Hello, my name is Elder Eric and I AM SO GODDAMN FURIOUS and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 129: Youth and Outcome, in which I have a conniption for four thousand words.

If you’re not caught up, please use this index here to do so. There are no spoilers past the current chapter.

If you want to support the mangaka and read along, please consider buying a tankobon of the current volume or subscribing to Weekly Shonen Jump or Mangaplus. I’m not affiliated with VIZ, I just want artists to make money.

If you want to support this content so it can continue at a regular pace, please like my Facebook page and Twitter, or comment down below. I do read those comments, and they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or, if you want to support me, buy me a cup of coffee here

Youth and Outcome Summary

The Ultimate Battle: Hiramaru vs. Nakai! (ugh)

Nakai demands Hiramaru get away so he can assault Aoki. Hiramaru refuses and points out that they’ll cause a disturbance if they fight at the complex and suggests moving their fierce battle to the park.

At the park, Hiramaru takes off his jacket and prepares to do a pitched battle with Nakai.

Oy.

Hiramaru is looking mighty jacked as he eggs Nakai on: Nakai stands no chance with his flabby body. Hiramaru fails to account for the fact that weight = mass and Nakai is massive.

Nakai sends Hiramaru flying across the park and knocks him on his ass. Aoki shouts her worry (while also noting he weak af), then looks out the window to Nakai, staring at her demonically.

Hiramaru jumps Nakai and tries to thrash him while he’s not paying attention. He begs Aoki to remain indoors before getting slammed against a tree and nearly knocked out.

Meanwhile, Nakai—looking truly villainous—is on his way to Aoki’s apartment. Aoki prepares to call the police.

Class Reunion

At the studio, Saiko’s still hung up on Nakai and isn’t drawing. He’s behind on their schedule with the earlier visit and needs to work. Shujin tells him not to think about Nakai. He knows.

Shujin mentions a class reunion and asks if Saiko will attend. Saiko punts the question back to him. Shujin will have some time because it’s on a Sunday, assuming he finishes the storyboards. It’s being held near South Yakusa Station so they could get there on bikes. Saiko is confused as to why they’re even having a reunion for people they knew in second grade.

Yeah, that’s a little weird.

Shujin reminisces that they didn’t even talk back then. Saiko forgot they were classmates. Shujin asks if Saiko remembers his crush Ichiko Naoi. Saiko’s shocked he was girl crazy so early. Shujin was hoping to see how she turned out because she left when she was in fourth grade.

Saiko wants to see his best elementary school friend, Yama, since they’ve lost contact. The nature of growing older is that you tend to grow apart from those people.

This is making me melancholy.

Shujin thinks they should both RSVP.

At the same moment, Fukuda calls.

Ugh.

The (Stupid) Duel Continues

Hiramaru, admirably, still stands in a crane pose to fight Nakai. Nakai shouts for him to get out of the way to see Aoki. Hiramaru wants to know why he wants to see her first. It is his business as…Aoki’s Tea Buddy.

Okay, that’s a green flag. Respecting the relationship status.

Nakai slaps him to the ground. Again.

Ugh.

Saiko and Shujin freak out when they hear about the ongoing duel. They thought he went to another girl’s place first. Shujin thinks they should just ignore it (which they should); but Saiko – or should I say sigggghhhhko – points out that Hiramaru, Aoki and their friends are in danger. They have to go!

Shujin still thinks it’s stupid as he puts on his coat.

Hiramaru is, shockingly, still standing and tells Nakai never to show his face to Miss Aoki again.

Nakai – without a shred of self-awareness – blames Aoki for all of his many failures and failings. Hiramaru offers to take responsibility for all of Aoki’s wrongdoings if there were any she did.

Fuck yeah, bro.

Nakai is unmoved: he won’t accept anything less than “beating the living daylights” out of Aoki.

Ugh. Nakai. Ugh.

Hiramaru pulls a cold Shonen line: never hit a woman. A real man wouldn’t do that.

Damn it, Hiramaru, are you cool now?

Answering my own question, Nakai sends Hiramaru flying. Again. This time, Nakai thinks Hiramaru might be down for the count. And he admits that Hiramaru is tough, but he only looks “cool.” Nakai turns to look at his prize.

KILL ME NOW.

Until Ashirogi and Fukuda show up with a cool ass pose. Fukuda wants to know what the fuck is going on.

Unjustified Resentment.

Nakai’s furious that Team Fukuda is intervening again. Fukuda prepares to beat the stuffing out of Nakai – and might do so – before Hiramaru begs him to stay out of it.

Hiramaru gets up again (fuck yeah) and announces he will protect Aoki on his own. It doesn’t concern any of them. It’s between him, Nakai and Aoki.

Hiramaru again asks if it’s Aoki’s fault what specifically she did that hurt him so badly. He’s willing to take the fall for the rest of his life, depending on what his answer is.

Nakai finally confesses the truth: manga was the only thing he ever had going for him. He moved to Tokyo at 19 and started working as an assistant when he was 21 with a dream of his own series. He spent his entire youth devoted to manga. He didn’t play around or fall in love.

Saiko has an epiphany.

Then Nakai blames Aoki for destroying his entire career.

Hiramaru points out the cold, hard truth: if Nakai fell in love with Aoki and it destroyed his manga life, his love for manga must not have been that great to begin with.

However, Hiramaru also relates to Nakai; he may be worse.

No. He is not. Not by the longest of shots. Anyway.

He admits that he hates drawing manga and only keeps working because of his affection for Aoki. If he were dumped by her, he would be unable to draw manga at all. So, he does understand Nakai’s feelings. Nakai points out that he gets along well with Aoki, so they’re totally different.

That’s not it fuck stick. But Hiramaru agrees and apologizes before pointing out the truth: Nakai’s behavior is unjustified resentment. BINGO.

Hiramaru thinks that Aoki is faultless in this situation and that he’s going to protect her from Nakai. He offers to let Nakai take out his grudge on him since he succeeded in becoming Aoki’s “Tea Buddy.” He wants Nakai to keep hitting him until he feels better.

Team Fukuda looks on dumbfounded (LOL)

Aoki steps in

At that moment, Aoki comes onto the scene, begging them both to stop. Shujin’s flabbergasted that she actually came down when she is in straight-up real danger. She tells Hiramaru there is no reason for him to be hurt on her behalf.

Then she whips out her massive cock by asking Nakai to hit her since it’s what Nakai wants most.

If this wasn’t a truly dangerous situation with a severely unstable man, I would be way more for this.

Nakai is shocked silent.

Hiramaru cuts the tension a bit by asking why she let his ass get beat if she was planning to do this.

Aoki tells Hiramaru to shut his mouth respectfully.

She then squares up to let Nakai sock her. She asks him to hit her until he feels better.

Fukuda’s impressed by her massive balls, and Shujin points out that if Nakai does it, he’s failed completely.

He prepares to hit her but then drops his fist.

He’s silent before finally admitting that he’s aware that none of this is reasonable or justified, but he staked his whole life on manga: “It was the only thing I ever had.”

Fukuda and Shujin both press x to doubt the sincerity of that statement, and Saiko’s annoyed at the peanuts gallery comments.

But Nakai admits that he was truly happy working on Hideout Door, but now he’s lost that, and he doesn’t have anything anymore. He doesn’t have a job, opportunities to interact with women or money. He knows this fault, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s lost and aimless.

A (Dumb) Resolution

As his sob story concludes, Hiramaru is moved to tears. Team Fukuda again is confused by Hiramaru’s reaction.

Hiramaru explains that Manga is horrifying and that he’s being “tricked” by his editor, but his future is unknown. He doesn’t know what he’ll be like five or even ten years from now.

He might end up a miserable, jaded middle-aged man like Nakai. He embraces Nakai, who has the good sense to be offended by that framing, before Hiramaru asks Nakai to be his assistant.

NOPE. GOD DAMN IT. WE WERE DOING SO GOOD.

Hiramaru is sure they have common ground as men who both love Aoki. Nakai doesn’t quite agree.

But Hiramaru sees a possible future in Nakai. He cannot leave him alone with that in mind.

Fukuda calls out the reasoning as “weird,” to put it generously, and the boys recognize it’s Hiramaru’s pessimism playing out.

The weirdness gets weirder. Nakai thought that when Hiramaru said he would protect Aoki with his life, Nakai could entrust Aoki to him.

I’m sorry, what the fuck.

Hiramaru’s grateful for that response even though he points out that Nakai has no right to do that anyway. But he thanks him anyway. Hiramaru decides they should get drunk on his dime.

Aoki’s stunned to silence, and the boys are truly baffled by this strange conclusion. Fukuda chalks it up to drunks being drunks.

Nakai and Hiramaru hug each other and reconcile. Nakai sees Hiramaru as a nice guy, and Hiramaru sees humanity in Nakai because of his failings.

The two drunkenly stumble off.

Shujin points out that they’re drunk now, and when sober, they’ll hate each other. Fukuda thinks that if it works, Can’t Fool Me is going to get a big jump in quality.

Aoki’s silent.

Fukuda asks whether Aoki’s okay with it.

She has faith in Hiramaru, so it’ll be fine.

Fukuda, Saiko, and Shujin all grouse about having done nothing and waste da whole day on Nakai’s bullshit. Saiko’s glad things didn’t get too out of hand.

The next day, at Hiramaru’s apartment, Hiramaru wakes up on the floor, and Nakai sleeps on his bed. He shouts at Nakai to get out of his bed, and Nakai reminds him they hit it off. Hiramaru’s too hungover to remember hitting it off, only making him his assistant.

Nakai basically tells Hiramaru he’ll be living with him and asks for an advance on his assistant pay. Hiramaru refuses to share his space with him. It’s for he and Aoki one day. Nakai gets angry; he doesn’t want to hear about Aoki or he’ll strangle Hiramaru.

Hiramaru asks how much he needs.

Enough for getting going until he finds his own place and some pocket money, too.

On that truly frustrating note, the chapter concludes.

Youth and Outcome Reaction

Gimme a second

*Paces around apartment*

Okay. Breathe in. Breathe out. Do some yoga.

*does some yoga*

Comes back.

Okay.

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

This is the first time I think Bakuman missed the mark completely and so badly that all the good parts of this chapter (which, unfortunately, there are) can’t really save it.

And although I’m furious – which we’ll get to – and I am *this close* to rage quitting the series…I want to see how it ends. I want to know how Saiko finally gets his own happy ending that he is guaranteed because he is the protagonist. And that is one of the saving graces in a chapter filled with so many misfires, frustrations, and missteps.

But before that, let’s get this lil’ disclaimer out of the way: Stories aren’t real life and are under no obligation to reflect real life or the messy ways in which it operates, especially when everything is a plot point designed to move the characters from Point A to Point B and change them along the way. Also, even more importantly, people are capable of making their own decisions, and a single story they read is not going to drastically influence their behavior in such a way that they’re going to become radically different.

Now that we have that out of the way

FUCK

Yeah. Goddamn, this was bad.

So look, I’m not gonna lie. I was expecting Hiramaru to be a punchline the entire chapter, and he was only a joke for, like, half the chapter. In the other half of the chapter, Hiramaru was dropping straight banger after banger about how to treat women with respect and in a shonen way.

Also, Hiramaru was looking jacked in this chapter, even though he folded like a piece of paper the moment flesh hit flesh. Phrasing. I don’t have it right now because I’m so goddamn angry.

Like, as I stated in the previous chapter Nakai is a predator. He’s engaged in serial predatory behavior since Chapter 38, and it hasn’t diminished since his return. In fact, it’s gotten significantly worse. Like if this were real life, he’d be in an actual prison for beating a woman up.

So the fact that he knows it’s all wrong, and it takes Aoki having bigger balls than Hiramaru (more on that in a moment) to resolve the situation and make him finally see the light is so goddamn manufactured.

And I will give Ohba some grace. Just a little bit. He did set this up throughout this arc that Nakai does, on some level, have the tiniest smidge of conscience. On some level, he knows right from wrong.

But you know what? That makes things sooo much worse because he knows that he’s engaging in predatory behavior, and he’s just….not stopping it for some reason. Why did it take all of this to get him to admit that what he’s doing is straight, monstrous behavior? It’s truly and unreally baffling that I had to get to this point for him to do all this.

And to be saved by Hiramaru almost entirely retroactively kills any of the goodwill I had for Hiramaru. Saiko, I get – he’s obligated as the protagonist to do shit like that – but here Hiramaru is talking about how hitting women is never okay, and Nakai has unjustified resentment, and one moment that truly made me happy, Hiramaru framing his and Aoki’s relationships in terms he has been told they are in, legitimately a good thing to do by the by, and yet his compassion for Nakai makes him accept this hunk of shit.

And let’s not forget the subject and perpetuator of this nonsense as well.

Fuckin Aoki

Goddamn it. So Aoki went hard this chapter, and I admire her toughness, and I also wish she hadn’t decided to be tough because she’s perpetuating this fucking sexist bullshit with her behavior.

I know it may seem progressive to have Ohba have Aoki be all like, “Hit me until you don’t feel bad anymore,” but it is cool as hell. It’s bad as hell. It’s admirable.

It’s still goddamn sexist, though.

Now, just a side note: it also isn’t unrealistic for women not to press charges against abusers because they are usually not believed, and also, it’s hard to get evidence for this stuff, which just creates more problems for the abused parties, so it often goes unreported. It’s also challenging because the people around the abuser will usually defend him over the woman because he’s a “decent guy,” which is what Saiko is doing for the record.

But to have Aoki not want to press charges because Nakai was her friend once? After he objectified, harassed, and stalked her? I do not know a single woman who would actually do that in real life. That would simply never happen.

What I’m saying is that Shujin is right about this whole thing. They need to let sleeping dogs lie.

Okay. He’s wrong in the sense that they do need to intervene and make sure no one is harmed, but they need to LET THE POLICE TAKE CARE OF IT, JESUS CHRIST.

God, I’m so annoyed. Part of me thinks that Jump is forcing the situation again. Because I know Ohba could just have him go to jail, but because this is JUMP, they have to let this pass. Or some shit.

I’m grumpy.

Also, Nakai was legitimately scary this chapter. It can be hard for guys to feel the danger that ladies have unfortunately become accustomed to around men, which leads to memes like the bear/man debate but seeing Nakai so ravenous for vengeance and so untethered from reality was straight-up frightening and nerve-wracking.

Anyway. Good on Hiramaru for standing his ground and calling it out. Let’s talk about the why of this chapter because there is a reason this played out the way it did

And, even more frustratingly, it’s something I’ve complained about re: Saiko.

Saiko needs to live his life.

Yeah, so Nakai is supposed to be an example of what happens if Saiko fails in his goal to get an anime. Or some shit. It doesn’t quite track because Saiko has never been truly canceled the way that Nakai was, nor has he FUCKING HARASSED any women, but the point remains.

I want to feel compassion for Nakai because I have felt that sense of failure before. The sense that nothing seems to be going for you, that you’re a fat, miserable loner with no opportunities. I have been in those circumstances. The feeling of abject failure is fucking difficult. I’m feeling it a bit now, kinda. But for different, more complicated reasons.

But I found Shonen anime to bolster me and push me forward, and I willingly changed my behavior—something that Nakai has yet to do.

And, like, I will admit to some pathos to the sequence where he talks about taking this life on manga and failing. That’s a very real fear for creatives: spending all your time on a craft and hoping to be successful at it and make a living and feel significant for it. And just….not getting it. That’s something I think all creatives secretly have in the back of their head. Creeping like a spider along your brain.

I do, for sure, even when things are going in the direction I want.

But as Hiramaru rightfully points out, if he was truly that dedicated to it, then he wouldn’t have harassed women. He would have focused on his weakness—not being able to draw characters very well—and focused on his work.

That’s why this sob story doesn’t actually work for Saiko. Saiko is doing the work, and he has succeeded because he has done the work and put in the effort.

Now, also, gotta note here that he’s the protagonist, so he has to win by default. But let’s overlook that for this part of the read-through.

But I’ve complained consistently that Saiko not spending time with Miho in real life is his biggest mistake, and it’s one he’s ultimately going to regret when he ends up with her. Forming memories is what youth is all about—doing crazy shit. The fact that he jumped into manga means, in many ways, he is kin to Nakai. And he sees what could happen to him: ending up at 40, a giant fucking failure.

And that’s scary.

But it’s not going to happen.

Now, I will admit: because I live in the real world and there are no protagonists in the real world – at least in a way that isn’t a literal disorder – my creative goals have the possibility of failure. I’m going to do everything in my power to do the work to achieve them. But that failure happens. Many people leave after failing.

In a just world, Nakai would do that after his prison stint. He’d get a job elsewhere and accept that he failed.

But this is a Shonen manga, so he can’t. And that’s a real fucking shame.

Saiko needs life experience part II

Aside from the genuine frustration of this chapter—especially the end where it seems like Nakai has not, in fact, learned his lesson and is being set up as a continued part of Hiramaru’s joke of a life (ugh)—the series seems to be recognizing that Saiko’s life is kind of small and he needs to get out and live it a bit more.

They mention a school reunion for second graders – which is weird – so I wonder if that will happen in any upcoming chapters. It might, but who knows? If it does, I’m sure it’ll be a weird chapter to read.

Oh, and also, the Peanut Gallery bit did have me chuckling, but only to keep me from crying at the rest of this. I like that, ultimately, they didn’t do anything because it’s objectively funny.

But there are so many better ways to show mangaka not making it out of the system, and they chose this. And now Nakai is back, and I don’t know what that means.

Ohba fumbled the bag with this one hard, and I feel so angry. I know I’ll like future chapters.

But for once, this was just bad.

And I’m not happy about it.

Until next time,

Peace