Bakuman Page 80

Beats having to type up "Money, Intelligence and Appearance" 5 times an entry

「 80 – Appearance and Greetings 」With Miura and Hattori now joining forces in order to help Ashirogi come up with a story worthy of rivaling Niizuma, the two continue to scheme to shape up the new Jump hit. Mashiro and Shuujin are unaware of this reunion but they reap the benefits of the editors. How will this end?

Bakuman「 バクマン」

What Shuujin wants, Shuujin gets

Page 80 – Appearance and Greetings
Read Online @ ONEMANGA

Summary: Hattori has agreed on helping out Miura with his problematic duo and they both came to the conclusion that their next project would not be mainstream. Rather they would go down the cult route once more along the lines of Money and Intelligence. Before this conversation goes further though, the scene changes back to Shuujin and Mashiro at the studio, with the two discussing about what they would come up with for the next project. Since Mashiro realizes that Shuujin didn’t tell Miyoshi about their 6 month limit, he thought that he would inform Azuki of their situation. With Azuki in full support of their plans and working hard herself, Mashiro is determined to make ends meet.

Back at home, Shuujin and Miyoshi have dinner where he notices that Miyoshi is being stingy with her cooking. Thinking that she is cutting back due to Shuujin not having a job, he reasons that she didn’t have to do that since he won’t be able to work at his full capacity knowing that he wasn’t getting what he wanted. Encouraging Miyoshi to buy more expensive things in order to motivate him more, Shuujin thinks that under the pressure he would be able to thrive and come up with something worthy of serialization again.

Back at the Jump office, Miura and Hattori meet up again for another brainstorming session. Miura said that even though they should go for something non-mainstream, they should watch out for Shizuka since he too is busy working on something of that nature in time for the next serialization meeting. Trying to think up something that was even less-mainstream than Money and Intelligence and True Human, Miura jokingly suggests Money, Intelligence and Appearance, to which Hattori surprisingly agreed with. Bringing this up to Ashirogi when they next met up, the duo loved the idea as this new addition to the formula was able to open up a totally different dimension in story telling. Calling it KTM for short, Shuujin is bursting with ideas for the new project, as he is able to think up many different scenarios and possibilities with the addition of appearance into the system.

After Miura leaves later with the final copy of the last Tanto chapter, the duo realized how much Miura has changed lately. First with him proposing the idea, as well as helping to develop the plan more, it was like he was a completely different person. By mid-July, the duo have already finished 2 chapters for serialization and with chapter 3 completed not long after, they were ready for the meeting. Shizuka too has been working hard, as he shows up in the Jump offices in order to introduce himself to everyone. Yamahisa thought that it would be a good exercise for him to familiarize himself with others in order help him become better. With everyone confident on KTM’s chances, the meeting brought out a big surprise as they weren’t chosen for serialization with True Human instead taking the leap. Hattori assures Miura that it was for the best, which he then relays onto Ashirogi. Shuujin was devastated at the news but Mashiro seems to have caught on to their act, stating that Miura really has changed.

My Thoughts: Sorry for the skip on ch79 guys, last week was just too busy since I was busy studying for a mid-term test. Thought I would just jump straight onto this week’s chapter for the sake of continuity.

Anywho, this week’s chapter pretty much unloaded a whole lot in a very short time. Who would’ve thought that they would be able to come up with an idea and have it ready for serialization along with 3 chapters in the span of one chapter. It was good to see that we aren’t going to be left with a long and drawn out chapter about what they would possibly do but it was still a bit weird to see a project’s conception and failings all in the span of 19 pages.

It’s good to see Miura is upping his game though. I really thought that that line where he said that working on something you really want would change the pace of things was funny and ironic, since everyone (including me) pretty much just facepalmed him after all his push for gag mangas in the last arc. As for the KTM thing, it was actually quite a good premise. With the addition of appearance into the mix, there were so many different possibilities that could open up along with it, and it was good to see that when Shuujin has his mind on it, he is able to work at a much faster rate. All that experience of getting different scenarios and styles with their last two projects meant that he was able to unload his creativity at a much more efficient scale.

I kinda wished we got to see more conceptual artwork of KTM but after seeing that one panel of that generic and boring main protagonist, I think I’ve seen enough. The new guy doesn’t even hold a candle against the last Money and Intelligence main guy, since this one was really plain and simple. He was made to look much younger which I guess would cater more to the shounen crowd but nonetheless, it wasn’t as awesome as the last hero.

This chapter pretty much acted as a learning curve I reckon, since Hattori seems to be testing out something with Ashirogi, checking whether or not Shuujin still has the creative juices to create the intricate and detailed world that they need to defeat Niizuma. This is probably a little homage to that story where the editor ripped a mangaka’s manuscript to pieces in order to motivate him to bring out a much better manga.  I think at the end there, Mashiro might have caught on to the whole thing, since Hattori is pretty much pulling a fast one over them much like how they did with Detective TRAP. Miura seems to just be the middle man between them and Hattori but at the moment, everything seems fine. If Miura is able to contribute to the duo as much as he had with KTM, there might be hope for him yet. This may just be the moment where we see him finally mature as an editor, and with the help of Hattori, the growth will be accelerated that much faster. I just can’t wait to see what other stories the duo will come up with, since KTM was pretty much recycled plot so it didn’t really have any spark. I’m sure Niizuma would think the same if he got to check it out.

Oh, and damn Shuujin is getting back his mojo. He was really straight forward with his little suggestion to Miyoshi. Maybe this relationship isn’t as innocent as we might have thought  lol. And god Shizuka looks horrible. He would look right at home with the shinigamis in Death Note.

/ 2 Commentsleave a comment /

• Gene says:

  April 7, 2010

  Who's Minato again?

  Reply
  • Bass says:

    April 7, 2010

    I think that was a mistake on the scanlator's part, cos in the raw Mashiro said "Miura" instead of "Minato"

    It's prolly just a play between Hattori and Miura's name.
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