Howdy Amigo, and welcome to my read-through of Chapter 157: Enemy Character and Replacement in which timing and villains are the most important things.
If you’re not caught up, please use this index here to do so. There are no spoilers past the current chapter.
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Enemy Character and Replacement Summary
Sweet Release
On Monday, June 19th, the deadline for the first chapter of Reversi Kaya, congratulates everyone on finishing it. The studio is a mess, and the assistants are ornery, sleep-deprived, and starving. Saiko looking like death warmed over – lets hattori know that they’re finished with the final draft, although a little late.
Hattori was a little worried, but he shouldn’t have worried about the deadline; Saiko doesn’t take credit for it, as he barely made the deadline.
Hattori outlines the particular brutality of this run of chapters since Reversi’s first chapter, plus the eight pages of color between both series. The hard part should be over now. Hattori has some news about the final draft.
Saiko lets the staff know that it’s not actually due until tomorrow, and Hattori is coming at noon to pick it up. The living dead assistants collectively gasp: they worked hard to get it done today!
(LOL)
Ogawa looks on the bright side: they finished early, so they can get some much-deserved rest. Kato agrees, although she reminds Ogawa that they still have to come tomorrow at 3 pm to start the next chapter. Orihara is starving.
Good ol’ Orihara.
Saiko expresses gratitude for Ogawa’s help. He could never have done it without him. Ogawa thinks he just got caught up in the atmosphere of everyone’s hard work.
Saiko also looks on the bright side: even though they were up against the wire, the final draft looks even better than the one-shot. Orihara and Kato think it’s good, and under Ogawa’s care, they’ll get even better.
Moriya, tsundere that he is, quietly muses and then rushes over to Ogawa, expressing his admiration for and hope to learn from him. Ogawa takes it in good humor.
Everyone leaves finally, and Shujin and Kaya are grateful for such a great assistant. As she asks Saiko, though, they see he has thoroughly passed out in his chair.
Rest, sweet prince.
Twins
The next day, Hattori comes over and congratulates them on a job well done for Reversi. He has copies of Jump’s next issue for them to review. Saiko forgot about the sample copies in all the hullabaloo.
Zombie Gun is premiering in this issue, and Shujin announces that the battle has truly started now. They read the magazine and make a stunning observation.
Gun – the main character of Zombie Gun’s brother, Jin, has arrived, and the boys go to the obvious assumption: this series has two main characters as well!
Hattori thinks “Two Main Characters” isn’t quite accurate, but he assumes Reversi’s one-shot affected him. Either way nizuma understands the prompt: in a battle manga, the enemy character is essential. Saiko thinks Schwarz vs. Weiss in Reversi (clever name) is a better combo.
Shujin is a little shakier, but Shujin notes that his series has also improved drastically since the one-shot was released. Saiko agrees. Saiko didn’t expect this of Nizuma.
At Eiji’s apartment, Yujiro congratulates Eiji on a great first chapter, and on establishing a family member as his enemy. The editorial team expects it to clean up in the surveys since the one-shot got so many votes.
Nizuma is cryptic: really? Yujiro doesn’t understand and is excited to see the results. Nizuma, however, is wholly focused on his manga
Opening Salvos
On Friday, Yujiro cheers loudly about Zombie-Gun’s first chapter surveys: 767 votes. Ridiculous, and another record. Aida watches as Yujiro makes a spectacle of himself and notes the future of Jump is bright if Reversi does well, too.
Heishi talks to Aida: he’s got nothing to worry about.
Shujin gives the news to Saiko about Zombie Gun. They take it quietly. However, they were expecting it and they shout their belief that Reversi will exceed it. They’re gonna win!
Orihara remains skeptical about doing something so insane. he wonders if they’re being sincere.
Yujiro brings Nizuma the magazine sample with Ashirogi’s new series. Nizuma reads attentively. Yujiro is surprised by the intensity with which Nizuma reads Ashirogi’s work. He’s never been this serious before.
The following Friday, they get the results from Hattori regarding Reversi’s first chapter: first place by a landslide. Kato infers that the surveys were good. Shujin lets them know they made first hanks to all their help.
They won 526 votes. Saiko’s disappointed and notes Zombie-gun got 767 votes. Shujin confirms that, but also lets Saiko know that it got 431 votes this week and, if Zombie Gun weren’t running, they’d have gotten similar numbers. Saiko sees the truth: Zombie Gun getting second with 431 means it’s the real deal.
Shujin agrees, everything is riding on that second chapter. The true battle begins with Zombie Gun now. Saiko’s confident though: they’ve carefully crafted two main characters using all their experience, while Eiji just threw in his enemy character at the last minute.
The Battle Continues
The Following Friday, they get the news that, again, Reversi placed first with its second chapter. Shujin congratulates the entire team on their work. Saiko is convinced that their enemy character is better than Eiji’s. Shujin is more cautious: It’s too early to celebrate. Kaya doesn’t understand, but Saiko clarifies: they got a bump with the center color pages while Zombie Gun was only a normal chapter. And they received 401 votes with that advantage over Zombie Gun’s 389.
It’s very close, and Shujin recognizes that the real battle is going to be next week when they don’t have color pages to compete with. Orihara and Moriya are surprised at their raw ambition of wanting to get first again after getting first two weeks in a row. Ogawa reminds everybody that even Zombie Gun only got second.
Shujin exclaims that they’re aiming to be the greatest signature work in Jump. Ogawa suggests they worked even harder to accomplish this goal. Saiko’s adjusting to the new pace, and they’re almost done for the week. His artwork is stabilizing now, and Orihara notes that Ashirogi has never been better.
Kaya’s excited for next week’s results.
Saiko thinks they’ll be fine. The conflict between Schwarz and Weiss is very well written and should be “perfect”. However, his expression of determination is not iron-clad.
Third time’s the charm?
The following Friday, Kaya’s happy to announce that they’ve sped up enough that she doesn’t need to help blacking the pages anymore. Shujin wants her to help for another week anyway. Shujin gets the call from Hattori.
FIRST PLACE THIRD WEEK IN A ROW LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO.
This time they got more than 40 votes compared to Zombie Gun’s second place. They’ve defeated Eiji three weeks in a row now. This is real, for sure.
While Kaya and Shujin celebrate, Saiko wonders if Eiji is not as good as he anticipated before quickly denying that. Something’s amiss. This is too easy.
Shujin wonders what’s wrong with Saiko, but Saiko plays it off, and Shujin vows to keep getting third place.
Meanwhile, Fukuda is about to have an aneurysm at how successful Ashirogi and Nizuma have been. Yasuoka reminds him that they got third place with Giri this week. The specialist assistant whose name escapes me mentions that they’re amazing, too. Fukuda ain’t having it though: the gap between second and third is too big.
Takahama is also having a conniption at the victors. Miura tries to placate him: he’s getting fifth place though the TV drama just finished, and were it not for Reversi and Zombie Gun, he’d have gotten third place.
Meanwhile, breaking the mold, Hiramaru is depressed at getting 7th place, and half of the manga in Jump have been animated, so there’s nothing to worry about.
He’s not. He’s upset to learn that God Given got Seventeenth place. Yoshida remembers that Aoki is in danger for the next serialization meeting, potentially.
Meanwhile with Miho
Kaya notes that, regardless of how amazing Ashirogi is, Miho is also doing great. Kaya explains that she got a call from Miho announcing she’ll be doing a radio show. Saiko already heard about it from Miho. It’ll be a show entirely on her own.
Kaya, being a little devious asks if Saiko also learned about her appearance on the front cover of Young Kick magazine.
Miho has become mega popular with her role as Ai and there’s a four-page interview with her. She’s become a true VA Idol. Saiko freaks out: he thought she wasn’t going to appear in the media so much.
She’s a successful actress, now, and while her management team respects her wishes and she hasn’t taken any tv interviews, she still takes jobs for magazines and radio.
Kaya and Shujin – like some creepy ass cult members – think that marriage bells are ringing for the two and are not far off. Their continued success guarantees it.
*checks the chapter count*….not wrong, but also definitely not right.
Saiko thinks it would be too good to be true if it kept going like this. Shujin pushes back: he was the one who had faith in reverse. That’s true but he’s wary.
A New Enemy
Next Tuesday, Hattori comes unexpectedly and gives them the latest issue of Jump with the new chapter of Zombie Gun. In the chapter, Gun’s brother Jin has been killed by the person who killed his family, and provides a new lesson: zombies can be killed.
The boys react in pure shock: Eiji killed the rival character off and introduced a new enemy character.
Hattori explains that even though chapters 2 and 3 did OK, he made the decision to get rid of his character; Nizuma knows the importance of a good enemy character in a battle manga. Shujin explains that the enemy needs to be equally or more attractive and stronger than the main character, or else it won’t work.
Hattori lays out the basic rule: if the readers don’t like the enemy character, you change the enemy character. It’s the basic rule of battle manga.
Shujin doesn’t get it, though, the enemy character is popular. Saiko has an epiphany.
Hattori agrees, but assumes it was because Reversi got first place, so he did it to get back to the rank of first. Saiko thinks he must have noticed by instinct, but Shujin doesn’t understand.
His enemy character was weaker compared to Reversi.
Hattori urges caution: they don’t know how this is going to affect his series’ popularity. Shujin agrees, although with a bit more reserve.
Saiko, however, thinks about the “weakness” of their primary antagonist.
Reversi’s Weakness
The following week, Kaya’s thrilled with the speed at which they’re finishing drafted and dominating their competition (so cute), she sings about her desire to hear the next week’s results.
Meanwhile, the boys are more somber, wondering how Nizuma’s radical change will affect the results. Saiko lets Kaya know that Hattori is on the way to pick up the final draft, and they’ll let her know the final result after that. Kaya puts up a stink, but Shujin offers to tell her when he gets home.
Hattori arrives, and Kaya thanks him for supporting her husband while leaving.
Hattori approves the final draft. A moment of silence then:
472 votes. Zombie received first place.
Saiko’s suspicions are confirmed: the enemy character changed and beat them. Shujin recognizes how amazing Eiji is and never thought their manga would ever get first. Eiji’s the best rival they could’ve hoped for. They have to go above him again.
Aww
Siako asks for Reversi’s votes: Road Race Giri received second place with 282 votes, and Reversi received third place with 251 votes.
Oof.
Shujin’s shocked; how did Giri beat them?
Saiko sees the writing on the wall: Eiji killed off his enemy to introduce a new one, and readers unconsciously noticed the problem: Reversi’s weakness. Shujin doesn’t understand, but Hattori picks it up immediately.
Reversi has two main characters, so they can’t replace the enemy character if things don’t work out.
Hattori doubles down: they are committed to having Schwarz vs. Weiss all the way through, so you have to make the battle between those two characters as interesting as possible.
On that note, the chapter concludes:
Enemy Character and Replacement Reaction
Victory’s Placement is always Important
So, this chapter was a lot of fun – and, mercifully, not as dense as last week’s chapter- but there’s still plenty to talk about – Schwarz and Weiss, how clever he said with irony.
But the adage I have shared before stood true in a big way this chapter: where the victory for a character is placed in the chapter determines whether they’re going to win that chapter or not. And the BYOs have officially won a little too early.
And that’s a good thing, as the series is now no longer burying the lede about anything.
As we know, in almost any good story, the story’s only as compelling as its lead antagonist. They have to have charisma and power, and they always get the upper hand on the protagonist until the very last moment.
It’s why underdogs are such compelling protagonists. When the odds are truly stacked against someone – and I mean in a way where victory really feels out of sight – it makes the fact that they’ve won that much more satisfying because the victory doesn’t feel like a guarantee.
It’s why the stuff with Miho – more on her in a bit – feels like a bit of a wet fart as motivation for Saiko to pursue manga. Even though a huge bar has been set up for Saiko to overcome, we still know that Saiko is ultimately going to marry his girl and get an anime. We are not on the on-ramp to that.
But beating Eiji/Nizuma (‘m going by both, fuck you fight me) is going to be a bigger ask because of how Eiji is set up: he’s always been a persistent threat to the boys. At no point in his storyline has he not had the upper hand, which means that this fight has gravity.
So to see Eiji on the back heel is actually very exciting. But because we should now all have the narrative intuition I’ve been talking about, we should know it’s a setup since narratively:
The Battle Has Only Just Begun
Due to the nature of serialization, aside from many other story elements – the biggest of which I’m saving for later in this read through – there will be a bit of narrative see-saw as any arc progresses. OH no! The heroes are losing. But wait! The heroes are winning. BUT WHAT THE FUCK, now the heroes are mega losing. NO NO NO. A new character has been introduced, and they’re winning again! OH SHIT, now a new villain has shown up. To Be Continued in next week’s issue.
And you kinda get familiar with that *M*E*T*A beat as you read the story. Things will go well for the protagonists initially, and then they’ll get slapped down; then the villain will win, get overconfident, and then they’ll get slapped down. And so on until the hero truly seems on their last leg. Then the final push, the climax, and victory.
And because this is, unequivocally, the final battle with Eiji, having the boys get the early victories only makes sense. Unlike the Crow arc, which in hindsight was meant to push the boys to get to his level, this is a battle of equals. That was signaled by their one-shot beating Eiji’s.
So now Eiji is taking them seriously. And that’s hella fun.
Because we’ve never really seen Eiji get serious before unless he truly wanted to win. And now we’re seeing him do just that. It’s very satisfying to see him carefully studying Reversi for potential weaknesses and adjusting his attack.
If I were one of those shonen nerds who gets all caught up in the intricacies of various stands, quirks, or grimoires, I’d say that Eiji’s intuition is going to be his greatest weapon in the battle we’re seeing. He’s going to be able to react to the boys’ salvos, ripostes, and feints more easily than they are because his deep intuition will always guide him to a correct solution
A true apex predator
BUT, the boys can get dense and can plan, so they can probably do some 4D chess to keep things just the tiniest bit even in the battle.
And we’re going to see this play out over the next two to three chapters at least. Because there is another issue that this chapter finally brings to light, and it’s one of the core issues of a manga in progress:
You Cna’t Just Have One Main Enemy
So one of the challenges – one of the biggest needles one has to thread as one tells a story is that you have to give just enough time to the battle between the main antagonist and the protagonist to make it satisfying, but once that battle is done, there is no more story.
SO you have to keep your final villain in the back pocket for the final battle, or otherwise nerf the villain in some way so that they can continue fighting with the main character long enough to keep things interesting.
I actually really loved how My Hero Academia approached this narrative conceit: they had Shigaraki go through a Villain Academia at the same time as Deku.
Shigaraki was cast as the final villain in the earliest chapters – the final villains are usually introduced in the beginning and saved for the end – but unlike most shonen stories, he doesn’t start out fully formed and so doesn’t have to throw sub-bosses at Deku until the end.
Instead, he also kinda sucks at being a villain and grows, gets power-ups, and uses the power of friendship to get stronger and more catastrophic over time.
That makes it so that he and Deku have a unique push-pull dynamic throughout the series where they are consistently fated to fight each other at the end. Still, even when Deku temporarily defeats Shigaraki, his loss only makes him stronger or complicates matters further.
But once that fight ends, the story comes to an end.
And that is what the boys are now going to have to struggle with.
This isn’t just an enemy thing, either
I think the interesting thing with manga, at least, unlike something like a TV show where you can only make changes after a season has concluded, is that you can pull something like this mid-stream if the story isn’t working.
My favorite example of this kind of week-to-week retconning or refocusing comes from Doctor Stone. One of the first series I read in Jump.
Dr. Stone initially treats the loveable but insufferably stupid Taiju as the main character. If you read the first 16 or so chapters- it’s been a while, don’t quote me on this – the series treats Taiju as its main character, and we follow his growth and relationship with Suzuriha, and, more importantly, Senku.
But Senku is an infinitely more interesting character whose actions have a much more direct bearing on the larger plot of the story. So Boichi and Inagaki make a very definitive choice to shift protagonist duties from Taiju to Senku, and voila, the series works now.
It’s probably why Bakuman initially had Eiji read as a much more scummy character and then retconed him into a goofy, loveable weirdo who loves manga. His initial incarnation doesn’t play with the tone of the story they are going for. He’s too intense, too seemingly angry, and aggressive. So, they toned down the darker aspects of his character to fit more nicely into a story about creating manga.
And this happens constantly. Due to the rankings in manga, you get instant feedback on what works and what doesn’t. This was even brought up during Detective Traps cancellation when they changed Genre to keep themselves afloat.
But the boys can’t quite do that because their main characters – which still crack me up – Schwarz (which means black in German) and Weiss (which means White) are the main characters, so they always have to be the center of the action.
Which is probably the most autobiographical element of Reversi so far because
This Exact Issue Occurs in Death Note
The fact that L and Light are the main characters has the huge advantage of keeping the story grounded and personal. Still, it has the unintended consequence of making it really fucking hard to do much else in the story once they get into conflict with each other.
The number of times they play 4D chess with each other only outdo each other with EVEN MORE 4D chess makes the process of their outsmarting each other pretty fun, but also repetitive and at times nonsensical. Not to mention, you can only focus on one conflict for so long before it loses its savor. And after the 15th, “Oh, you thought you had me, but in fact, I have duped you!” happens in the story, it gets old.
And I don’t think Death Note ever really successfully overcomes that hurdle in the story. A fact which became clear once the original conflict gets resolved after about 50 chapters and then they extend the conflict by introducing….more L type villains. But L was already so good that it feels redundant.
And that is also anathema to weekly publication, which is predicated entirely on churning out long-running popular series. At least for 2 years, but sometimes as long as 10 or 15 years. The magazine wants hit manga, and if they have a hit, they’re not going just to let it go
So this plot development feels specifically like addressing Ohba and Obata’s problems making Death Note, and how they encountered the problem of redundancy in their plotline over time.
But, there are plenty of ways for this to be addressed:
Some Fixes
So I have my own thoughts on how the series plans to address this in the next couple of chapters, because there are, in fact, things they could do outside of using the two main characters all the time.
First off, we already know the premise is centered around mind control and proxy wars. They can easily shift the focus to some of the proxy fighters and make the story run for a few chapters between villains. They could also have Schwarz and Weiss answer to a larger organization of demons that would put them in greater conflict. There could be an enemy that both Schwarz and Weiss have to face off against, which brings them temporarily together. Or they could have even more conflicts relating to new powers growing or different limitations. They could make the female love interest get a demon…you know, like Misa.
Or maybe not.
Or, as Bakuman has done, they’ll just introduce new demons with different powers, which is going to be one of the easiest fixes.
Eiji has always been the final “Villain” of the story, and this fight has always been planned as the final fight. While I’m not sure it has enough juice to go for the remaining run of chapters that are left (still around 20), I think this final conflict is going to take some healthy portion of the back half of the series, since it’s been built up to.
But Bakuman knew this going in, and with its premise, it sidestepped the problem by adding more characters who are main characters.
Team Fukuda
The value add of Team Fukuda is a few-fold: first, it keeps a dynamic series of main characters whom we can follow as the main story progresses. The main characters’ internal and external conflicts get progressively resolved.
But they also act as spoilers and smaller obstacles on the way to winning. As Fukuda demonstrated in this chapter, Team Fukuda is not idly watching Eiji and Ashirogi’s showdown passively. They are competing actively against the leader of the pack to win.
And that’s honestly one of he things that has kept Bakuman afloat narratively. Even though we rarely get more than a glimpse of any of Team Fukuda, they are always in the background, working for and with, or against our main characters, as Ashirogi gets strong enough to take on their true rival *uwu*.
But they’re still ot technically allies. They are only allies of convenience who are there to also provide obstacles to the main characters
And I think this battle might be prolonged by the fact that we have this dynamic at play. Which plays into how manga runs – weekly – and can keep storylines fresh, especially when the other characters get some spotlight.
But how this will translate to Reversi remains to be seen. This series is meant as a response to Death Note without question, so I’m guessing this next chapter is going to have Ashirogi on their back heel as they try to right course with their enemy and retcon it in such a way that it’s still narratively compelling.
As for Team Fukuda and the others
The Resolution of the Assistants
So I guess we’re not getting more assistants, and Moriya’s conflict with Ogawa got solved—Womp womp.
I am glad Ohba gave Saiko and the team a break, but holy shit, that must have been mortifying to realize.
Other than that, though, there wasn’t much happening with the other characters except getting frustrated by Ashirogi and Eiji’s success. I think Fukuda will prove to be the most interesting as he’s now cutting into the boy’s lead.
But Takahama ain’t just gonna give up. However, Aoki might again be out of the running – I wonder if that is another trailhead that we’ll explore in the next chapter, since I think this is her second potential cancellation. If so, I wonder if Aoki is going to be able to continue being a mangaka in Jump. That might take up some real estate. And I imagine Hiramaru might also get involved if that’s the case.
But the only other major things of note in this chapter were the Miho stuff. And that was…very Japanese.
I think if you’re from the West, it’s harder to understand why a famous voice actress/idol would be concerned enough about propriety and privacy not to engage with the media circus that surrounds her. But just like Oda doesn’t reveal his face frequently, Japanese artists tend to prefer anonymity so they don’t get harassed by their fans. Which…you know, makes a ton of sense.
But she’s moving up in the world, and if I didn’t know that Saiko was going to secure that bag eventually, I’d almost be worried.
Regardless, the clear and present danger right now is Eiji and his ability to intuit, as well as Reversi’s weakness. How will it be addressed?
I guess we’ll find out next time.
Until then,
Peace
