Hi there and welcome to my read-through of Chapter 169: Voice and Response in which it all comes together in such a way that I finally let go of my biggest gripe.

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Voice and Response Summary

A Shift

Picking up mid-radio broadcast, Miho explains her intention to marry Saiko once their dream is accomplished. Everyone is shocked, although Shujin thinks it’s in character for Miho.

Around the country, people start tuning into the radio broadcast. Everyone is in disbelief about what she’s revealing. The gossip spreads like wildfire as people rush to listen.

At Tozai Sports, the journalist who pursued the case is baffled at her total openness about her dream. The editor-in-chief thinks it’s some good shit.

Ishizawa watches in horror as the anonymous message boards start turning around in her favor. He’s seeing his plan go up in smoke in real time, and recognizes it’s futile to go further with it.

The president tries to talk her down: say it was a lie! a joke… but one of the engineers is noticing the reaction on the internet starts to change.

More people think the sincerity is touching, and some people are still shitty, but the tide is turning. People are moved by what she is saying. The President will not be deterred: she mustn’t talk about boyfriends and marriage. She must claim she lied.

Miho takes a beat to digest that and goes in the opposite direction.

Good girl, Azuki.

She admits she should not have revealed this information, but she doesn’t want to lie to her fans. She heard about the rumor being spread and opted for the truth. She wants to cherish her dream and keep striving toward it.

One of the engineers wants to go to the commercial. Another, however, has taken a call. Engineer in plaid reminds him he doesn’t have to take calls. The guy on the phone explains that there’s a girl in tears expressing support for Azu-kyun.

“I’ll Support Azu-Kyun”

The other engineer is surprised to hear it. He asks Miho if she would be able to take calls from listeners after the break—people who support her and her dream. The President – and her other handler – think that’s way too risky during a live broadcast. The engineer knows that, but will screen the calls.

Miho, however, doesn’t want the calls screened, and she offers to take them all.

The Engineer is surprised and notes they can’t let her answer every single call, but they’ll see how far they can go with this. The President still thinks there’s time to save her reputation by lying through their teeth and misinforming the audience. He’s also worried because, knowing Miho, she’ll answer any question proposed.

Oy.

The engineer promises to end any phone call that isn’t “Decent”.

Fifteen seconds remain in commercials.

Miho demands to receive every phone call that comes her way. She wants to face everything the fans have to say. She doesn’t want to run away from them.

(fuck yeah). Five seconds and a promise to transfer all the calls

Calls Come In

Miho announces to the listeners that she’s getting calls from them. She wants to field as many as she can. The first one claims to support her so he’s put on.

She answers the call politely, asking the gentleman’s name and age. He wishes to remain anonymous. 22 and a corporate employee. He claims he was deeply touched by her words.

SIKE.

He calls her an idiot and hangs up.

Shujin worries for Miho’s well-being if they anticipate a mountain of hate calls.

The President thinks it’s time to kill this, but Miho, after taking a second to recover, apologizes for hurting this man’s feelings. She asks the callers to keep reaching out and expressing their real feelings. The President demands that this stop immediately. The engineer, however, notices that Miho is shaking.

Even so, she’s still willing to go through all of this. Where does this strength come from?

The other engineer in white lets the plaid engineer know that a girl – one who is genuine – is calling, and they put her through.

The girl’s name is Sara, age 18. A student. Miho thanks her for listening.

Sara asks if everything Miho said is true. Yes. And what Fukuda said about the support over text messages and never seeing each other. She can’t believe that’s the case.

Mihoko takes the opportunity to mention the hospitalization, their meeting at a friend’s wedding, and some times when they almost met when she was in trouble. But they’ve only called each other less than ten times. The girl asks if she’s only seen him those three times.

Yes.

Miho mentions she told her friend about their relationship, and even she thinks it’s weird. Kaya realizes she’s being talked about on the radio, and Shujin doesn’t understand why she’s so pleased.

Sara can’t believe anyone would be in a relationship like that. Miho remains steadfast. It’s true.

Sara then drops a totally appropriate question for a voice actress on national radio: Are you a virgin?

Hooooo boy.

The president’s spirit temporarily leaves his body before Miho answers: Yes. An engineer’s commentary – no hesitation – there is pure gold as a response.

Kaya’s horrified and thinks that’s sexual harassment. Shujin believes it’s an inappropriate question, but it might be important to the fans. Regardless, he never expected a girl to ask that.

OH god. Oh fuck. Oh no. Guess what we’re going to talk about?

Sara then asks if she and Saiko have kissed.

Nope.

She’s 24 and never kissed!

No. But she has promised to do so the next time they meet, when their dreams come true. Sara thinks that’s wonderful, but… since Miho has a lot of male fans, she’s going to lose them after she announced this to them.

The president is having a conniption while this all goes down, and her other handler thinks it would have been a great call minus that last part. The producer – not the engineer – is told they have one last caller. It’s an important caller.

The producer wants to know if it’s real or a prank. The engineer doesn’t know, but he’s sure that if Miho hears it, she’ll confirm. The producer demands that he transfer the call.

A Declaration

Miho announces that this last caller will be the last one, and she apologizes for not getting to everyone. She asks the caller’s name and age.

Moritaka Mashiro, Age 24. A manga artist.

OH damn.

Fukuda and co. Choke on their ramen; Shujin and Kaya panic; and even the editors flip out at this.

The producer requests that if it’s really her boyfriend, she confirms it.

Miho, now genuinely panicking, mentions that she has received a call from her boyfriend.

Saiko couldn’t sit still after listening to the program. Saiko explains to the audience he thought it wouldn’t be manly to make excuses for their behavior, but since Miho is giving it her all, he wants to say some of his feelings too. First: it’s all true. Miho will never lie to her fans.

Ishizawa watches in horror as the anonymous boards go crazy for this new development, and his plan gets extra crispy.

Saiko continues: Miho is a voice actress, and he wants them to believe her voice. He wants the audience to think about whether her work as a voice actress has ever been disappointing. Miho will win the Reversi role based on her skills.

Mina rushes down to see if her mother is listening to the radio broadcast. Miyuki is.

Saiko is done saying what he needs to say.

Miho takes a moment and promises that she will get the role in the audition.

The program concludes, and Miyuki thinks the two of them are a truly wonderful couple. The producers have no idea how this is going to go. They never thought her boyfriend would actually call. The engineer thinks it’s going to be big news no matter what; where that’s a good or bad thing is an open question. The man in the black shirt thinks it was a good thing.

The President thinks that it was a disaster. He weeps at the loss of Miho Azuki’s young career.

Shujin and Kaya join Saiko on the balcony. Kaya worries about the future, but Shujin’s more confident.

Oh, How the Turn Tables

The next day, Saiko’s assistants all rush in with the latest edition of Tozai Sports, asking if he’s read it. Of course, he hasn’t; he doesn’t read tabloids.

They have totally changed their tune on Miho: they were bashing them relentlessly, but have switched to Miho’s side, immediately talking about her miraculous pure love.

Moriya thinks it’s because Saiko and Miho sounded so cool. He was touched by the sincerity. Kato lets everyone know that Ririka called in tears, asking to thank them and apologize for her behavior. Shujin mentions that there are still people who think this whole thing was a setup, but he thinks Saiko made the right call.

Meanwhile, at Prince 8, the President takes the news as one would expect: thrilled and utterly confident in his decision to let the truth win the day. Miho, respectfully, says not a thing.

On that relieving note, the chapter concludes

Voice and Response Reaction

Aight, I’ll say it

This was a nice conclusion to this really stressful arc. I liked it. I like their stupid relationship, and I like their stupid dream. Okay? Okay? I contain multitudes; I’m allowed to rail against stupidity and secretly indulge in it at the same time.

This might also be the shortest summary of this entire read-through because these last few chapters, while emotionally quite intense, have not been super dense on the plot elements that make them up.

Not that I’m complaining, although it always feels weird when I’m not pushing 2K for a summary.

But yeah, this was a really lovely wrap up to a particularly heinous arc. And it serves as a pretty lovely climax to the series.

I mean, the first climax. We still have the conclusion of the Eiji V. Ashirogi matchup, which I assume is going to take up a healthy part of the final seven chapters.

God, only seven left. It feels like it’s been six years since I started this read-through.

Because it has been, have I said that enough yet?

Anyway, let’s get into what worked.

The Small Details

Yeah. So the thing that I always admire about Bakuman is its attention to detail, and the depiction of the radio program was so delightful.

This is definitely just, like, a me thing, but there is this weird bias I have where I assume people don’t know all the minutiae that go into making a piece of entertainment. I have this weird assumption that people assume it’s as simple as having equipment, sitting down, and making the damn thing.

And you can do that, but it’ll often be sucky if you do only that.

And as I’ve worked on my own projects, I can tell you—aside from this blog, which is not pre-planned in any meaningful way —getting any piece of entertainment ready for consumption often involves several moving parts. But especially in film, TV and radio. My film is a testament to that.

And seeing the small details like having the calls screened, or going to a commercial. Or making sure you don’t accidentally violate copyright during the broadcast. It’s those details that make this feel like a lived-in world.

Like the last chapter with the voice actors mentioning Reversi wasn’t going to be through the production company who made Giri: that’s a small detail that really sells the expertise of the writers. These two VAs might be contractually obligated, not to mention competitive programs, and focus only on the programming of their own station. And they probably ate shit for it afterwards.

If it wasn’t a manga. I should say.

So the little details. The presence of so many moving parts is necessary to make sure the program runs smoothly. But also eliding all unnecessary details, like adjusting the faders, so that the program is audible. It’s a really nifty balancing act.

And it’s why I love Bakuman so much.

But something that I kinda forgot to make the focus of this arc, and what has really come into play here is:

Miho has always been a secondary protagonist

This isn’t necessarily an ensemble-cast story, but Miho has always been a protagonist on her own arc. And even though this might have been the most stressful run of chapters in the entire series, it was also necessary to remind us that, even though she’s invisible narratively, she’s still going on her own journey.

And now that we’re in the endgame, we need to resolve her arc, too.

I’m of two minds on whether this would actually work in real life. The nature of our current media economy and the way attention is so fractured these days means that, at best, a few hundred thousand people might listen to the broadcast, and there’s a strong likelihood that no one who needs to listen to it would.

It’s not like it doesn’t happen, it’s just not particularly likely that it would.

And then there’s the response.

I mentioned Daniel Greene’s stuff from early in the year. His public castigation was probably one of the few examples of the public having an immediate about-face about the allegations.

They got quashed quickly. But the only reason that happened is because the person who made the accusations shot themselves in the foot and Daniel had compelling evidence that put their story into question.

That’s not what’s happening here. Not really. This is a pretty classic monologue about something more profound than the case at hand that ties to a greater theme of the story.

Plus, these are the protagonists, so they’re going to win.

So do I think Miho would actually skate by being pure of heart, and everything would turn out okay? Probably not. She’d recover, I’m sure, but it wouldn’t be immediate, and it wouldn’t be as clean as this.

But I’m willing to overlook it because of how the series showed Miho’s strength.

The Strong Female Protagonist

I have to give Ohba props on this,but Mihoko demonstrated a uniquely feminine strength in this climactic chapter.

I don’t know if that’s sexist of me to say, but I think it’s not hard to see how her strength of character is distinctly different from the kind of machismo bullshitt that most battle series have.

If you’ve been around the internet, you also know that there is a tacit exhaustion with the strong female character who is able to kick ass and is emotionally closed off and badass. Not because it’s bad, but I think it’s basically just a reskin of a dude and slapping a female name on it.

So what does “female strength” look like? Despite being a loaded question with fraught answers, I think this does a pretty good job of outlining female strength in a way that’s not super sexist.

Super, being the operative word here.

Being able to withstand scrutiny without backing down. Quietly, with dignity, and surviving is a great way to outline a kind of empowerment that doesn’t rely on brawn or any conventional masculine power fantasy strengths.

She’s sitting there, willing to take direct abuse from people who don’t deserve her forbearance, because she knows this situation is complicated. While she is being sold as pure and delicate, she’s steely in her resolve to be as honest and forthright as possible. She’s not attacking, nor is she defending. She’s withstanding.

And I fuck with that.

It’s a really great way to cap off one of the final arcs of the series. Because everything has come to a head. And unlike usual final battles where things coming to a head rely on the MC beating the antagonist, this story is more fractured, so the battles have to be extremely high-stakes but individual playing fields.

And I also like how…

This is another Non-Battle Battle

This has the classic structure of a non-battle battle chapter, and in some ways, it’s even more direct than the usual manga battles we’ve experienced. It’s about Miho tanking hits from callers who are trying ot hurt her, or ask misguided questions.

Her responses are parries and ripostes. And she comes out with her dignity fundamentally intact because of her faith in herself. Even though no fists are flashing, it’s still got the tenor of a battle with all the highs and lows.

And that’s the appeal of Non-Battle Battle series. You can have a direct conflict with high stakes, but not have it be some existential battle to save the world or feature blood and gore.

It can be as simple as someone surviving the worst day of their life without being broken.

It reminds me of Octavia Butler’s interest in survivors as heroes.

Parable of the Sower is a sci-fi series that you shouldn’t read if you want to feel good about the state of the world. But it is a great treatise on how Butler writes heroic figures.

In the story, Lauren Olamine can’t really fight. She’s smart, but not a genius, and she isn’t some special person everyone follows just because she’s special.

She’s just trying to make it through the day, and in the process, she saves those around her and herself. It’s a much realer depiction of heroism than what classic melodrama dictates we enjoy

And don’t get me wrong, I loves me some melodramatic silliness – look at this whole ass blog – there is something innately satisfying about seeing big burly dudes with swords fight each other. Or mechs. Or magic. Or whatever.

But I think this chapter showed us the beauty of the hero as a survivor. Someone who is in a shitty situation who simply gets through it, and doesn’t try to change the world, but simply tries to navigate it.

It’s how I feel about true heroism these days. Because when you can survive this world, you can help others survive. Which is what Lauren does in the parable of the sower and, to a greater extent, in the Earthseed series.

But there is one other person we have to talk about

The President (Lol)

He was delightful this chapter. He’s a gag character, and he’s not a shitty gag character either because he’s actually basically right. This is a reputational hazard, and in a world where your reputation determines your ability to get roles and sustain yourself, keeping your brand and image pristine is the most important thing you can do.

I also loved his about-face at the end. Peak narcissist nonsense right there. Peak. I tell you.

Even though he’s a goober, he’s still basically on the right track.

And I think it’s also worth noting that his concerns about the live broadcast are completely justified. Inappropriate questions could get him fines or other punishment by governing bodies. So he’s not just being a dick.

Like that question about Miho’s virginity?

Yeah. That would probably eat shit with the Japanese equivalent of Standards and Practices for radio broadcast. Not to mention it was generally disgusting to have someone ask it. And having an 18-year-old girl ask it doesn’t make it better.

But the unfortunate truth is, Idols are sold as a dream and, as detestable as it is, a lot of the male followers of an idol are thinking of them in those terms and have fantasies about that person. Should that information be public knowledge? Absolutely fucking not. It’s gross. And a violation of privacy (this whole arc is), but it’s also something that’s on everyone’s minds.

But yeah, that would not fly in the real world. It would be shut off immediately.

And this is why this arc is so stressful. It’s incredibly realistic in some ways – the nuanced and often ugly relationship between fan and idol – but it’s also still a story, and we get a happy ending that, while I’m glad we got it, will always ring just the slightest bit untrue.

But that brings me to the person we actually need to discuss:

Saiko

Yeah. I got this one dead wrong. I admired the stoicism and non-reactivity. And while part of me may have thought he was going to say something, I don’t think I actually expected him to.

But in hindsight, it makes perfect sense that this is the trajectory of this specific arc.

Because Saiko is as affected by all of this as Miho, and he’s been quietly putting up with it just like Miho has. So it makes perfect sense that, once she lets the cat out of the bag, he’s going to follow suit, especially with all the callers abusing his girlfriend on live radio

So the climax being focused on Saiko actually makes the most sense, and I’m grumpy I missed it. But it also made it a lot more satisfying and felt like a really good dovetailing of the arc that tied everything together.

Plus, I particularly enjoyed how his focus was not on their relationship, but his faith in his girl’s acting skills. He knows she’s got the juice and he just wants the world to know. It’s actually a really great way to express his love, not by defending their relationship, but by protecting her skills.

That’s a key distinction, and it actually makes his response more perfect. He’s not defending himself. He’s defending the work. He has faith.

The distinction here is everything.

And it makes me happy that these two clearly love each other so much.

Which is why, goddamn it, even though I hate this whole arc. I’m finally, unambiguously cool with it.

It gives me hope for myself and my ability to find someone to love.

If I haven’t already.

We’re now in the endgame. And I think there are a lot of ways the story could go. But I’m not going to predict right now. I’m going to bask in a really lovely end to this arc

Stray Thoughts

–I guess Ishizawa is not going to get bodied, but I guess it’s not the end of the world since everything fell apart in his hands at once. And I’m more than okay with that. The look of realization as he lost was satisfying, and also tragic. Because if he had applied himself even a little bit, he might not have been this way.

–Miyuki’s realization that her daughter and Saiko are meant for each other was a surprisingly moving moment. That sense of lingering regret over Taro really hangs over everything. It’s small, but again, the small details often hit the hardest

–Tozai Sports flipping their coverage was hilarious, but also endearing. And you can tell it’s mostly because they were genuinely moved and they thought they could reap the benefits of the sea change. Just like a lot of tabloid journalism tends to do.

Anyway, off to the endgame.

Until next week,

Peace