Who knows how long I’ve loved you, you know I love you still, will I wait a lonely lifetime? if you want me to, I will and welcome to my read-through of Bakuman Chapter 148: One-Shot and Stand Alone in which we have a metafictional powerup so grand I retroactively give this entire arc an A++

Sorry for the late post. I had a long day trying to make my dreams come true *SIGH* and also work. That too.

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One-Shot and Stand Alone

Sasaki’s Conditions

Picking up directly from the last chapter, Sasaki gives Nanamine a final condition for his submission before the competition begins: though it should be obvious, his storyboards are to be run and approved by Kosugi. They will not be published otherwise. Capisce?

Nanamine understands. He was just about to call himself.

That’s a clever line and a plot hole since Kosugi was on the line in the last chapter. Woopsie doodle.

Kosugi asks to meet with Nanamine the next day to go over the storyboards. Nanamine agrees and believes that even Kosugi will understand what makes something good.

The next day, the boys are surprised at how brutal the testing will be. Hattori chalks it up to Sasaki’s disgust with Nanamine’s behavior. He will say, though, that he proved the vets have potential, even if they’re old and they’re going to keep working with their editors. Hattori has a personal stake in proving the ability of the older crowd with Panty Flash Fight on his roster. If he can succeed, maybe some good will come from this. He’d be upset if it just ended with Nanamine using them.

Shujin’s surprised the editorial team even agreed to do this considering how awful Nanamine has been. The boys learn they were the cause of that.

Woops.

Hattori explains that Sasaki heard about Ashirogi, Takahama, Fukuda, and Aoki’s desire to beat the stuffing out of Nanamine respectfully and wanted to give them that opportunity. The rest of the team has probably heard by now.

Speaking of, Fukuda’s pumped to receive the news and is ready to defeat the ever-loving fuck out of Nanamine. His assistant points out that ranking above him won’t be enough. Fukuda lashes out at his lackey: That’s what the rest of Team Fukuda is for. Everyone combined is going to tear him a new one.

Fukuda wants the deets on when the One-shot is going to be released. Yujiro doesn’t know yet, but it’s likely in the new year. Fukuda’s grumpy about that but Yujiro reminds him that Shinjitsu can shit out great storyboards so it won’t take too much time.

Stand-Alone Chapter?

Back with the boys, they start strategizing. Even though Shujin thought the conditions were tough, knowing Nanamine, it might be just the right level of difficulty. Three out of his four submissions for early chapters have done that well. Hattori agrees: for opening chapters, his system is basically unbeatable.

Shujin remembers how the One-Shot and Panty Flash Fight ended up in first, and that they can expect something of equal or greater quality to come in for this round. Probably over 45 pages with color, too. It won’t be easy to beat. Not to mention that Nanamine himself is talented enough with the early chapters for What You Need, and Classroom of Truth under his belt.

Shujin wants to use an old classic to beat him: using the climax of an arc in PCP to run in the same issue as his one-shot. Hattori agrees that would be the standard way of doing things.

Saiko stares into the distance, then asks about when the release schedule will be set: it hasn’t been set in stone, right?

Hattori confirms it: nothing’s set in stone—not even accepting the one-shot—but it’s best to assume that he’ll make it through. If the editors hold off, it might run as late as February.

Saiko looks at the calendar in silence. He asks about their upcoming New Year’s break: They will have two weeks off, right? Yup. He offers a suggestion.

Instead of doing a climax, why don’t they do a stand-alone chapter?

Dun dun DUN.

Wait what?

Shujin chalks up the decision to rank pride: it would be a little too neat and fair to beat Nanamine with one-to-one chapters. Saiko clarifies: they should use the break to their advantage. Saiko lays out their circumstances: Nanamine will have about two months to get ready, unless you count the break as well. Saiko thinks that would be the perfect time to develop the best stand-alone story ever. And he could take the whole next month to draw it better than ever. They just have to make certain the arch plot is in a good place when they drop the chapter.

Saiko is confident they can take him down with this tactic.

Shujin had doubts, but no longer! He wants to start now. Let’s create a single chapter that anyone can enjoy.

Shujin asks for Validation from Hattori. It’s a good idea innit?

Hattori’s response is confusing: yep. They’re really something, being able to come up with a trump card used by experienced artists all on their own. It’s impressive.

Shujin deflates at that. Huh? He’s not original?

Hattori clarifies that it’s not exactly what Saiko is saying, but some artists save their best work to release alongside a new series debut. This was commonplace in the 90s; it was also used against one-shots, especially those in the same genre. It works best with episodic works, which suits Gag manga particularly well.

Saiko flashes back to his uncle, who mentions that he’s working on a special story he has up his sleeve. Shujin is pumped to go all steam ahead on this awesome new chapter.

Beauty and the Billions

At Shinjitsu, Kosugi’s tour of the facilities concludes, and Nanamine asks for his opinion: “Pretty sick, huh?”

Kosugi is surprised at the lengths Nanamine goes to to make manga. Nanamine requests that Kosugi stay out of his way.

Uh huh

Kosugi is aligned with this non-interference policy. He will give advice and help get the series going, and nothing more. Nanamine, proving that the sequel is worse than the original, lets Kosugi know that, due to the company structure, he will be opinion number 221. Kosugi, admirably, doesn’t fall for the bait: if that’s what you say, Nanamine.

Nanamine admits that he doesn’t have the storyboards yet, so Kosugi should scoot along. He’ll have something soon. Kosugi departs, and Nanamine requests Hibiki’s presence.

Hibiki brings with him a storyboard with a rating of 9.3 from the monitors. Even Nanamine is shocked by its success. It’s called “Beauty and the Billions” and features a story about “Commoners” staking their lives for an enormous cash prize and a beautiful woman. The ghostwriters took this simple idea and simplified it even more, which made it even better as a storyboard.

Nanamine is pleased as pie that his idea resonated with them since that’s precisely what they’re doing themselves. How charming. Everything according to his keikaku (that means strategy).

Nanamine gives his approval without further effort to change it. He asks to have it revised to make it suitable as a one-shot.

Nanamine grins with glee at his inevitable victory.

Advice and Approval

Hattori and Sasaki depart Shueisha at the same time, and Sasaki asks how Ashirogi is doing.

Hattori mentions Saiko’s idea to create a strong stand-alone chapter. Sasaki declares that Saiko really is Taro Kawaguchi’s nephew and then cryptically mentions: a stand-alone that doesn’t stand alone.

When asked for clarification, Sasaki mentions that it would always do the trick whenever Taro was in a bind with Super Hero Legends. Sasaki backtracks: He shouldn’t be giving out too many pointers to Hattori.

Hattori is more confused than anything else and is shocked to see Nanamine already brought a storyboard for review by Kosugi. Kosugi reads the premise: the president of a massive IT company has a single beautiful daughter and heiress. Using all available resources, he announces a tournament to search for a suitable husband for her. The winner receives the daughter and billions of yen.

The only requirement for participation is that one be a male between 18 to 25

Gee, that sounds like the Jump demo. Nifty.

Fifty thousand applicants are chosen at random. After an initial exam, they’re gathered at a baseball field to compete against one another for a few days to determine the victor. Everyone in this challenge is greedy for money and glory. However, the real test is to find a pure-hearted boy for the heiress to overcome humanity’s greeted.

Kosugi thinks it’s so good it doesn’t need any notes. Nanamine’s smug, as he always is.

Kosugi brings it to Aida for approval. Aida’s shocked at the speed, and Miura chimes in. But Kosugi vehemently requests that Miura stay away due to potential competition with some of Miura’s Mangaka. Miura backs off while Aida reads the storyboards.

At the studio, the boys receive word that Nanamine’s one-shot will be in Issue 10 on February 6th. Shujin is surprised by the quick turnaround, but Hattori explains that Nanamine wanted it even sooner.

Fukuda takes the news…as he always does, and makes an untranslatable pun out of crushing Shinjitsu corporation. Takahama – chugging energy drinks – vows to beat Nanamine and his misguided passion for manga.

Shujin thinks they’ll be fine with the month of time to write their chapter. Hattori asks to speak to Saiko. He asks Saiko whether he knows what “A Stand-Alone that Doesn’t Stand Alone” means. Evidently, it was a tactic that Taro used when he needed a leg up.

A Stand-Alone that Doesn’t Stand Alone

Saiko has no idea what that means and asks Shujin about it. It sounds familiar, though. Saiko thinks about it and remembers that panel that’s being reused. And then he remembers in a flash.

EPIPHANY.

Saiko rushes to the studio’s manga collection and furiously searches for Jump Magazines from the 90s. He has to find issues with the first chapters and one-shots STAT while Super Hero Legend was ongoing. Those are the times when his uncle deployed this special secret.

Shujin joins in the search and the boys comb through tons of old manga.

They read the Tat-Chan and Yat-Chan arc, which is “pretty long,” but Saiko observes that even that has standalone chapters when a new series was introduced.

Shujin finds episodes about Super Hero and Ultra Hero having a battle, and Hero Hermit tells them that their brothers shouldn’t fight. Which is how they find out they’re related.

Wait a minute…

And then there is a chapter about Tat-chan’s past that made him believe power is everything.

They’re not only stand-alone chapters; they’re all big turning points for the series. And they’re really well done. They’re good enough by themselves, but they make you want to catch up from the beginning so you can see what happens next.

MORE EPIPHANIES.

Saiko remembers that when this chapter was released, his uncle re-read the entire series, from the first volume to the latest chapters running in jump. Saiko’s confident he went right back to the start.

OH SHIT.

That’s when Shujin has an epiphany: Taro was looking for unimportant plot points seeded early on that he could use for future plot twists. They were so well tied together that it didn’t occur to him that Taro was even doing this that way. He transformed unimportant events into new material.

The Stand-alones work because of everything that comes before it, but also in anticipation of what’s coming up.. Most of the time, stand-alones are short gags or heartwarming tales. But these stand-alones bear the weight of the entire series on their backs.

A Stand-Alone that Doesn’t Stand Alone.

The boys are fucking pumped (as am I) as they decide to use Taro’s skill tot heir benefit and right a stand-alone that doesn’t stand alone and make it the greatest ever. Shujin vows to read PCP from the very start and ensure the readers return for more.

On that super meta note, the chapter concludes.

One-Shot and Stand Alone

HOLY METAFICTION BATMAN

Okay yea, I retract everything I said about my frustrations with this arc from soup to nuts. This shit fucking slaps harder than an abusive parent.

…ahem.

I. am. Thrilled that I got so played by this whole fucking arc. And I didn’t even realize it.

This is the stand-alone arc that’s not a stand-alone arc, and they saved the reveal of that until just before the climax. Fucking chef’s kiss.

So like, I know this is probably an epiphany everyone who is reading this arc had once this part was revealed, but even though I love reading stories and speculating on them, I’m usually not great at predicting what will happen next, outside of certain things embedded in the promise of the initial story.

But I feel dumb for being the metafiction guy who has been commenting on basically every chapter, “Oh cool, look at this callback,” and “Oh cool, Hibiki was mentioned like once,” and not piecing together that the Taro Kawaguchi of it all was to HIGHLIGHT THAT FACT.

Had this been handled with much less care and had there been fewer emotionally charged beats, this style of storytelling could easily have come off as cheap and manipulative, which, when handled poorly, it kind of is.

The narrative even obliquely acknowledges that’s the case in the way it frames how these chapters are used: they are a way to drive engagement with the fanbase to get more votes and beat the competition. Is it underhanded? Only to the extent that it is a tactical way to keep oneself afloat in an extremely competitive magazine.

But if the net result is more engaging storytelling and a richer, fuller narrative overall, I’m all about it. We can get into the finery of it—whether it ends up leaning into some tropes too heavily or if it’s kind of underhanded to do—but generally speaking, this is something I fuck with for a few reasons.

But the big thing about this storytelling technique is that it is not exclusive to manga:

Pantsers and Plotters: A False Dichotomy

In my long years of consuming media online and participating in fan communities, I have never ceased to be amazed by the fact that people’s inability to accept shades of grey has only strengthened.

To wit, there is a debate in writing circles about the value of “Pantsing”—writing by the seat of your pants and just seeing where the story goes—or “Plotting,” which involves meticulously outlining a story from top to bottom to ensure it is tight and satisfying.

And, to some degree, this is just heightened by the inherently emotionally charged nature of the internet to retain engagement. But people do get entrenched in their worldviews when they encounter resistance to the notion that their way might not be the only way to do something. Not that I’d know anything about that since all my rationalizations are perfectly considered and totally without fault.

*clears throat, IRONICALLY*

Anyway, because the internet likes to reduce ideas like heat likes to reduce sauces, there is no shortage of opinions on whether writing by the seat of your pants is better or writing the whole story out beforehand. There are good arguments for either side, and there is also the copout of “Whatever works for you is the best writing system” (which I actually believe).

But as this chapter demonstrated, it’s a false dichotomy because you have to be able to rely on both.

Now, in manga, it is unique to be an improviser while also planning things out, but I think a lot of people grossly overestimate how much of the story is preplanned by writers and how much is made up on the fly. As we discussed over a hundred chapters or so ago, one of the elements of becoming a good storyteller is honing your instinct for good storytelling.

Like Bird said: learn all the notes on your instrument, practice all the scales. Then jump onstage forget all of it and just play.

Maybe not quite that way.

And knowing when to riff on a beat is a skill, not an inherent thing. As you tell stories more and more, specific beats will reveal themselves to you in the writing process.

If you are a rigid plotter, you will reject those plot beats and risk your story feeling a little alien or stale; if you’re a pantser you might risk getting too in the weeds of any particular tangent and get totally off base about what you were supposed to be writing about. say a read-through about a manga.

…..

But if you have *some* plot points mapped out that need to happen, but you don’t necessarily mark every stone on the trail to get there, you can allow for organic feeling character beats and also get to use the stand-alone trick to great effect.

And that’s where mangaka really shine. They usually set out to tell a story with some larger plot beats in mind, and then as the story progresses—and their popularity waxes and wanes—they can make narrative decisions to get to that endpoint in more or less real time. Or they’ll get shitcanned.

And because I am on the internet, and every jacakass on the internet comes up with their little slang, I’m going to call this method the fill-in-the-blanks style of storytelling. Or maybe madlibs storytelling.

And the greatest writer of it is….

Oda of One piece

Oda is a prodigy of manga, and that’s more or less well-established. And if you are part of the one piece cult fandom, you will see people praising, in particular, his incredible use of foreshadowing and his ability to establish, from the tiniest details, a rich layered backstory that pays huge dividends in later arcs. From Senor Pink to Nika to Ace’s backstory. You could argue that Oda is the greatest outliner that ever was.

Except that’s….not entirely true.

When he initially envisioned One Piece, Luffy was to go up against the four emperors of the sea before finding the One Piece. But then he decided the Seven Warlords needed to be there. And Oda just fucking ran with it.

Same with Sabaody: his editor told him to come up with some new characters and he came up with the 11 Supernovas – the Worst Generation – and fucking ran with it. One of those supernovas being Jewelry Bonney, whose incredibly backstory we only just got and shook the fandom to its goddamned core.

This is not to diminish Oda’s abilities as a storyteller. It is incredible to create new, compelling characters with rich backstories on the fly—like the Supernovas at Sabaody. The ability to weave the narrative so well around these increasing casts of characters and stories compellingly is a rare skill.

But Oda did not, in fact, have all of One Piece planned out from the start. He had enough to give the story direction, and then, like any good jazz musician, he fucking improvised.

That’s why I think fill-in-the-blank is the method of storytelling that most people actually rely on. While some people improvise more, and some people plan more, ultimately, knowing when to riff on a vamp is just as valuable as tightly controlling the story.

I also want to point this out because it emphasizes that the craft of storytelling is not just crafting a good story, but when to plunge into your source material to reap dividends. Because the dividends are potentially limitless. Although if you do it too much, you do run the risk of writing yourself into corners. Vince Gilligan famously didn’t have a plan for Chekov’s gun for the finale of Breaking Bad until he wrote the last episode, and it ended up being a giant headache figuring out how to justify Walt having this massive machine gun.

I’m sure someone could argue that’s what outlining is. But fuck you, neener neener. I know that.

So, anyway, we’ve spent a thousand words reviewing the stand-alone trope. Let’s get to the chapter, shall we?

Beauty and the Billions

So, aside from the fact that this entire chapter was basically just an excuse to pull the trigger on this narrative trope—to beautiful effect, I will add—a lot of other stuff happened in it.

I won’t comment too much on the boys other than my joy at the fact that they’ve continued to develop in ways that exceed their mentor – the true sign we’re in the endstages of the story – and they know what they need to do even if they didn’t realize it had already been done. It’s a classic trope, I love it.

But I do want to talk about Nanamine’s story briefly because holy shit how in character for him to write something that sounds like it would be good but has some deep underlying philosophical problems.

It’s a good bit of story as character on Ohba’s part to have a literal billionaire (probably in yen terms if I had to guess) pull something off like this with a story about an heiress being courted in a battle royale. It’s kind of scummy, but it also reflects much of what Nanamine believes about himself and about humanity, so it does work.

The fact that the monitors gave it a 9.3 should be threatening, but given how we know the boys arent going to lose lose – especially not to Nanamine who is now officially on thin ice narratively speaking – but also, just like with everything regarding Nanamine his carelessness is an obvious cue as to his ultimate failure.

And like, this may just be me having read too much, but it is clear to everyone that the fact he’s not reviewing his own work is ultimately a kind of hubris. We’ll talk about Kosugi in a second, but I think the narrative is being a bit too obvious here.

Do I think the boys will beat him specifically? The narrative is suggesting it will have to be a group effort wtih all of Team Fukuda, but if I had to guess, probably. Especially since they’re getting a new powerup that has retroactively made this arc infinitely more entertaining and good.

As for Kosugi.

Kosugi and Reinforcing His Loss

Yeah, we got the pride goeth before a fall narrative, but Kosugi, in particular, is really highlighting how absolutely fucked Nanamine is. Because he’s doing exactly what he did before, even if his style is slightly different, his method hasn’t changed one iota. And now it’s going to fucking break everything.

That is most clear in his treatment of Kosugi, who, I’m happy to report, while being earnest, seems to have emotionally checked out from this relationship, which is the healthiest thing one can do, honestly. especially now that he’s fallen down the ladder of opinions.

I also feel horribly for Kosugi having to go through all of this and still acting like the better man. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s just a newbie, and seeing how Nanamine used him and ruined his reputation and then had the gall to still be an asshole to him, I’ve rarely felt such contempt like this. It’s not hatred, just pure contempt for such a shit heel.

But it does seem that, mercifully, despite my frustrations with Kosugi’s shonen good boi routine, he seems genuinely done with nanamine, which signals that this is either a.) the last we’ll see of him or b.) if we do see him, it will be him trying to genuinely compete. Given Sasaki’s conditions, I don’t see how the second one could happen.

All I’m saying is, I’m glad the series acknowledges that Nanamine is irredeemable and is not willing to cut him slack for it anymore. It’s really, really nice.

As for everything else;

Sasaki’s Pointer and Research

I loved Sasaki stopping being a leader again to give more hints about how to win. It’s just a lovely trope, and seeing him actively root for the boys makes me happy. Again, it makes me feel like he has more contempt for Nanamine than the standard amount, so I like that, too.

As for team Fukuda, eh? They’re just here for the beatdown, which I appreciate, but I have little to speak on.

I do want to say, however, that I love the final scene chapter, and it’s one that fiction writers should take to heart. You don’t have to be a genius to find material to make your story great. In fact, sometimes reading your own work will inspire you.

It’s so humanizing. Especially when we deal with good stories, we can often feel like there is this impenetrable curtain between a good writer and us, and it makes it hard to believe that we can do something of such quality. But this is proof positive that it just takes a little extra leg work.

Seeing the boys use their own material felt great. That’s also part of the joy of a mystery box: setting clues for yourself to find later and expand on. That’s all it is.
Telling yourself your own story and profiting off it.

I was pretty grumpy about the Eiji final battle and have been a little turned off since this arc started, but my faith has been restored. I am confident they can stick the landing with these next few chapters.

I’m excited to see who does it.

Until next time,

Peace