Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 135: Consecutive and Prevention in which I was so so so wrong, and I don’t care one bit because IT’S FINALLY HERE.

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Scheduling Note: I will be taking a week-long break after this chapter, so I will see y’all in two weeks.

Consecutive and Prevention Summary

Easy to Read

Manga Team Fukuda are, again, enjoying Road Racer Giri’s anime when Yujiro interrupts their enjoyment for the final draft. Yasuoka comments on his lack of timeliness always interrupting the show. Fukuda yells at him to let him enjoy the anime for a change.

Yujiro, sulking, apologizes and sits down to wait for them to conclude. Slumping over in gloom.

Team Fukuda are concerned for him wondering if he’s having romantic trouble before the third assistant reminds them that he’s always getting rejected by girls so that isn’t an issue.

Ouch.

Fukuda probes about the early results for Crow and Road Racer Giri. They have, for the moment. And…

Crow might get first again. Yasuoka wonders why he’d be so dramatic when Crow is doing well before Fukuda puts 2 and 2 together.

He comments that Eiji is causing trouble, and Yujiro – too gloomy to be coy – confirms that it’s more than troublesome. He catches himself too late, and Fukuda confirms that Eiji wants to end the series.

Yujiro gets comically defensive and asks for proof. Failing to pass the vibe check even a little bit, he asks for the final draft and tells Fukuda to stop jumping to conclusions and spreading rumors.

He slams the door behind him and Team Fukuda all agree that Yujiro is an open book. They then speculate which series is going to bite the dust.

Assistant three assumes it’ll be +Natural based on Yujiro’s chatter last week.

Iwase in Danger

At their usual cafe, Miura is dazed and non-responsive, much to Iwase’s frustration. She berates him for his lack of focus, but he remains unfocused.

She mentions that ending the anime caused the rankings to plummet. Miura agrees that it’s hard for a series to regain momentum after an anime ends. Miura’s concerns, however, are purely mercenary: at least he still has Mikata’s Justice drama coming up. Iwase doesn’t know what’s going on with him before getting a phone call.

She takes the call. It’s from Aoki. She informs Aoki that she’s busy, and Aoki offers to call later, but Iwase decides to take it, given Miura’s incapacitation.

Miura, you fucking suck. God damn.

Aoki gets to the point where there’s a meeting at Fukuda’s place, and Aoki hears a rumor that Nizuma may end +Natural.

Iwase is surprised and alarmed to hear this news and puts the pices together regarding Miura’s sluggishness. She agrees to meet at six o’clock.

At Fukuda’s studio, Shujin is suspect on whether Nizuma even can end a series. Fukuda agrees.

Hiramaru gets up and confirms the only piece of information (from Yoshida) they actually have is that he dropped by the editors office and spoke with the Editor-in-Chief. The two talked in private so even Yoshida is in the dark about what’s happening. Aoki’s shocked to find Hiramaru sounding so cheery about it.

Fukuda pieces together that only Yujiro knows the contents of this conversation as Nizuma’s editor; Yujiro has been acting strangely so it wouldn’t be surprising if he was given the right to end any manga he chooses. Takahama concludes it must be +Natural. Fukuda’s less certain because it was only Yujiro’s guess.

Hiramaru is thrilled by the prospect it might be his series which Aoki scolds him for immediately. Iwase wonders if that’s why Miura seems to have given up.

Fuck Miura, Jesus.

Takahama is skeptical that he would actually be allowed to end anyone series just by getting first place. +Natural maybe half Nizuma’s but that doesn’t give him the right to end it. It’s all just speculation.

Good guy, Takahama, being the lawyerly one.

Iwase decides that confronting Nizuma himself would be best to see what his intentions actually are. Fukuda agrees and decides to go as well to settle it. Hiramaru’s all for it.

Nizuma wants to kill….

At Eiji Co., Ltd, Team Fukuda gets confirmation that he was given the right to end any series he wanted. The boys wonder if their series is on the chopping block.

Hiramaru is literally frothing at the mouth. Aoki believes they’d never let him actually do that.

But they did. Under one condition: get first place for ten consecutive weeks.

So Nizuma only needs to place the first five more weeks in a row, and he’ll be good. He’s definitely going to do that to bring an end to it.

Saiko’s shocked by how huge the goal is, but also realizes that the early results were overwhelmingly in Nizuma’s favor. He only actually needs 4 weeks to win.

Hiramaru – being himself – wonders if he would be so lucky as to have his series axed. Nizuma admits that the work he wants to end is…

Crow.

I’m sorry, what?

Everyone reacts with surprise – Hiramaru most of all (Oh Hiramaru, you silly goose), but Saiko figured as much. Fukuda thought it was a manga he didn’t like. Nizuma doesn’t like Crow. Fukuda doesn’t understand.

Nizuma doesn’t like not being able to end a series on his own terms. He knows that the editorial team would never want to end a popular series because their concern is the magazine’s circulation and continued survival so he understands why, but he decided this before the series started.

He wants to choose when to end his sseries and he wants to do so when the popularity of the series is at its peak. He’s glad because it seems like he will finally be able to do that. Sasaki tried to convince him to continue with it, but Nizuma was persuasive.

Fukuda wonders if that’s why the 10-week condition is in place (aside from obvious plot reasons).

Nizuma explains that’s not quite it.

If Nizuma gets 10 straight 1s, he’ll be able to end the series in 10 chapters after that. The Editor-in-Chief accepted those terms. Saiko asks what happens if he fails to do so.

Then Nizuma won’t end his series. He wouldn’t want another series to get in the way of his perfect finale and so he’ll challenge himself to go even harder if that’s the case. If he can’t do that he will just have to continue the series until the editors decide to “drop it”.

Yikes.

Fukuda thinks that line of thinking is very extreme: end on top or get axed.

Iwase, however, knowing her series is “safe” decides to leave abruptly.

The Immortal Question for Successful Manga

Takahama brings up the moral question that besets all successful mangaka: continue a series because it’s popular or end it when you want to end it? In some ways, it’s selfish to end the series on your own terms. Fukuda points out it will tangibly affect Jump’s popularity if it ends. The Anime is ongoing.

Takahama thinks its a waste to end a series while its still popular. Unless there is a good reason like Ashirogi had with Tanto or if you’ve got some other work that you want to make even more than Crow.

Fukuda asks whether Nizuma has anything else in mind after Crow. Nizuma doesn’t: he only wants to end Crow on his terms in a perfect way right now.

Takahama reminds everyone there is no guarantee of another smash hit after you make one. A series should continue as long as its popular. Hiramaru vehemently disagrees: Nizuma is set for life and can do anything he wants and he should live a life of leisure now. Labor is just to make enouhgh money to survive. Aoki berates him for continuing on with this train of thought.

Bless her.

Fukuda points out that Nizuma still has +Natural, so he can work harder on that. Nizuma agrees but feels like it’s not his work as he can’t work on it totally unencumbered. He would rather do something else one day.

Fukuda isn’t opposed to that, but he doesn’t want Nizuma to do it like this. He can’t take it.

Saiko agrees: Nizuma has always been their north star and manga goal. Being selfish, Saiko deosn’t want his series to end and he refuses to let it end. Shujin joins in: they’ve been working hard to beat Nizuma so he can’t end the series before they do that. Fukuda picks up what they’re dropping: Nizuma is running away after his victory without a chance for the others to beat him. Giri is on the up and up.

So that means they have to surpass him now.

Nizuma’s answer is simple: that has to be the case, then.

Fukuda does the math: he’s gotten five official firsts, one first in the early results, and the final draft of his latest chapter has been submitted. They have to beat him in three chapters.

Fukuda promises to beat Crow so that Nizuma can’t end it.

Nizuma keeps it simple: Nope.

Ashirogi promises to beat him. Aoki stands up too: she’s not opposed to an ideal ending, but she wants to beat him just like the rest of them. They’re all Nizuma’s rival at the end of the day. Takahama joins in: he wishes Mikata’s justice would start sooner but he wants to beat him before the drama series even begins. he’d feel awesome if he could pull that off.

Nizuma has a mischievous grin on his face as he draws.

He doesn’t understand what they’re talking about: he’s entering the greatest climax, and they’ll never beat it. And besides, anyone who sacrifices drawing time to talk to their rival instead of drawing could never beat him.

He do have a point.

Fukuda disagrees: it may look like they’re slacking, but they’ve got a fire lit under them now. Fukuda accepts the challenge. They’re never going to let Eiji end his series in such a cool way. Everyone joins in – except for Hiramaru, but who gives a shit, honestly – and Nizuma stops drawing.

He thinks it’s going to be fun, so he makes a separate offer: instead of five more weeks if anyone can beat him before he completes the final draft for his final chapter, he won’t end crow.

They’ve got seven weeks to beat him.

On that exciting – and somewhat terrifying note – the chapter concludes.

Consecutive and Prevention Reaction

Dude What

Okay, so, like, oh shit. This is really happening. Isn’t it a little early for this to be happening? I’m a little flustered. I’m not gonna lie. I thought it was going to take longer than this.

Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod

The battle with Eiji commences now?!

It’s happening now?

Let’s pretend for a second that I wasn’t wildly wrong about what the cancellation was.

Are they doing THE rival battle for all the marbles now?

I know that getting the anime is the biggest thing, but honestly, I’m more shocked that the Eiji battle has started when there are still so many chapters left.

I assume Ohba has a stockpile of stories left. But really? Now?

Also, even though I should pretend to be subtle about changes in how I write the blog, I will point this out because this chapter pointed it out in fairly unambiguous terms.

He’s not Eiji when he’s the enemy. It’s Nizuma

I think this is a really interesting narrative trick: you’ll notice that I keep my naming conventions fairly consistent: Iwase is Iwase even though she goes by Akina at this point in the story. Azuki is Miho because she’s close to Saiko. Kaya is Kaya because she’s Kaya.

But at various points I have either referred to Eiji Nizuma as either Eiji, or Nizuma. More Eiji, than Nizuma. And it hasn’t always been intentional.

But in this case, I was very intentional about it. And until his battle concludes – hopefully with the boys prevailing, honestly – he will Nizuma remain.

And I’m doing it because Bakuman is doing it. Specifically.

If you read this chapter, at no point will you see Nizuma referred to by anyone as “Eiji”. Rather, he’s Master Nizuma. It’s a nifty bit of narrative re-focalizing. His first name suggests closeness, a certain level of rapport and camaraderie. But now that he’s in rival mode, his last name is more fitting. He’s an opponent that needs to be taken down, and so it fits that instead of being the friendly Eiji, he’s the manga genius Master Nizuma.

It’s those small details that really put Bakuman a cut above the rest in terms of narrative unspooling. There are other manga that do this super well too. But I’m always impressed by these little flourishes that do so much for the narrative.

It also fits with his demeanor. Now that he’s back to Nizuma, he feels like the character we met at the beginning of the manga, who seemed so genuinely threatening, offputting, and admittedly a little frustrating.

Now that I’ve been on the Eiji train for so long, I’m going to have to shift my energies to treating him like the opponent he is and really root for the boys to beat the stuffing out of him in manga terms. And that’s so fucking hype, all things considered because he represents the power ceiling for the series. No other mangaka can do better than Nizuma can in this world.

Unless it’s Oda-sensei, love you Oda.

But honestly, the series has established Eiji as the apex predator of manga. Fucking untouchable. I do not know if any of Team Fukuda can actually beat him and that has me excited.

Now for the thing I’m less excited about.

I was very wrong, and I am le sad.

Yeah. So I totally didn’t call his one. In fact I called this one so badly that it actually feels silly to have thought of anything else but Nizuma wanting to cancel anything else but Crow.

Like the more I think about it the more perfect it becomes. It actually retroactively makes me respect early Nizuma even more because he knew what he wanted from the moment he signed up with Jump and his eyes have always been on that specific prize: a perfect run.

And this chapter really did go over a dilemma that is quite unique to the manga world: how long do you let your series run if it’s popular?

It’s not an easy question to answer and unlike TV, or anime, or films, the answer isn’t actually: until you hit a reasonable stopping point in the narrative, or it stops being profitable.

Because unlike most other narrative media, Manga is published on a magazine schedule and totally subservient to its popularity. If it does well, it increases circulation of the magazine and therefore it is in the magazine’s best interest to keep it running. It also risks an early cancellation if it stops performing well. And even popular series are not necessarily immune to this.

I recently read Toriko, and its last 80 or so chapters are rushed as hell. You can tell. Whole plot points are skipped. This was because the manga stopped being popular, and so even though it was a huge series, it had to be cut short to appease the magazine.

This makes manga one of the most volatile narrative arts around. The response time it works with is limited, and week to week, or whatever schedule it’s on.

So it is, in fact, extremely difficult to find the ideal time to end a story. And especially in Jump, a satisfying ending can be very hard to come by because either the story is too short, or too long, or it’s rushed.

You kinda get used to manga being perpetually in cliffhangers or having a less-than-satisfying ending.

So if you are familiar with manga, Eiji’s desire is actually an incredibly reasonable one. Especially in the context of the magazine at the time this story was written. Naruto was forced to end several hundred chapters after the Pain fight (which was the obvious original end) because of its massive popularity. Bleach also went on longer than it needed to.

And the reason is because Jump is also somewhat infamous for not letting mangaka end on their own terms.

Famously, Death Note was extended another 50 chapters past its original endpoint because of its enormous popularity. And it took a huge hit narratively as a result.

So, this is another case of wish fulfillment on the part of the creators. They wanted to end a series on their own terms, and they had Nizuma be the mouthpiece for this very reasonable desire.

With that said this is a bit of an anachronism these days. And in-universe too which now that I think about it kind defeats the purpose.

Aida mentioned around the Tanto cancellation that mangaka are allowed to end their manga if it’s been running for a long time. Crow has been running for seven years, so we didn’t even really need this. He could have just ended it, and it would have been okay.

But we’re going to forget this convenient plot hole because I want me some battles.

Due to the advent of online publishing and, let’s be real, a surge of popularity in the West, I think there is much more scrutiny of authors and their health. Jump is softening this policy a lot. You can tell with the recent conclusion of MHA (RIP, My Love), which actually felt like a reasonable intended stopping point. Or Demon Slayer or Chainsaw Man. These all have very reasonable-paced endings that aren’t forceful, and they all work, more or less.

So on some level this kind of narrative conceit might not work as well as it used to. But I’m still all about it.

Anyway, other stuff happened in this chapter, so let’s talk about it.

Miura and his group

Yeah, so to reiterate, Miura can get fucked. He’s so bad at his job, and it’s heartbreaking to see how his buffoonery is actively impacting Iwase and her chances of success.

I am definitely not blaming +Natural’s fall on her, even though she earns her share of the blame. It’s clearly Miura, who is only doing the bare minimum to survive with his mangaka, that is the culprit. And it’s a real fucking shame, too, because Iwase has been shown to be effective when she’s with a good editor (like the boys themselves).

So I’m just shocked they haven’t fired Miura yet. And he is aware of it which is why he’s banking on Takahama’s drama to save his bacon. But it’s so infuriating to see just how ruinous of a guy he is. And like, let’s be clear, he’s a nice guy, sort of, and he seems like someone you’d enjoy being around.

But I hate him so much for how much he doesn’t care about his job. If this weren’t a manga it’d be cool. But he’s supposed to guide his creators to be better versions of themselves. Not worry about his own reputation.

Even Yujiro for all his celebration last chapter, is actually working with Fukuda and Nizuma to the extent that he is able. And that’s why those mangaka have succeeded.

That said, I like how Takahama’s character mirrors Mikata’s Justice. During the debate on which series was going to get cancelled (I did call that +Natural was a red herring), he was the most lawyerly and logical of the bunch. Again, it’s a small touch, but I really appreciate how it makes the art reflect the creator dynamic work so well. He was dissecting things from an advocate’s perspective.

And I think that’s in spite of Miura’s editorial malfeasance. I just hope Miura gets shitcanned.

But this is Shonen manga, so he probably wont. And during the Nanamine arc, Hattori mentioned it’s bad etiquette to judge other editors for how they do their job which explains a lot, unfortunately. Especially with Yoshida.

Sigh.

Especially since Nakai is still fucking around.

Speaking of.

Hiramaru was in top form in this chapter, and I did get some things right

Given the mystery that was kind of killed super quickly, I found Hiramaru’s desperate hope that his series would get canceled fucking hysterical because it’s in character and actually kind of harmless, except for maintaining his relationship with Aoki.

But seeing him begging Nizuma to kill his series right after he started getting serialized was comedy gold. And it was probably one of the few situations where it made sense to have Hiarmaru’s narcissism come into direct play with the series.

I will also say that I was kind of right about Nizuma’s cancellation (let me huff this copium): He did want to end a series before it got stale from running too long. I was also correct about something else: the conditions of victory.

I knew it was coming because, again, this is a battle of wits manga, so it has to be there. But it’s funny to me that Eiji is so confident that he’ll get what he wants that he gives everyone the opportunity to beat him before his final chapter is released.

Honestly, this is the most exciting battle you could have for the final rival battle.

Because Think about how epic it will be: you have Nizuma about to finish a perfect run without being beaten – and the series has mentioned he’s in a final battle arc – so if he does this successfully, he’s going to be an absolute legend of a creator, and he will be, quite literally untouchable.

But the boys have been chasing his tail for seven years, and so if they don’t beat him, they will forever be in second place, even if they overcome him in a new series.

The stakes are as high as they can possibly be, and it’s clear that everything is working against them.

Part of me hopes that this is a longish arc because I want to see everyone take a stab at taking Nizuma out, which is what I think the story is going to try to do. Fukuda takes a shot, then Aoki. It’s all very well positioned to play out that way.

Will it take seven chapters? Unclear, we’re already five ish chapters into this arc if you count the copycat stuff, so I could see it going that long, but it’s unlikely. But there are about seven chapters left in this volume…and Ohba would be aware of that fact…

Honestly, what works for me more is that it’s hard for me to see a battle in which the boys come out on top. Especially, again, since we’re still 40 chapters out from the end, and this is one of the biggest battles, and it’s so big everyone is going to be taking on Nizuma.

Now, do I see the boys winning?

I don’t know.

It’s really hard to tell. Like genuinely difficult because the odds are so thoroughly stacked against them. I assume there will be some training arc of some kind to get them up to speed and everyone is taking down the final boss.

But I also kinda want Nizuma to win because I want a perfect run manga. I love the idea of a perfect run and I want to see it achieved. especially as a passionate lover of manga and the game surrounding it. The idea of getting a perfect run is so…perfect. I want it.

But I want the boys to win more.

But this also occurred to me as I was reading it and Nizuma pointed it out: Nizuma does nothing but make manga. it is his life. That gives him the apex advantage. Everyone else lives their life in a more normal way. So how can they possibly hope to step it up?

Now, finally, do I think this is a ploy by Nizuma to bring the best out of everybody? I’m not sure. I don’t think it is, but I think he’ll be happy if that’s one of the fringe results of all his behavior. I can totally see that being a thing. In fact, he’s probably looking forward to seeing what they got.

But I don’t see how Fukuda’s going to win. Or Aoki. Definitely not Hiramaru.

But I’m excited to see them try.

These are truly exciting times for Bakuman, and I’m pumped to see where they take us.

Until next time,

Peace