Bakuman Page 78

I do too

「 78 – To Quit or Not to Quit 」After Hattori’s surprising call-out at Shuujin’s wedding last week, Mashiro is still at odds with himself over what to do. At the honeymoon, Shuujin too is stressing out over what had happened. What will the two decide on when they next meet up? Either way, a showdown seems to be in the works.

Bakuman「 バクマン」

For Shuujin's sake, I really hope "ping-pong" is a euphemism

Page 78 – To Quit or Not to Quit
Read Online @ ONEMANGA

Summary: Shuujin and Miyoshi are away at their honeymoon in Kinugawa and the chapter opens on the couple having a nice talk in their hotel room. The talk soon changes though as Shuujin is clearly unsettled due to the commotion that happened between Hattori and Mashiro at their wedding reception. Shuujin is really determined to get answers out of Miyoshi and somehow manages to convince her to spill the beans if he wins a game of rock-paper-scissors. Luckily enough, Shuujin won and Miyoshi reluctantly tells him everything that Azuki had told her through a phonecall recently. Shuujin kinda figured out most of it already and now knows what’s worrying Mashiro. He knows that the group is better suited to story mangas and after mulling over it further, suggests that the two forget about it for now and enjoy the rest of their honeymoon.

Back at Jump HQ, Yamahisa receives a shocking phonecall from Shizuka’s mother, claiming that her recluse son wants to move out and get a job. Thinking that Yamahisa has been a bad influence on him, she demands that he set things straight. Yamahisa sees nothing wrong with this, as it is helping Shizuka become a more normal and sociable person, rather than being a freeloader under his mother. After some further argument about the rights of his son as an adult, he abruptly ends the phonecall to a mixed reception. Some of the staff applaud his bravery while the team captains agree with the mother that he had overstepped his boundaries from a position to influence lives. This starts yet another argument in the office, with the result unknown as the scene soon skips back to Ashirogi as Shuujin had returned from his honeymoon.

Shuujin is shocked to hear that Mashiro has ideas of quitting Tanto, as he initially thought that he was just worried about results and wanted to talk about measures to keep the rankings from free-falling further. In the end, he sort of agrees that they can’t compete with Niizuma in their current state, and he suggests that they go to Jump to research further about the powers that they have in their hands in terms of ending a series. They first consulted with their editor Miura, who was equally shocked at their hypothetical suggestion. He suggests that the two just add more gags into their manga if they were concerned about their rankings, but Shuujin is clearly at wit’s end with the gags and even Miura reluctantly agrees that it has been showing in his recent names. Clearly stumped on the predicament and having no previous experience to recollect on the matter, he suggests that the three bring the idea up to the editor-in-chiefs.

Unsurprisingly, the assistant editor-in-chief is appalled at their decision and gives them a proper lecture on how selfish they are acting. Tanto is hitting the elusive kid demographic, something that the current Jump line-up does not have. He explains further that an author only has a right to quit if a successful series’ story is winding up or if the editors deem the mangaka unfit to run a serialization any further. Since Ashirogi clearly thinks they can do better if they start fresh, the assistant editor-in-chief asks if they have anything ready for them to read through, as there may be an exception if the other project they have is immensely better than their unpopular project. Since they have nothing in the works, Miura tells them to just concentrate on making Tanto better.

Mashiro wants another opinion on the matter and decides on his own to take the subject over the assistant’s head and straight to the editor-in-chief instead. Mashiro went straight to his desk and declares outright that he wants to quit Tanto. The chief calmly responses by saying that they can quit if they like, but Jump will not be working with them from that day forward. Mashiro picks up on the fact that the chief didn’t exactly say that they can’t quit and asks for Shuujin’s opinion, which shocks everyone as he calmly asks if they really wanted to stick with Jump after all.

My Thoughts: Ashirogi are just a bunch of trouble makers aren’t they? From the whole hospital fiasco all the way to the current Tanto-debacle, they’ve done nothing but push the wrong buttons on the higher ups of Jump. Can’t blame them though since I personally want them out of that shipwreck Tanto. Then again, when weighing up both sides of  the coin, the chief does have a right in saying that as employers, they have the choice of terminating or creating serializations in their magazines. They expect their mangakas to honor their contracts and after serialization, keep on with their series as many others had fallen in order to give them the opportunity to succeed. On the mangakas side, when you are pushed and probed into doing something that clearly isn’t your forte, and you, your rivals and peers know it, you too would have to step up and be accounted for since it reflects on your name as a successful mangaka.

In this chapter, I thought Miura had finally learned a lesson when he overhears his team captain talking about editors as a position to influence on other’s lives, and to take into consideration what the mangakas want to do themselves. After clearly bringing Ashirogi to the upper-management just to get their heads ripped off, it seems like nothing got through into that thick skull of his. Of course, he has no experience in the matter since he is still quite new himself, but at least grow some balls and know enough to be able to judge yourself when something is working or not. He’s been trying to keep things rolling but his suggestions into making Tanto a better series suggest otherwise, since the best he has come up with always seem to be along the lines of “add more gags”. Add more gags? At this rate you’re gonna make Ashirogi’s lives a whole damn gag! Anyway enough about Miura. His ineptness at being an editor and how much I’ve hated him for his past suggestions and direction of thinking will be left for another day (or a different post). As much as I would like to see him given a boot like Nakai was, I still want to see him redeem himself since he is still relatively new and deserves a second chance. What he does in the next chapter will determine what his fate would be (at least in my mind, not in the actual manga itself).

As for Mashiro, way to grow some balls. He’s always had some major mojo to pull off the shit he’s been doing but to go straight up to the chief like that and cut the crap instantly with his “I quit” line, it takes some major kahunas to follow it through. He can be a bit brash and hot-headed at times and he does tend to let his emotions rule his decisions but this is a matter of passion and seeing how little he and Shuujin have for Tanto, it’s for the better that they cut ties as soon as possible before their names get dragged further through the mud. It may seem petty that they are essentially trying to destroy the hard work they had getting this far for what was essentially trash-talk from Hattori and Niizuma, but if their rivals too echo the same views that they themselves have been coming to terms with for some time, I think it’s time for a change.

I don’t think they are gonna do anything drastic this soon though, since I’m sure that someone (Hattori, Shuujin) will be able to talk Mashiro out of canceling their Jump contract for the time being. This may lead to a couple of scenarios, one of which was actually suggested by Miura himself. The first would be to create a one-shot as well as working on Tanto, testing new grounds much like they had in the past. If the oneshot fares spectacularly, it would be safer for them to switch out with Tanto. The second would be if Niizuma finally fulfills his wishes at the start of his career and end one Jump series that he hates. This would probably conform to everything discussed in this chapter since the chief did entertain the idea somewhat back then. Niizuma has pretty much exceeded all expectations with his two series so I’m sure the chief will have no choice when the time comes. The last option would be to jump ship to a new publisher but since Bakuman runs in Jump anyways, I doubt they would allow a popular series to talk up other rival publications (unless they create fictional one.)

Either way, this was an excellent cliffy (Bakuman seems to have a lot of these) and I can’t wait to see how things unfold next week.

/ 2 Commentsleave a comment /

• tomodachi89 says:

  March 23, 2010

  I second the idea of Eiji finally playing his trump card and cancels Tanto. This might indicate that Bakuman's ending is near as I expected this to happen when the final arc is starting… we'll get to know next chapter.
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  • Bass says:

    March 24, 2010

    It might be a while before we see the final arc though. Remember that we have to still go through the success process of their new development and wait for an anime adaptation. We also need to see Azuki progress as a voice actress so when we see an anime adaptation ready, it will probably be close to the final arc.

    I think that Shizuka will probably be the main obstacle for their next idea, since he seems to be moving along as well.
    My recent post Bakuman Page 78

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