Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 133: Support and Feeling, in which I gush over how much of a cute ending this is to a very bite-sized arc.

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Support and Feeling Summary

Down to the Wire

In the morning, Saiko waits at his desk, determined that Shujin will create something good.

Shujin slams the door open, asking for a review of the new storyboard.

Shujin is surprised to see Hattori at the studio. Hattori explains he decided to stay the night because it was so late, and Saiko was confident Shujin would come back when promised with a new storyboard.

Shujin gives Hattori the new storyboard. After some review, Hattori praises the work and gives it to Mashiro to begin work immediately. While Saiko doesn’t seem entirely pleased with what he sees, he praises Shujin’s work only to notice Shujin passed out in his chair.

Hattori reminds the audience that he hasn’t slept in three days and needs rest.

Saiko asks what Hattori really thinks of the story. Saiko doesn’t think he’s operating at full capacity yet. Hattori agrees, although it’s miles better than what he’s been producing in the last few weeks. The crimes are also fun again, so it’s only a matter of time until he fully recovers. Their next meeting will be tomorrow night after he wakes up.

Saiko agrees to let him know and thanks Hattori for staying the night. Hattori wants Saiko to get on with it. He doesn’t have much time.

At night, Shujin finally wakes up. Saiko explains he is working on the final draft now. Shujin worries it won’t be finished in time, but Saiko will finish it. Shujin then apologizes for the delay, but Saiko reminds him they’re a team and they’ll help each other out.

Shujin decides to go home to work on the next chapter. Saiko thinks he should take a day off, so he lets Shujin know about Hattori’s plans. Shujin reminds him that his stockpile is exhausted, and he needs to start producing again.

Saiko privately worries about the lack of rest and how long it took to get a good story out of Shujin. He’s not confident Shujin will be able to get another chapter in by next week, but he chooses to believe in his fren while he does his own work. He doesn’t have time to doubt.

Hell yeah.

Aiming for First

The next day, Shujin doesn’t have a new chapter ready. Hattori downplays it: meeting first, story second.

But they can’t come up with any good ideas, so they have another meeting the next day. Shujin elects to do a stairway gimmick story. Hattori thinks it’s “not bad,” which means exactly what it means. It isn’t good yet.

Shujin asks for the early results of the latest chapter, 11th Place, but Hattori is confident the draft from yesterday will raise their rank. But he also notes that Crow is likely going to get first place by a very wide margin. It’s ahead of the second-place series with many votes.

The boys are shocked by the news.

To cheer them up, Hattori brings their fan mail. They’ve gotten more lately. They both don’t understand why until Hattori explains that the fans want them to work hard and not let the incident discourage them. Shujin takes the message that they’ve noticed the story is getting boring, but Saiko sees Hattori’s play for what it is: a way to cheer Shujin up and get him fired up.

Shujin is truly grateful to the fans and promises to live up to their expectations. Shujin ends the day on a more positive note, and the meeting seems to go well.

We Broke Into This Vault. PCP.

Just as things are looking up, a new report mentions another bank robbery with a new letter that cites PCP directly and leaves no room for ambiguity about who the copycat is inspired by.

Everyone looks on in shock and anger. None more so than Shujin himself.

Fukuda’s team watched the broadcast, and Fukuda was even angrier at the news of his competition being killed. Yasuoka asks if Fukuda will call the boys, but Fukuda recognizes that making a big deal of things will only make things worse. He is confident that the boys will overcome this and win in the end.

At Shueisha, Sasaki wants Hattori to run full protection mode for the boys (awww): they have nothing to worry about.

Hattori calls Saiko to check in on Shujin. Saiko doesn’t know; he hasn’t talked to Shujin since the broadcast. Hattori is worried that Shujin will take an even harder hit than the incident before and may give up writing PCP entirely after this. Saiko sees the danger and promises to call Shujin immediately.

Privately, Saiko reinvigorates himself to protect his friend if he chooses not to write anymore.

At his home, Shujin gets up from dinner, pale, and staggering off to his office to write. Kaya’s worried now because he won’t be able to write after something like this.

Kaya wonders how she can cheer him up. She asks to rest for the day and work tomorrow. He yells at her to leave him alone, then slams the door in her face.

In the dark, he chews on the present circumstances, and a look of pure anger crosses his face.

A Way Forward

Saiko watches the newscast and sees the possibility that Shujin is even more distraught. This is no longer about trust; he has to support his friend. But at this point, even Saiko can’t justify a petty “ganbatte.” How can he actually help his friend?

Knowing this will not be solved on its own, Saiko calls Shujin to check on how he’s doing.

Sitting and sulking (poor baby), Kaya hears Shujin shouting “Damn it” repeatedly and then hears his phone go off. He forgot to take it with him into his room—Saiko’s calling.

Kaya hesitates to pick up the phone.

When it goes straight to voicemail, Saiko assumes that Shujin is too depressed and can’t answer the phone. Kaya then calls, and he picks up. She tells him that Shujin is locked up in his room and not in a state to talk. He’s shouting at it at the top of his lungs. Kaya tells him that Miho told her to cheer him up, but she’s genuinely concerned for his well-being and has never seen him in this bad a state. She doesn’t know what to do. She asks if Akito will be okay. It’s all the burglar’s fault not PCPs, why’d they have to implicate him?

Saiko agrees PCP would never do something like–

At that moment, Saiko has an epiphany. Kaya was confused, but Saiko explained that PCP would never do something like that. That’s the key. He thanks a confused Kaya and gets going.

When You Can’t Beat Him. Copy Em.

Shujin’s still shouting as he writes furiously. Saiko slams his door open and gives him his idea of how to beat the copycat.

Then, adorably, at the same moment they shout the idea: USE THE COPYCAT IN THE SERIES.

It takes a beat for them to realize they said the same thing, and then Shujin shows him that he was doing just that. Kaya comes in, and Saiko watches. Shujin explains that the first time it happened, he got depressed, but he’s not going to take that shit a second time.

Hell yeah.

They used PCP’s name for a crime too. UNFORGIVABLE. If he got depressed about this, it would be an admission of guilt. He won’t lose to a criminal. He’s going to show the world that this is not what PCP is about. PCP is theirs, and he’s going to announce that to the world. He’s done with the draft; he just needs to write it on the computer.

The next day, Hattori is thrilled by the new storyboards and how they’ve used their rage to their advantage. He’s also delighted to see that Shujin has fully gotten over his slump. It’s perfect, and the readers will be happy and moved by it.

The boy’s fist bump at having done it.

The chapter ends with a page from PCP: the copycat stealing textbooks is found by Akechi, who knows that PCP would never do something so haphazardly. Getting somehow even more meta than you could possibly get, Akechi breaks the in-universe fourth wall to announce that PCP would never just teal something or do anything that would cause actual trouble for the people.

Kei, Mai, and another character then announce that they know Akechi will solve the case and that they’d be ordinary criminals if they break the law. Anyone can commit crimes, but no one can imitate PCP.

On that amazingly meta note PCP‘s chapter ends and Saiko lets us know that PCP rose to third place and Shujin made a full comeback as the chapter ends.

Support and Feeling Reaction

Brilliant Conclusion

So before I praise the arc, I will say I find it hysterical that this was a three-chapter arc rather than a longer arc. I think the stuff about the backlog from the other chapters was probably a bit more accurate than we want to admit.

Granted, as the series has gone on, the multi-chapter arcs have gotten better at dovetailing various plot threads coherently into each other while keeping focus on one arch plot.

But this was only three chapters, and that makes me lol a bit.

I have a feeling that their ranking was probably dropping in the magazine a bit, and they decided to cut this arc short simply to keep momentum up. Or maybe it was designed to be a short-form arc. They mention a two chapter Valentine’s Day arc and then a White Day arc so I buy it.

Either way, in a stunning show of real brevity, this arc is done! And I’m happy to say I enjoyed the outcome very much. I honestly don’t know how much steam this arc had to begin with, so, again, I’m deferring to “Ohba is telling on himself way more than usual” with this run of chapters. But the arc is done. Huzzah. And it was well done.

But why did it work?

Firstly–

The Climax

I know that the climax component of popular manga spiking is true because when the climax is happening, you want to know what happens next. It is definitionally the biggest thing about that part of the story. And it feels good when you’re in the climax.

For example, recently, an arc in Akane-Banashi occurred over the course of several weeks. In many ways ,Akane-Banashi is a bit of a spiritual successor to Bakuman in the sense that it’s a non-traditional battle manga about art with a duo of creators.

But this arc was a performance of rakugo throughout I think 5 or 6 chapters. And its execution was flawless.

I remember each week thinking how perfectly the chapters dovetailed into a kishoutenketsu on a macro level as the rakugo story went along in addition to each chapter having its kishoutenketsu. Playing with the highs and lows until the tension was bursting at the seams.

I know that it was the chapter I was most looking forward to reading the week it got released because I had to know whether the rakugo had done its job.

And this climax felt earned. Partially because of the real guts we talked about last chapter, but also because the solution is one of those “duh, obviously’ moments that you feel like a goof ass for not putting together instantly. Which, in fairness, is how a lot of writing feels. You kind of wander along until you figure something out, and then you run with it until you get all the way hell out of dodge.

I think I’m mixing my metaphors.

Anyway. The idea of Copying the Copycat for Story is just a *chef’s kiss* bit of real brilliance to cap off this arc’s ending. We even got a nice mutli-layer metafictional tres leches of goodness in having the story mirror the action of PCP which was mirroring the action of the Copycat of Bakuman creating an endless loop that will destroy all of reality because of self-reference or something.

Or something.

Anyway.

As someone who has only read snippets of PCP this solution feels simultaneously like the right one and the inevitable answer based on how it is described. It’s interesting how this series, due to its structure, often talks about the manga in a way that has to be comprehensible to the real-life reader so that we can understand why it works in-universe.

And the crimes aren’t the point, just like…

Manga isn’t the point of Bakuman.

Well, okay, it really fucking is, but bear with me for a second.

When discussing narrative art, it’s important to differentiate between what the story is about and what the story is about.

That’s confusing. Let me try again.

Usually, the tangible plot elements are just a vehicle for the story element to come and play. Every story has a thing that it sets up as an end goal and builds a world around it – Light Yagami wants to become a god and uses the Death Note to cleanse humanity of evildoers.

So the story is about Light Yagami trying to cleanse humanity of evil/become a god. That’s what it’s about.

But what it’s actually about is the cat-and-mouse game played by L and Light as they try to outmaneuver each other in increasingly elaborate mind games and a game of chess.

My Hero Academia is about Hero School and that informs how the conflicts play out: it’s heroes going to school and then being heroes. The school slice-of-life elements are just as important narrative conflicts as the pew pew fights with supervillains.

Hunter x Hunter is about a boy who wants to meet his (profoundly shitty) father.

But what it’s actually about a logic puzzles/battles/mind games between competing hunters and villains as a way to get through the world on that journey.

There is a story, and then there is a story mechanic which people actually come for. In battle manga, the setup is just there to have characters fight each other. In Adventures, it’s to get someone to explore different places. The premise is what the story is about, but the reason you enjoy the story is what the story is about.

I could have said his more simply, but I refuse.

This is usually called a MacGuffin in film terms, but I’m co-opting it to make a statement about storytelling as a whole.

What the story is about is often to cover for how the story will play out. This is why you have an infinite variety of different possible story variations for the same narrative. And that’s partially how you design your conflicts.

So the fact that PCP isn’t actually about the crimes. It’s about how the characters come up with and execute the crimes is an excellent way to articulate why this copycat is totally missing the point of the story by actually committing real honest-to-good crimes. And that’s why the climax actually works. Because Shujin and Saiko, despite writing a somewhat risque non-mainstream story, are still moral characters who are writing with a moral bent. And they intend to have fun, making the crime seem plausible but not criminal.

It’s also why Shujin got frustrated by the Lupin III reference. The point of Lupin III is watching Lupin engage in fantastical heists and crimes. It’s not about creating plausible crimes. That’s not the appeal.

SO, OBVIOUSLY, when someone commits an actual crime, it’s not going to be something that they would condone or endorse because that’s not the actual point of the story.

I could go deeper into this, but for speculation purposes, “I’m going to move on briefly to talk about my own speculation.

Is this Nanamine’s new method?

So I had a weird thought while reading this: is Nanamine jumping the shark and doing something insane to knock Ashirogi off their game?

The answer is probably not, honestly. And now that I’ve put it in writing, I’m almost embarrassed to have thought of it. But in the interest of covering all my bases, it behooves me to at least consider it.

Because it’s the kind of kooky tactic that Nanamine would do that’s unrelated entirely to manga and would interfere with someone else’s ability to work on it. Even though Nanamine is dumb, he is also cunning, which can be a potent combo when put together.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure it isn’t Nanamine, but until it’s officially resolved that the copycat is caught, I’m not putting it against him, either.

In any case, I’m okay with Shujin and Saiko’s reaction to the copycat’s second crime *abruptness notwithstanding*

because

I’m a sucker for Righteous Anger

One of my favorite tropes in the manga is when a character is getting savagely beaten into the dirt, and the main character – or some other high-level player – comes in to witness the atrocity and then beats the everloving stuffing out of the villain perpetrating the heinousness. It’s just a very easy way to give some emotional setup and payoff in a way that’s immediately understandable.

But what I like specifically about it, in this case, is that the way Shujin’s reaction comes off as somewhat unhinged reads as a believable venting for that rage.

If he were just purely angry, that would be one thing, but the fact that he’s ‘s been going to insane lengths to keep things afloat and it looks like a breakdown. Yelling damn it repeatedly is definitely a frightening thing to be doing and totally a sign of instability, so obviously, Kaya is going to misread it.

But also, it’s just ambiguous enough to be read as straight anger rather than a final breakdown. The ambiguity makes it work. I am happy about this fact. It makes it more satisfying when the boys meet up and get determined to beat down the copycat, which is the only way they know how.

Also, the page they include in the manga is just different enough from Bakuman that it makes the metafiction so delicious to me. And the way they get Akechi to deliver the news feels like a subtle reference to the fact that the editors are on the boys side and not the usual more antagonistic relationship they may have. It’s nice to have these parallels for symbolism and shit. They win.

Through the power of MANGA!

Ahem, anyway. Let’s move on:

Eiji’s getting first

This is getting serious now. Eiji’s in first, which means he’s gearing up for the ending of another series.

I know that the series acknowledged my belief that this was a threat to inspire the boys in the last chapter, but it’s nice to see the boys take the bait, regardless. Now. I do have to say we don’t know for certain that’s the case, but….my money is on it is the case. Neener neener.

But we’re heading into the cancellation arc. It’s getting exciting, even though it’s been on the fringe. But honestly, I don’t see what else will come up in the interim to overtake it especially since Eiji’s cancellation has been building since the literal beginning of the series.

Honestly, this feels like we’re setting up for the endgame in a preeminent way. If not from Eiji himself, then in some other tangible Way. We’re still pretty far off, but we’re not that far off.

And the heat is building.

There isn’t a whole lot to talk about here, so let’s talk about one more minor thing that the series acknowledged that was very sweet and part of the other selling point of the climax, aside from the way the chapter built to the final climax.

The Fans

The gratitude that the fanmail was shown felt very genuine on Ohba and Obata’s part. I have a feeling that they do read the fanmail and that they enjoy seeing people support them.

But what I had never considered is that they might also use it for reassurance when things are not quite going so well or that the fans may be aware a situation is going on and would wish them support.

Especially in this toxic age of fandoms hating everything a creator does it’s so lovely to see that, for the most part, fans do care about creators. As much sshit as Horikoshi or Kishimoto have gotten for MHA and Naruto by weirdos on the internet *ahem* there is also this sense of genuine care.

One of the consistent strains, when we hear about a mangaka in poor health, is a genuine okay-ness with a slowing down of their schedule and well wishes. Few people are genuinely annoyed by the delays, and we all understand that it’s a difficult job.

So it was nice to have the fans used as a plot point. Even though I’m pretty removed from the proceedings, I liked the acknowledgment.

Anyway, we’re heading into an Eiji arc. I feel it. And it’s going to have significant repercussions

I wonder what they are.

Until next time,

peace.