way imaginable. But that’s on me.

This almost feels like a combination of Eiji’s one-shot, at least as described using the POWER OF LOVE, and the more mature romance of Saiko and Aoki.

I still don’t particularly like this arc because…it’s not likable. But I will give it a pass because this climax was incredible.

And I don’t just mean the whole sequence of events; I mean, specifically that in addition to having a big romantic gesture to sequence to cap it off, we get an explicit acknowledgment of something I’ve been whinging about since the series began, and since this arc started in particular:

WE FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGED THAT ROMANCE IS A SHITTY BAIT AND UNFAIR TO WOMEN.

THANK FUCKING GOD.

My estimation of Hiramaru’s character shot dramatically up the moment he said without any artifice or calculation that what Yoshida was doing was unfair to Aoki when he used Hiramaru’s feelings for her as bait to draw manga. I wanted him to shout to the back of the room.

Let’s be clear: this is a form of emotional manipulation frequently used by narcissists to keep people in their thralls. Although the series has smartly pointed out that Yoshida is a scumbag, I needed this moment of pure recognition that what Yoshida is doing is terrible explicitly for the audience.

I make such a big deal about this because the more we see this kind of behavior in the media, the more normalized it becomes.

So it was a huge moment to have the series openly and aggressively acknowledge just how unfair it is to treat women as carrots for male protagonists to achieve their goals because it highlights that it is narratively unfair in general.

Does it undercut the premise of this series? Yes. Do I care? Fuck no.

I want this shit acknowledged regularly so we can move past it and treat women like people, not just objects.

And to underscore that point, the fact that Aoki said yes mattered. She was given the reigns to decide for herself instead of being narratively manipulated by the men into doing so.

And she liked it. And there are obvious reasons why.

I love that.

I also love the dual meaning of confession, which brings me to another huge part of this.

Yoshida’s Confession

In addition to Hiramaru stepping up, another highlihgt in a chapter full of them was Yoshida’s confession about his admiration for Hiramaru.

Now, I want to be clear: Yoshida is, and will always likely be a giant scumfuck shit heel. The stuff he does is manipulative, cruel, and coercive in a way that no one should accept in real life. This confession does not negate that he has treated Hiramaru horribly in so many chapters.

But this was a great acknowledgment of why he does it. And I’m a sucker for confessions of genuine admiration. And I think having Yoshida acknowledge – to a comical level of honesty – that he genuinely thinks of Hiramaru as a genius – of the garden variety every few years kind – was super touching.

And I think if he had led with that, he might have been able to keep Hiramaru in line, though probably not.

I don’t know.

It was just a super satisfying moment. I also liked his compassion for Hiramaru. He recognized that writing a series is challenging and something he will fundamentally never understand. It’s a really powerful acknowledgment, among many others.

It’s just like seeing team Fukuda come out for their boy.

Team Fukuda and The Humor Worked

Unlike many other instances, the humor here worked 100%. From Yamahisa politely declining to take part in the shenanigans to Fukuda and Yasuoka pouring fire onto the chicanery, everything was firing on all cylinders.

But Yoshida, in this sense, was the real star of this chapter if only because the gag with him has been honed so intensely over the intervening chapters that it makes perfect sense that his bread and butter being fucked with would send him into abject crisis mode. In this sense, he’s metafictional, too, because he’s operating on the same level of serious humor as Hiramaru.

And his zaniness added a heightened energy to the chapter that was somehow believable and hysterical. From Fukuda’s suggestion that Hiramaru might kill himself to Saiko’s worriedly agreeing as the straight man. To Yasuoka getting a new Porsche.

Everything worked in this chapter.

Where will it go from here? I don’t fucking know, man. The series is far from done.

But I’m so glad, at least for this moment, we got a real acknowledgment of what this series struggled with and did all the things that would make it work if they allowed it to happen.

Lately, I’ve also been having a much better go of the whole romance thing. I’ve been so frustrated by this series for the same reasons, so maybe there is a projection here. It feels good. But it’s private so I will dig no further.

Thanks, Ohba

Now I’m really looking forward to the following chapters.

Until next time,

Peace