Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they’re here to stay oh I believe in yesterday, and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 142 Rookie and Veteran in which the series is jumping the shark a bit, and I can’t really contain myself

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

Rookie and Veteran

Arai you experienced?

Azuma recalls discussing with the mysterious caller at Shueisha’s new mangaka meeting room and wonders if it is truly possible for him to start working in Jump.

Hattori comes back and apologizes for the delay. Azuma gives him an acceptable color illustration. Hattori admonishes Azuma for not letting him know about his prior experience; he figured he wasn’t a total amateur, but it would have been good to know beforehand.

Azuma downplays his accomplishments and expresses his wish to start as a rookie in Jump. That being the case, he’s asked to change his pen name to fit that image, but he refuses adamantly, surprising Hattori.

Hattori wonders if it’s a play to drive up more popularity by presenting him as an older mangaka before deciding that it is not at all in character for him. He assumes pride is the likelier culprit.

Azuma, again presses him on whether he truly believes an older artist like himself can get into Jump. Hattori firmly believes he can; he’s also not a rookie, which helps. He then moves on to some line revisions, including the use of the term “Pretty soldiers”. He then continues his line notes like the great editor that Hattori is.

Just a giant green flag.

In a french accent *SIX HOURS LATER*

Azuma exits the offices mildly exasperated at how long the entire meeting took. Hattori wants him to submit for the mid-October serialization meeting. He reasons that Hattori is both passionate and hardworking.

True and based.

At the same moment, he walks by everyone’s favorite character. ARAI!

(I’m actually excited to see the poor guy.) He’s hailed by Azuma, and the two reminisce: Arai was Azuma’s assistant about ten years ago. Azuma remarks on his “success” in Jump and thinks their positions are reversed. Arai reminds him that he’s not so successful either. All his series were dropped.

Adding insult to injury, Arai is unemployed. Jump has no future plans for him.

Ouch. Buddy. Ouch.

Arai commiserates with Azuma about how the glut of wannabe mangaka makes them disposable. Plus, with so many youngins entering the industry, his style is outdated.

Azuma explains himself off-screen. Arai is amazed and wonders if he’s not too old to be working in Jump. Arai is even more shocked to learn that Azuma is debuting as a fifty-year-old. How did Azuma manage to do it?

Azuma takes a beat and asks if Arai has a moment to talk; it’s something that will cheer the poor guy up.

He definitely needs it.

Shonen? Jump

On Tuesday, September 27th, Issue 44’s advance copy is given to the boys with Panty Flash Fight in it. Shujin is awed by how amazing it is – it reminds him of Classroom of Truth (uh-huh) and he was beat to the punch for the Cult-Hit Mainstream Battle Manga.

Appropriately, Kaya does not appreciate the central premise of fighting to avoid showing one’s panties. Shujin explains that it does a good job of making the silly premise so serious: who wants their panties broadcast nationwide?

Kaya, continuing to be the one girl in the room, points out that wanting to see a girl’s panties is dumb. She thinks the audience are perverts.

That is correct, Kaya. You are correct.

Shujin doesn’t care if he’s a hentai, “We” want to see panties. Especially if it’s a cute girl or one you have a crush on. Kaya puts two and two together and realizes that *gasp* Saiko wants to see Miho’s panties. Shujin thinks that’s crass since he’s in a (self made) situation where he can’t see them no matter what.

Kaya, finally having some fun, decides to spoil Miho’s panties for Saiko, but Shujin forcibly stops her from talking lest Saiko get no sleep.

This is dumb. But it’s a cute character dynamic.

They then notice Saiko is Major Tom, not getting ground control. They ask what’s got him so spacey, and he snaps back to reality: if Taro were still alive, he’d be the same age as Azuma. The two are amazed. Saiko heard the name before and put together the fact that Azuma is fifty years old. Kaya’s even more alarmed by that news. Shujin isn’t sure it’s the same person.

Saiko provides a copy of one of the graphic novels published over a decade ago for Love Me Do (great title, though) that he found in the studio as part of Taro’s library. The artwork is identical.

In contrast to his new one-shot, the old work is lame and, by Kaya’s standards, pornographic (which means it definitely fucking is). Shujin’s even more impressed by the style change-up. Saiko thinks he must have done lots of research to make something suitable for Jump.

Saiko wants to root for an older guy who had left the game for a bit. Shujin sees the connection with Taro. Shujin understands, but he also thinks it’s very late to write a one-shot. It’s surprising it even ended up in the magazine. Saiko uses the adage: good is good, and with an older guy like him working, now they’ll have to work even harder.

Now that Crow has ended, they still haven’t hit first. They’ve actually fallen back to fifth place. And Saiko is concerned about Mikata’s Justice increasing popularity given the upcoming TV Drama. Shujin feels hopeless about competing with series that have media franchises. Kaya scolds them for being so unconfident: they placed second against two series with anime. She loudly cheers for PCP.

Eriko?

At Takahama’s studio, the assistants note that he’s all fired up now that the TV Drama is starting next week. He still hasn’t gotten first place, though.

Meanwhile, in the den of scum, Yoshida lets Hiramaru know that he’s moved up over PCP to fourth place. Hiramaru is despondent now that he’s never going to be called “Kazutan”. It’s just fourth place, anyway.

Yoshida explains that that is all part of his keikaku (that means strategy). Hiramaru thinks Yoshida sounds stuck-up. Yoshida explains that his popularity has increased with the ladies due to the better artwork. It’s all thanks to. Nakai.

Yoshida says with a mask while stank clouds circle the room and Nakai munches on pizza.

This is actually funny. I giggled.

Yoshida then praises Nakai for being a skilled artist but lacking the ability to create characters. This is a chance for him to make a character that would look good in an anime and improve his skills to teach Hiramaru.

Nakai don’t want to do that to make Can’t Fool Me into an anime. Munch munch.

Yoshida, never one to avoid manipulation, asks Nakai if she knows about Eriko, Aoki’s younger sister, who is her spitting image—actually slightly prettier.

NOPE.

Kazutan (I’ll call you Kazutan bb) knows about her, but he never knew. Yoshida explains that only the mole under her left eye differentiates her. Nakai has no idea what this has to do with him. Hiramaru agrees.

Yoshida thinks Hiramaru should propose to Aoki once Can’t Fool Me has been animated. Hiramaru has an absolute fit at the idea. Yoshida guarantees that as long he has his love advisor she will certainly say yes to his proposal.

Nakai refuses to help with this. And the two are about to duke it out. But that’s where “Eritan” comes in.

Oh god. I hate it. I hate it so much.

Yoshida will help Nakai get with Eriko (disgusting) after he becomes a super mangaka. He will introduce her.

Hiramaru – for the wrong reasons but with the right questions – asks Yoshida to consider Eriko’s feelings on this one.

Nakai falls for the bait, hook, line, and sinker. He’ll help Hiramaru!

Hiramaru has a conniption at th idea of the two getting married and then becoming his…..BROTHER-IN-LAW.

Truly a fate worse than death.

Also premature, but whatever.

Before any of this can happen, though, Nakai needs to go on a diet.

Nakai, having a rare moment of clarity, wonders if it’ll work. He feels like he’s being manipulated. Hiramaru lets him know that he’ll have a bright future with Yoshida’s manipulation.

Okay, that got a laugh out of me. (but only so I don’t cry).

Why Didn’t You Do This Before?

The next day, Arai’s editor is frustrated to get a call from him after being formally severed from Jump. He will still take look at the work, though. The editor is confused, but takes a look. He’s disappointed to see another school manga. But as the editor continues reading, he actually realizes it’s *shockingly* good.

He gets more enthusiastic about the premise – where games are introduced, and students need to create new school rules every day in accordance with the regulations. The catharsis of the main character leading everybody so that they’ll win in the end. He’s shocked Arai could have come up with something so witty. But he’s confused: if Arai had this in him, why didn’t he submit something like this before?

Arai just didn’t have any ideas, that’s all.

The editor agrees: it’s all in thr idea. However, this does feel like Classroom of Truth, a bit.

Uh-huh.

Arai does a spit take, but plays it off: Are you making fun of me, or praising me?

On October 4th, in room 2, the early results for Panty Flash Fight were a landslide first place. Hattori is convinced they can create a social phenomenon with it—a smash hit!

Hattori wants to make that dream come true by getting a series in the next serialization meeting. Azuma is way ahead of him with storyboards for the series. He provides three storyboards.

Hattori quickly pores over them. They’re great!

He runs to Aida to give the storyboards for chapters 1 through 3 for the mid-October serialization meeting. They all review the storyboards; they are,, in fact, good. Editor Bowl-Cut wonders if they’re really considering making this a series. Hattori is obviously going to do that.

Editor Bowl-Cut points out the age issue, again, and thinks they should be giving these spots to younger mangaka rather than the older crew. Hattori reiterates, again, good works get priority. It’s successfully tested as a one-shot. It’s not fair to treat him that way based on age. Editor Bowl-Cut understands but thinks that older writers should write for older readers. They should cultivate talent rather than harvest oldies.

The others agree, but they haven’t found any other talent lately. They’re also considering the flop possibility and, also, conveniently (rolls eyes), Nanamine’s lack of success when they thought he had it in the bag.

Azuma is a veteran but has had no results.

Editor Bowl-Cut is still firmly on the side of providing younger talent opportunities to work. Aida thinks that giving chances to lesser quality works is extreme (which, kinda true); Bowl-Cut thinks it’s for the good of the magazine.

Kosugi wonders if it really is a good idea to give Azuma a shot and take away a younger person’s chance to succeed.

Miura also points out that a lot of internet backlash arose about his age after the one-shot was released. Hattori counters, again, exhaustingly, that he’s trying to make a good faith effort to start as a rookie and he won the votes.

Aida finds the golden middle: younger is better is a good rule of thumb, but exceptions exist, every now and then. There are older mangka who are trying hard. This will encourage them.

They’re still arguing about the value of old people working in manga, and how difficult it will be to manga them. Aida cuts the chatter short: regardless of their opinions, Panty Flash Fight is good, and he will show it to Sasaki.

Geezer Jump*

On Friday, October 7th, Fukuda’s furious that Giri got third place again. He’s even more upset to learn that Panty Flash Fight beat him, even though both his assistants agree that it was great.

Yujiro sees a trend of older artists making a comeback currently. Fukuda wants to know what’s going on with that noise.

It’s not just Azuma, but Nangoku, who worked with Monthly Hustle, and Yanagi, who worked with Shonen Kick, who have works as well. Nangoku is a mangaka with a single baseball manga from twenty years ago. Fukuda reminds Yujiro he was canned for continuing to make baseball manga that flopped. He doesn’t even remember Yanagi.

Yujiro mentions that he’s been a manga artist for 18 years but never had hit. Also Arai came in after being axed with another good work. Fukuda then points out that if they put a bunch of geezers in the manga it won’t be “shonen” jump anymore.

Yujiro defers to the leadership on this one, but mentions that if the oldies are doing better it’s because the young people aren’t pulling their weight. He notes that they’ve had a bunch of promising mangaka fall flat on their face recently and been canceled.

Next Tuesday, Fukuda calls the boys and asks if they’ve heard about the three one-shots in the November issues. They haven’t.

He explains what Yujiro told him and complains that veterans from all four major shonen magazines are in Jump now. He doesn’t understand what the editorial office is thinking, and Saiko wonders if they’re just being given a chance.

Fukuda points out that these guys weren’t successful mangaka for Jump, and if this continues, it won’t be Shonen Jump: it’ll be Geezer Jump. Saiko agrees but doesn’t know what he can do about it.

Shujin wonders if this is a publicity play or a way to get younger mangaka to work harder. Saiko wonders if they’re trying to shake up younger creators.

At that moment, they get a call from Hattori.

Panty Flash Fight is getting a short-term serialization starting on November 21st. Hattori notes that the storyboards were in, and the one-shot did extremely well. Hattori lets them know that it’ll be temporary, but he’ll be working on three series, which will make his schedule very tight. He asks Shujin to keep up the current work pace.

Saiko’s confused about all of this. What is going on?

It’s obvious what it is, but we’ll find out for sure in the next chapter, as this one concludes.

Rookie and Veteran Reaction

This is silly

Okay, so I don’t want to be mean, but this whole – Oh no a bunch of older artists are invading the pages of a boy’s magazine and we’re having a serious debate about whether that’s a good or bad thing – thing, is silly as shit and borders on jumping the shark.

Or should I say Jumping the Shonen? Eh? Eh? I’m funny, right?

Seriously though, this feels like it’s going to be another two chapter arc in which we get a setup where the olds are invading Shonen Jump and then there’s going to be some resistance from the young and then Nanamine is going to be in here somewhere and pulling his chicanery ass bullshit and it’s going to be a whole barrel of late-stage manga monkeys.

I…can’t pretend I’m particularly enthusiastic about it.

It honestly feels like a reach that now that we’re out of all the more existential parts of being a mangaka, like getting serialized, being overworked, and maintaining popularity, we now have an ex-mangaka making storyboards for older mangaka to take over Jump.

Yeah. Super duper silly.

HOWEVER.

Imma give it a chance. And that’s for one small reason. A character reason.

Taro and Arai

So, the more obvious reason I’m emotionally invested is what this *likely* means for Saiko and maybe one other plot element that I’m going to predict later in the read-through. But this is teasing at perhaps the most important piece of lore in the series: Saiko’s relationship with Taro.

This is not a big focus of this chapter, but the fact that they’re emphasizing how old Azuma is relative to Saiko’s uncle gave me pause for a moment. There was a glimmer of something more emotional that could be plunged deeper.

Will they? Man, I dunno, but this setup feels like an increasingly ridiculous set of stakes to keep readers interested.

But the Taro of it all has me a little…I dunno, pensive. Like Saiko. Taro is one of the catalysts for the story. And even though his narrative is sidelined for several important reasons, we haven’t revisited his past in any great detail since Shujin’s proposal to Kaya, like…jesus, fifty chapters ago.

I will say, though, that as a way to tug on Saiko’s heart strings and mine by proxy, I will take this bit of emotional manipulation for what it is for now. If we lean on this part of the Old Vs. Young dichotomy that’s being set up, I can be all for that.

More than Taro, though, the one thing about this arc that I’m super jazzed about is the re-introduction of Arai.

I think I literally joked about 10 chapters ago or so about how Arai has had approximately four panels of screentime. We have almost never seen Arai get any real screentime in the series. And I understand that he’s basically just a mob character whose role is to round out the world a bit.

Oh, right, let me explain.

Sometimes in world building you can’t get into granular detail about the world you are designing because that would be insane. There’s a whole Borges short story about trying to create a whole fictional world called “Tlon, Uqbar, and Orbis Tertius” about it. But basically, to come up with a whole world is well beyond the skill of any single human being.

So sometimes, to give the illusion of a more fleshed out world, you put in cardboard cutouts of characters with the most basic details you can to give the world a little more texture.

Arai has always been that type of character and he’s been uniquely effective at it: we only know his name, we know he’s published a few named manga, and he’s gotten cancelled three times.

Even though we only meet him I think once or twice at the new years party he has not gotten any development because he needs no development. He’s just a named character that there’s to fill out the gaps in the world that occur outside of the main character’s journey.

But that said, just enough character has been given to him over the course of the story that seeing him get the spotlight for even a moment was particularly gratifying. It’s like they remembered he was there and he feels useful.

And it also segues into the *sigh* more legitimate moral question at the center of this arc so far: what is the value of an old person in a young person’s game.

Age and Manga

I have toyed with drawing a manga since I started this read-through and part of me is still pretty interested in doing it. I don’t know if I have what it takes to go pro in japan, or anything. But I like drawing and I like telling stories and there would be something very satisfying about drawing my stories.

I’m also 34.

The same age as Arai.

Much ink has been spilled in this story about how *young* the characters are to be published in Jump but I think if you actually read about artists, most successful ones start *young*.

The Beatles were in their early 20s; Richie Valens was 17 when he died, Buddy Holly and Sid Vicious were 21.

And the same for Mangaka. Most Mangaka who get successful, do so in their youth. And that’s because manga is, ironically, one fo the most physically demanding jobs on the planet. Because the hours, and your posture and your diet have to necessarily go to shit to meet a weekly schedule. You are sacrificing all your free time to it and it costs you.

But this is not exclusive to manga, but most creative arts. Which is why I mentioned musicians. In large part, creative arts are dominated by younger people. And that’s not just because there is a bias towards youth. But it’s also because, in the case of Actors and Actresses or other performers, youth sells. Sex sells.

But even for filmmakers and other artists in technical creative fields, there is a bias towards younger producers. Spielberg was directing in his 20s. So was Lucas.

And this makes something painful but obvious: as you get older you lose the ability to do things that you could do when you were young. It doesn’t mean the rigors of these positions can’t be overcome. There are plenty of late bloomers and successful older people who do enter these fields and make things well into their twilight years.

But it’s much more common to enter a world young and stay there, which makes my heart go out to Arai just like Saiko’s goes out to Taro: I see a little too much of myself, and it’s disheartening.

It’s not going to stop me, but it’s disheartening for sure. Not to mention the average life expectancy of a mangaka is significantly lower than your average person because of the brutality of the work.

And that’s also why I’m wiling to tolerate the silliness because the debate gets more complicated by the tastes of older generations. As you get older your taste may remain static while the taste fo pop culture is constantly shifting. That’s another brutality: adapting to youthful tastes.

Which brings me to editor bowl-cut

Editor Bowl-Cut

I straight up forgot his name here and I’m not going to look it up for the time being because of potential spoilers. I have almost been spoiled by verifying other names in the past.

But I like this character’s dynamic with everyone else because it’s not explicitly morally wrong. Although I align with Hattori and the crew on the “Good is good” mantra, he is bringing up some reasonable counters to their looking just at the quality. This is a sincere moral question that puts the editors in a more charitable light when they have to make tough decisions.

While most people assume that the only goal of editors is hitmaking, there is obviously other calculus involved in whether to take on new talent, and one of those is their potential to make future hits. Or promise and potential.

There is limited potential for oldies, even though they have a much better grasp of things and are generally competent. This is also suffocating potential young talent from getting a foot in the door.

This is tricky, too, because in-universe, there is a dry spell of promising young talent, so they need to fill the magazine with potential good offerings.

So even though I find Bowl-cut a little too ageist in his assessment, he does provide some legitimate moral gray to the plot development. And part of me is niggling around thinking he’s saying something important about the arc itself. Can’t say what yet.

Well, I mean, we get the obvious thing at the end with the four mangaka being published in Shonen Jump. But aside from that.

Let’s talk about the “mystery” mangaka who is the Sigma stand-in

It’s Nanamine!

OH no. Anyway.

Yeah, again, Ohba makes no effort to bury the lede on this one, which I actually appreciate on some level because of how brazen he is. He’s just basically copping to it without copping to it.

But the most obvious thing about the scheme is that Arai’s work is like Classroom of Truth. as if we didn’t have the confirmation already from the character design even if most of his face is cut off already.

So Nanamine is….ghostwriting a bunch of storyboards for older mangaka to take over Jump?

Yeah, I don’t see the play here, at least not yet. But to say it’s…silly is, well, the thing I already said, so there is no need to reiterate.

As Shujin laid out in the previous chapter, Nanamine will be our sigma for this arc, which means that what he’s doing is going to be, to some degree, morally grey. So I think we’re getting that with the Arai and Taro connections.

In fact, if Nanamine’s behavior is both morally repugnant and still ambiguous, I will give big ups to the POS for changing even a little bit after his incredibly dark fall from grace in the previous arc. And I might also forgive him for being such a noxious asshat.

But for now, he’s playing some kind of game. And even though some of my plot predictions are wildly on point, most aren’t.

So let me make a few predictions:

My current reading of the situation is that Nanamine is trying to enter the game again in a sideways manner, so he hasn’t really learned his lesson. But from this juncture, it looks like he’s making a play as a ghostwriter, and he’s going to prove his skills to everybody by having multiple series placed in Jump.

Is he going to take off his mask eventually? Probably, it’s in character given the last arc. But I think he’ll actually wait until he’s at an opportune moment for it so that it will hit just right.

Other than that, aside from humiliating Shonen Jump – which actually seems to be one of his arch goals – I have to assume that he wants to help the oldies to some degree.

Oh, right, my other prediction is that he’s trying to get the boys separated from Hattori.

I think I predicted this last chapter, but even if it’s not intentional, it’s very much in character for him to try to hurt Ashirogi in a way that’s more mainstream than his previous efforts. Actively getting their editor reassigned or paying less attention to them? That would be an absolutely intense move on his part and would imperil the boys.

Maybe that’s what will happen.

But I think in this we’ll have to see.

In any event, it’s clear that his writing style hasn’t actually changed. He’s still got a dark side, and he’s making non-mainstream cult battle hits. I wonder why.

No, I don’t.

Anyway, let’s talk about a few other things before we wrap this up.

The Perv Factor

So, like, at this point, I’ve kind of given up on trying to be super angry about Hiramaru and Nakai since it’s always the same kind of silly and simultaneously awful, but I will say Yoshida using Aoki’s sister as bait to get Nakai to work is….something.

I will not deny that the series has pretty much lost whatever goodwill towards its depiction of women and the use of them that I once had. Even Iwase can’t really save it. However, because I no longer care, it’s almost funny. Almost

If we disregarded all the heinousness of the source of the humor it would be legitimately funny. The idea that Yoshida’s manipulation is known and valuable is a good bit. But I dunno man, it’s just gross.

Also, please don’t introduce Eriko for real. I’m begging ya, man.

Which brings me to the other pervs: Shujin and Azuma.

I think the stuff about Miho’s panties…works. Sue me. I hate that we’re getting this conversation from literal adults. Still, it does have a certain verisimilitude and light-hearted bullying of the main character that I’m willing to overlook, all the grossness surrounding it.

As for Azuma, it’s weird, but I feel like this design actually fits the old perv aesthetic. It makes a lot of sense diegetically, and if we’re being real, his original stories are probably hentai.

But still, I could do without it.

Oh well, let’s see how this plays out.

Until next time,

Peace