Disappointing diamonds are the rarest of them all and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 146 Real Deal and Anger in which Nanamine does what he always do and I’m just tired, man.

Sorry I didn’t post last week, I’ve been recovering from an extended illness. I’m feeling much better now, though.

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Real Deal and Anger Summary

Hattori’s Wish

Over coffee, Yujiro and Hattori discuss Nanamine’s scheme. Yuijro knew something was fishy, but Hattori would never have pegged Nanamine as the one behind it.

You, and only you, Hattori.

Yujiro wonders how the brass is going to take it. Hattori speculates a ban on all of Nanamine’s stories from now on. Yujiro remains uncertain, though. Everyone should get a fair shake at it if the work is good. At the same time, he wants to keep his job as an editor. He thinks Nanamine would be better suited to running his own magazine.

In all cases, they’re going to have to fill in the big bosses before serialization. Azuma and the other vets may be turned in before then. The company can churn out storyboards fast.

Not only that, Yujiro chimes in, they’re all high quality and the whole system is well developed….

Yujiro advises Hattori to tell them before the meeting; this isn’t one of those situations where you can ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

That said, Hattori is determined to get Panty Flash its own series. That won’t happen unless the bosses accept Nanamine’s method. Hattori thinks purely for Azuma’s sake and how crushing it would be to have his dreams taken from him again. Yujiro is repetitive here, but for good reason: tell the bosses no matter what.

Hattori desperately wants to help Azuma.

This is where the battle truly begins

At the studio, the boys review the results of Panty Flash’s short serialization: third place, above PCP. They’ll probably use this as ammo to turn in storyboards for the upcoming serialization meeting on the 23rd. Saiko acknowledges that they are facing a truly tough opponent.

Not only that, but the other one-shots are doing well, especially Arai’s T&S, which got second. It’s directly in competition with PCP and performed best out of all the series. Nanamine is going to hit them where it hurts with other similar stories. Shujin agrees: he wants to crush PCP so he’ll target their demo.

Shujin gets even more worried: if Panty Flash gets serialized, then Hattori will work on three series, which would likely mean they’re put with another editor.

(Called it).

Saiko wonders if Nanamine is that forward-thinking.

Shujin thinks it’s probably a coincidence.

At Shinjitsu, Hibiki goes over the storyboards for Arai’s series, which got an 8.9 from the monitors—even better than Panty Flash’s 8.2; they anticipate even greater results. Panty Flash’s series storyboards are also incredibly promising; up to Chapter 7, they are done and have an average score of 8.7.

Samurai Batter Kill also got an 8.1: acceptable. Hibiki is confident that they will succeed in the serialization meeting, and Nanamine observes that they have what it takes.

Hibiki wants some clarification: why did he reveal his plan to Ashirogi this early? They might be in danger if the editorial team finds out about all of this. Getting a series first would have been wise.

Nanamine wonders what the editors will *actually* think of this. nanamine will decide which storyboard to present at the meeting. Hibiki thought they were going to turn all of them in.

Just this once, Nanamine will decide. Hibiki is dismissed. Privately, Nanamine, pleased as a peach, reviews the storyboards that exceed his own standards. He claims everything’s ready and the battle truly begins now.

Hattori’s Pride

At Azuma’s apartment, Azuma tells Hattori that he’s been told that five chapters of storyboards are incoming, but he hasn’t received any. Hattori wants to know if that means the meeting is pointless. Azuma sheepishly admits there’s no point to their meetings since the storyboards are set in stone.

With his pride at stake, Hattori requests that Azuma and he create storyboards on their own. He’s uncertain whether they can beat Nanamine, but he’s willing to try. He’s always done his job that way and believes in the method.

Azuma reminds him of his, y’know, contract with the company. Does he have a choice? If he goes through with this, they might cut him off entirely. Hattori’s resolve is unbroken: good. Then Azuma and he can work together without anything holding them back.

Azuma freaks out: Panty Flash is the company’s product, and they’d never allow them to take it over. Hattori mulls it over: Azuma’s right, so he’ll tell the editorial team about the method before the serialization meeting begins. He warns Azuma, however, that the series won’t get serialized if they don’t accept the process. He needs to prepare for any outcome.

Even if they did, though, Hattori’s job would be moot. He’d have nothing to do but pick up the final draft. He asks Azuma earnestly if he’d be willing to let go of Panty Flash Fight and create something with him the proper way.

Sadly, Azuma has no faith in that method and thinks it would be impossible. Hattori points out all the flaws in what Azuma has signed up for, how its shadiness has put him in this compromising position; if it were on the up and up, there would have been no problem. Furthermore, Hattori can’t accept this method.

Beyond that, though, Hattori points out, rightfully, that Nanamine is using Azuma and mentions Nanamine’s confession to Ashirogi. It hurts, but Azuma sees the truth in it. He baka mitai’s himself as Hattori continues to lobby for him to make something good and true: nothing good can come if he continues the way he is. he needs to let it go especially because it’s making him feel so pathetic.

Why can’t they work together?

Azuma has no faith in himself and believes he’s lost whatever talent he had. Hattori doesn’t think that. He even recognizes that a writer might be needed and can provide that to Azuma if he needs it. Panty Flash Fight is an opportunity for a comeback. That should be sufficient motivation.

Azuma is bowled over by the response the series has gotten and doesn’t believe he could match it at all. Hattori agrees that the runaway success would affect him too. But he thinks he wouldn’t want to work on a success under such circumstances. Then he drops an emotional bomb: Would Taro be okay with this?

Yo, low blow.

This finally hits Azuma where he lives. Hattori doesn’t think he would be okay with it and Asks Azuma to consider his offer. If Azuma goes with Panty Flash Fight and the editing team is OK with it, he will accept it and give it his all.

Hattori leaves

Azuma’s Conscience

Making tea, Azuma ruminates on Hattori’s words and offer. He’s deeply distraught and resists it tooth and nail. He thinks about Taro again and asks his sensei what he should do.

Meanwhile, at the studio, Saiko draws while thinking about Nanamine and his villainy. He stops drawing at 11:03 and heads out of the studio. He’s stopped by Azuma on the street. He’s shocked.

Back in the studio, the two drink tea, and Saiko asks whether the studio has changed since he last visited. Azuma is totally quiet, and Saiko notices that he’s even more shy than himself.

Azuma abruptly apologizes to Saiko. Saiko thinks it’s due to the late hour and forgives him. Azuma explains he was mulling over his future and just drifted here by habit. Saiko’s glad that Azuma remembers his uncle. Azuma asks whether it’s true that Taro drew until his death.

Saiko doesn’t know everything, but knows that his parents found him here with a pen in hand.

Azuma is shocked by the dedication. Saiko somewhat cheerfully—eek—mentions that he knows that even after being cancelled, he was drawing storyboards and final drafts day in and day out.

Azuma apologizes again for his lack of confidence and inability to say no to Nanamine.

Saiko plays dumb nd compliments him on a job well done. Ganbatte and all that.

Azuma is about to confess to his crime when he gets a call from Nanamine.

He’ll Never Be Satisfied

Nanamine lets him know that there will be no future storyboards for Panty Flash Fight. Azuma flips out at the news. He thought they were going to submit for the serialization meeting this month.

Hibiki sensei is the reason: he thought it would be problematic to submit them to Jump without letting the staff know the submission’s origins. Nanamine agrees.

Scumbag.

Nanamine thinks the only way to get around this is to do something himself. There’s nothing wrong with him making storyboards with his company, is there? He’s just thinking of the reputational damage to his company.

No more storyboards for Azuma.

Nanamine does thank Azuma, however, for proving that his writers have the right stuff. He’ll have them work on stories for him alone, though. Azuma is horrified to see Hattori’s words come to life. He shouts at Nanamine for betraying him and the other older mangaka who trusted him as test cases for his plan.

That’s not the whole case. He wanted to see if he could create results that were impossible to overlook.

Azuma begs for answers about his own future now that Nanamine has done this. Saiko takes the phone and asks to speak to Nanamine. Nanamine is surprised to hear that Saiko is with Azuma before satisfyingly shouting at him to give it a fucking break (paraphrase).

Nanamine tells Saiko to calm down. It’s unlike him to get so testy. Saiko’s furious that Nanamine would stoop so low as to use Veteran artists to jumpstart his own career. What does he take those older artists for?

Nanamine wouldn’t be satisfied if they beat Saiko. No, Nanamine will not be happy until he defeats Ashirogi with his work.

ON that ominous note, the chapter concludes.

Real Deal and Anger Reaction

Called it

Yay, my prediction might have been true: Hattori might not be their editor, which, if Nanamine were actually smart, would be a much a better play to fuck over Ashirogi than this. I can’t think of another editor who would be able to tolerate and deal with them the way Hattori does.

Also, Nanamine was obviously a villain. I don’t think I outright said that specifically, but the setup of this arc would make it pretty hard to ignore the fact that he was going to seem morally ambiguous to start and then have a straight con of some kind afterwards.

But even by my standards, this whole approach was fucking scummy as fuck.

Even though he’s the moral and emotional center of the arc, I haven’t touched much on Azuma as a character. He’s grown on me considerably throughout this arc, and here he comes into greater focus.

I think the callbacks to Taro, which, if handled poorly, could read as cheap, are damned effective in setting up Azuma as a character worthy of our sympathy and care.

I will also freely admit that Azuma’s design seemed intentionally off-putting to create a specific effect and some ageism, and I also fell for it. It’s not as bad as Yanagi, which I’m still iffy about, but still, his appeal—in the character design sense—is that he’s kind of old, kind of sad, and kind of ugly.

But yeah, the Taro connection and backstory have really rounded him out so that he feels less like a sad sack, and more like a desperate person put into an impossible situation through that desperation, and he truly has no good way forward.

Which in the context of Nanamine’s machinations makes Nanamine come off infinitely worse than he would if he were exploiting people who were, themselves shitty.

This is kind of the fundamental flaw of the “Sigma” setup of this narrative.

The Audience Kinda Knows that Nanamine is a bad guy who will do bad things

Even though we’re supposed to believe in the morality of the initial setup, it seems too good to be true, which usually means it IS too good to be true. And Nanamine’s narcissism – I’m aware of the Sarah Z video from months ago, motherfucker still fits the bill – he took the wrong lesson from his failures. Clearly he needs a more concrete method of making bulletproof manga, right?

A very cynical way of looking at things, and we already went over this in previous chapters. But consequentialist characters usually only have one goal in mind. No pun intended.

Add to that the moral failing of his underlying philosophy, and it’s obvious that every potential good thing about his idea is the worst possible result for the people directly affected by it.

So when the heel turn finally comes, I think it should come as no surprise that Nanamine is even more scummy when his new method is on steroids, and it’s obviously bad.

But I’m pretty sure everyone already knew that, so the premise of his new method is flawed because the chapter – and arc’s – narrative design already foreshadows that it’s not above board and will ultimately hurt the people it’s designed to help.

And that’s because Nanamine is a narcissist. Having NPD is not a death sentence, nor does it make you doomed to be a shitty person, but as the satisfyingly angry end of this chapter demonstrates, Nanamine is a shit heel because he’s unwilling to learn. If he were aware of his personality flaws and strove to fix himself, rather than the things around him, his being a narcissist wouldn’t be a problem. But that ain’t happening.

The detail that Nanamine used Hibiki’s reasonable note that it might be below board to submit without announcing yourself as having ghostwriters is particularly fucked up. It’s also an effective detail forecasting Nanamine as utterly remorseless. I have little doubt that if this guy sprouted a whole ass company without anyone knowing he would be perfectly aware fo the ethical grey areas of not telling the editorial team about his plans beforehand.

So this was inevitable, which makes me kinda grumpy because I think the idea of having a morally ambiguous character leading the main characters to a new understanding of morality is actually an interesting premise. But…as we’ve said many times before and will say many times again

This is Jump, baby. And that shit don’t play.

Sigh.

Speaking of the editorial team.

How will they actually react?

I think the thing that this arc has taken for granted is that the editorial team will be fine with the moral dubiousness of this idea because it churns out hits. And….I think, were this the real world, that would have some merit.

And I say this because briefly…when I was very pressed for money and trying to make writing a full time job, I signed up briefly for a ghostwriting service. I will provide no further details as to what I ghostwrote for – I think I signed an NDA. But let’s say these ghostwriting services – which are, for the record, a lot of writing jobs in freelance – were the definition of below board.

I only completed one assignment from them and never did another because I couldn’t. It was too much for me emotionally, and I bungled the gig regardless.

But that company is thriving, if I had to guess, because no one really cares if you had something ghostwritten or not; they only care that it will sell or accomplish its purpose otherwise.

If Jump received a hit from a ghostwritten manga, I think they would honestly just take it and run with it. Now, I will note, and this is actually a pretty important cultural difference between the US and Japan, and often explains some storytelling choices that US audiences might not get, that the idea of personal honor and conduct is actually of considerable importance in Japan.

For example, there is a sequence in the heartbreaking film Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata in which the main character is persistently disparaged by his aunt for being a kid, slacking off, and not contributing meaningfully to the household. The kid—who is about 12—is personally insulted by her remarks and decides to live on his own to truly tragic ends.

There is an observed difference between how East and West audiences took this: in the West, most people question why a 12-year-old kid would leave a household entirely after simply being told off by their aunt for being a good-for-nothing. The idea in the West is that survival takes precedence over personal honor or reputation. You gotta eat, and you gotta live, man. Take the insults.

But the East was more understanding of the main character’s decision. They see the aunt as questioning the main character’s integrity, and that if they were in a situation where their honor was impugned, they would make the same decision.

So maybe I’m actually kind of wrong about this. In fact, it may be worth considering just how much my cultural upbringing in the West is influencing my perception of how much Jump would be willing to go along with it. Face saving is one of the biggest elements of Japanese culture, and having someone write your work for you may be seen as a great cultural demerit.

So….maybe this is a genuine moral conundrum.

But given how Hattori and Yujiro discussed it, I think they’re more okay with it if it increases the magazine’s circulation.

In either case, the editorial team will find out in the next chapter, and we’ll see the fallout, good or bad. It might end the arc, but since this is a story and this race is clearly entering its climax—especially now that Nanamine is going to be publishing his own story—I don’t think that will happen.

We’ll probably get some conditions for battle, then a chapter release, and then profit, or defeat, or victory, or whatever.

But I’m digressing hard. Let’s get to the emotional scene of this chapter and one of my favorite moments of this arc so far.

Azuma and Saiko

One fun thing about manga’s arc structure is that you usually get a secondary protagonist-or deuteragonist (look at me with these big words)—who goes through a more contained arc that begins and ends within the confines of the arc.

And Azuma is our deuteragonist for this arc. He’s at his lowest point – an all hope is lost moment – he has no faith in himself, or that he’s picked the right horse, and he’s at the end of his rope.

I really love Hattori. He’s my favorite editor by a country mile, and his scene with Azuma in this chapter, while kind of frustrating, reminded me why I like him. He’s just a good person, and he’s doing what he can for a guy in need.

This part is likely to segue into the climax, where he does something with Panty Flash Fight that will ultimately help restore his connection to Taro and his faith in himself.

But the meeting with Saiko was the one that made me feel more deeply.

I like that it’s a little awkward and sad, and neither of them know what to say. It makes the fact that Saiko is lobbying so hard for this guy, despite not really knowing him, feel more authentic.

But it is, again, Taro, that brings the moment into focus.

While I admire the narrative work they’re doing with Azuma, ultimately, Saiko and Azuma share trauma surrounding the death of Taro, and it has influenced them dramatically. Having them take a moment to reflect on the fact that they both had this deep connection with someone and now they’re gone was a powerful moment of recognition and satisfyingly low-key.

It also made the moment where Saiko defends a guilt-ridden Azuma much more satisfying.

this chapter was kind of light, in a lot of ways, because it’s a bridge from the midpoint of the arc to the climax, and I don’t have alot to say about it that hasn’t already been said.

But I do hope that Azuma finds the courage to confront Naanmine and say no to him. I hope Arai gets in there too since his work was even more promising and more active threat to Ashirogi. I think that’s an important tactic Nanamine could have used to his advantage.

But whatever it is, its hsaping up to be a doozy.

And I am, despite everything, looking forward to it,

Let’s see how it plays

Until next time,

Peace