Bakuman｡/Headscratchers


 * When the characters wink solemnly or their noses become quasi-realistic, what does it mean? (Any Hikaru no Go readers willing to pitch in here? I have a tentative theory for the first bit that Obata just has a thing for people covering their right eyes.)
 * It's a gag manga thing. The art style changes depending on what the mangaka are drawing. Which is why the protagonists started off looking like Death Note-esque characters when doing Detective Trap and look the way they do with their current gag manga. Eiji looks the same because he's been drawing Crow the entire time.
 * WOW....thats deep AND clever....
 * It Just Bugs Me that anyone period can say they read this manga and say Shujin doesn't loves Miyoshi. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? And why would the author break up a couple that's been well-established since the beginning of the freaking manga? Just...just...
 * Dude. It's called drama. You know, the thing that keeps people reading? Wait a couple of chapters before assuming it's gonna go down hill.
 * And they got married. I'm glad I was really angry when that whole subplot began too.
 * Chapter 2... just... chapter 2. I don't think I've read something so Misogynistic.
 * Which part, exactly? Granted, the idea that it's more socially acceptable for girls not to excel in academics can be seen as sexist, but as for Iwase, the main problem is her obsessing over competition (see the most recent chapters for more on this). In the rest of the comic, it's never considered unwomanly for Aoki, Iwase or Kato to work in manga, and the only problem Aoki has with Iwase working on manga is doing so for seemingly petty reasons in spite of her earlier not regarding it as an art form, so I suspect this is a case of Values Dissonance.
 * This troper always interpreted all that to imply that while Iwase was more academically inclined, Azuki had a certain special blend of cultural/social/emotional intelligence that's actually way more crucial to personal and professional success in life. Also remember that Takagi thinks Azuki is smarter than him, which says a lot by how much he values this particular type of intelligence. Which makes sense to this troper; schools don't have the power to teach the really important things in life that actually determine success.
 * And it's not like Takagi is always right. He was quite flippant about manga in the beginning, only to learn how serious business it is and how much he has to work for it. It's also shown that Azuki is serious about voice acting the same way as Mashiro about manga and not just to appear "cute". The "men have dreams that women don't understand" part is sexist, but I view it as a quite realistic portrayal of the older generations in Japan. Women of Takagi and Mashiro generations have their own ambitions, careers and hardships just like their boyfriends/colleagues.
 * Still, when Takagi mentions it, Mashiro immediately dismisses him, but after Takagi explains his reasoning, Mashiro is impressed at Takagi's intelligence and way of thinking, which could indicate that we're meant to agree. Then again, Mashiro isn't always right, either, and is often wrong about many of the same things Takagi is wrong about, so it's hard to say.
 * I didn't see this as something that was really debatable. Bakuman is sexist. It's obviously sexist. There's not any real attempt to hide it either. The way they treat women who have goals that aren't 'acceptable' for women as unnatractive and arrogant. The way they actually point that out. How they disparage shoujo manga and sneer at the idea of taking advice from female fans. The 'men have dreams women couldn't understand' is just one of the most obvious in a long list of sexist things this manga has said, and not even getting started on the more subtle sexist characters. I like this manga, it's fun to read, and it reminds me a lot of Hikaru No Go too. It's just that it's very sexist. It doesn't matter if Japan is sexist and that's the way they were taught to think, it doesn't stop it from being sexist. That's like saying if you grow up in a family where swearing is normal, that means you aren't swearing. It makes no sense. It's just sad, because these are artists I really respect. I feel more hurt than angry knowing what they think of women.
 * The two are writing for a boys magazine, so it makes sense to focus more on the male demographic and consider that the writers of fan letters may not be the best source of advice (additionally, the main characters were mainly focused on keeping their manga in the magazine instead of doing what makes sense for the story).
 * Uh, Tite Kubo writes for a boy's magazine. So does Masashi Kishimoto, and neither have such blatant sexism. Go read Shounen Jump and bring back a story that is more sexist than Bakuman...(or Death Note, or Hikaru No Go....)
 * Also, Aoki on her own defies any accusations of sexism. For a weekly manga specifcally geared to young males, she is a successful mangaka and has done so in her own way, without compromising. It's not sexist, it's a depiction of a place and a profession that was designed with men in mind in the first place. Not because it's sexist, it's because when your company is named Shonen Jump, you write for the men in the first place! Besides, take Takuro, a huge Gonk that just happens to be a failure as a Mangaka yet amazing at backgrounds, and tell me it's females getting the bad treatment. For your information, "Men have dreams..." line is just as true as "Women have dreams that Men can't understand." They don't disparage Shoujo, they point out rightfully so that they aren't supposed to be making Shoujo works! This manga is not sexist. If they outright said, "Women can't write Shonen" or "Women shouldn't create manga or do things they want" that would be sexist. Bakuman just... isn't.
 * Bakuman is sexist. Why is that so hard to accept? It doesn't mean people aren't allowed to like it, but it does have problems, and one of them is the misogyny. It may be a manga focusing on guys in an industry dominated by men, but many of the female characters are underdeveloped and shallow. Aoki is cute and docile, and fairly successful. According to this series, she's the epitome of what a woman should be. Like Azuki, who is also cute, quiet and docile. Iwase was ambitious and a bit of a hothead but unlikable; at least until she she chilled out. Then she found success. At what point was acting out and being ambitious a detriment to the main duo? Once in a while, it got them into trouble but overall, it's seen as a strength. Fukuda? Eiji? If the authors are trying to show the general perception of women and how women should be in Japan, then they're doing a pretty good job. Too bad Japan is sexist itself. Even taking into account that this is a fairly realistic series and we're meant to perceive the women from the men's point of view, the series has a lot of sexist undertones. Trying to justify and excuse its problems doesn't make Bakuman any less sexist or change the minds of anyone who thinks it is.
 * Congratulations, you can't distinguish fact from opinion. We applaud your preaching, really. Have you ever noticed how in a lot of girl's manga, the males are comparatively flat/idealized as well? Guess what? Not everyone is great at writing the opposite sex, yet apparently it's only bad when men do it, right? (Personally, I couldn't bring myself to complain about Bakuman's issues with gender after how they handled Aoki rejecting Nakai's piggish behavior. The story SUPPORTS Aoki standing up to him, and this is important in a country that has serious problems with sexual harassment and women asserting themselves in those situations.) Also, you can word anything to make a show sound sexist. I can make a pretty good essay about how Avatar: The Last Airbender is sexist because all the female characters' important roles are initiated by men, Katara is a prize for Aaang at the end, and Azula going crazy at the end is just a mockery of independent women and implies that women in power are too unstable to handle it. Guess what? A lot of other people love the female characters, and the creators openly state they love strong female characters. Maybe you need to accept that not everyone shares your standards, and necessarily should.
 * Miura also points out, during his explanation of why fan letters don't work, is that even the girls are reading Jump for Shonen manga, and Mashiro and Takagi need to offer manga that fits the genre. Aoki gradually adjusts her stories so that they fit better with Shonen Jump; while Hideout Door gets canceled fairly quickly because it isn't very shonen and Time of Green Leaves is mainly a romance with fanservice, The Gift God Gave me is said to be significantly more shonen. Combining this with the fact that not all of Takagi's stories, as well as Nanamine's "Classroom of Truth" are the kind of stories that would do well in Jump, and it's mainly a matter of balancing what a writer can or wants to write and what will be popular or suited to the magazine.
 * Although Ohba doesn't have a very good track record of powerful female figures, it might not mean he/she can't write one. The sexism is hard to ignore, but my optimistic theory is that since Death Note and Bakuman are set in modern-day Japan, the sexism is supposed to represent Japan's sexism. It is possible that Ohba/Obata may not agree with the general view of women, but are merely representing the views of Japanese society; my two cents.
 * Does it seem odd to anyone else that there's relatively little about the precise story decisions in the manga, leaving aside the complaints about not actually publishing the various manga in the story? The latest chapter (93) indicates that Shizuka's Gendercide plot didn't go over well with the readers, and we occasionally see where the tone of the story might impact things (for example, Takahama complains about Miura wanting him to make his hero an idiot) but the main issues are the general direction of the story (story vs. gag manga), as opposed to what they do with the story (for example, making a character turn evil, or what some of the vaguely described story arcs are actually about).
 * Hey, if they give into pressure and actually do Detective Trap or Perfect Crime Party, we'll be surprised, no?
 * Now that you mention it, it seemed weird to me at first. But first of all, they get more detailed in Perfect Crime Club. Secondly: after all, the ainst Character 2things you mention that they usually discuss are the things that matter when somebody's choosing a manga to read. Or to put it differently, when you're looking for a fun manga, what matters most is whether or not it's the genre of manga you like (like an action-filled shonen, a tear-jerker of a shojo, or a violent seinen), not whether or not Character 1 is going to turn ag. Precise details usually don't matter that much; either people like what happens and keep reading, or they're dissatisfied with how something has turned out (like some character getting unfairly accused) and keep reading hoping that things'll turn out okay, eagerly staying as loyal readers until they get some assurance that things'll be fine. The readers who scream "Oh noooo!" when reading Naruto are the ones who turn the pages the quickest, being the most eager to find out what happens next. The reason somebody likes a manga is because of its genre, its art and its style of writing - not particular plot points. And while I'm at it - they do discuss the characters fairly often, especially in Tanto.
 * In Chapter 93, what's with the statue-humping? Is it some wack-ass way of getting around, I don't know, the Shonen Comics Code?
 * Maybe Shizuka's drunk enough to think it's an actual woman. But it seems odd that they'd dump a statue like that in an alley.
 * Does it seem odd that Moritaka's parents are now letting him drop out of college to work on improving his art, when they had previously set college graduation as his deadline for getting secure? It would have been nice to see a scene indicating that they're perhaps more confident in his future as a mangaka as a result of him getting more popular and learning from experience (even if they don't know that he'll get canceled if he can't compete with Eiji), since the last time their feelings about that, Moritaka's mother wanted him to quit when he was hospitalized.
 * Does anyone besides Takagi, the Miyoshi family and Iwase know about The Promise between Mashiro and Azuki to get married once PCP gets an anime and Azuki becomes the main heroine? Hattori seems quite surprised at a few points at how insistent Mashiro and Takagi are at getting an anime, and as this may well come up now that, it's strange that he's been their editor for so long without them saying anything about this to him.
 * It's an extremely personal detail in their private lifes, and it's usually clear that work and personal details shouldn't mix.
 * Also Takagi tries to say why they want an anime so much and Mashiro shuts him up, so most likely Mashiro doesn't want to tell Hattori.
 * Hattori finds it suspicious on a few occasions how much they're going for an anime, and even back in Chapter 14 (when they still thought they could get an anime at 18), asks why they're in such a hurry. One would think he would be a little closer to figuring out why they want an anime, especially since Mashiro immediately recommends Azuki for the PCP audio CD.
 * How are the producers of the anime going to convert over 100 chapters worth of material into a 25-episode anime? Death Note had 37 episodes for 108 chapters, making a roughly 1:3 episode-chapter ratio, and even then, the producers cut out a fair amount from the last part, including the last two chapters. Considering that Bakuman probably will have at least as many chapters as Death Note by the time it ends, making it at least 1:4 (if not closer to 1:5), I can only see the producers removing even more (perhaps the entire Tanto arc?), or significantly changing the plot.
 * I imagine they will cut some of the scenes not relating to the main duo's manga development as long as it doesn't interfere with the plot. For instance there are a lot of scenes on Otter 11's development and getting the mangaka to actually work on it. It's not crucial to the story so I think scenes like this would be cut.
 * Or maybe there'll be a second season depending on the anime's success! With the length of the manga, there are probably quite a few places where the anime could end while resolving most plot threads, leaving material for future seasons.
 * Given the rate at which chapters cover episodes (almost 1:1), and the characters and scenes shown (the last introduced character shown on the website is Koogy, and somewhat prominent ones like Hiramaru, Miura and older Iwase are not shown) I suspect that it the anime will get up to when Detective Trap first gets serialized, which seems to be the main milestone in the plot that it makes most sense to reach and conclude at for the first series (although as we've seen in the last 70+ chapers, getting a series serialized is difficult, but the real test is making it popular enough to stay in the magazine and get an anime).
 * Kind of bugs me that Takagi didn't just tell his wife and partner that he was simply training Shiratori and planned to leave him once it was okay. He could've saved them so much grief that way!
 * He has had a problem with keeping secrets from others, but one would think that he would learn to be more open with others after the incident in which Kaya discovered Iwase's letter.
 * The art bugs me. A lot. It may not be a horrible art style but it tends to be a little too stylistic and a little too gross. When they make the anime faces for gag scenes, they look hideous. Usually in those type of siutations, people would go for a simpler look or an outline for comedic effect. Instead, he makes them look like they've had their faces stepped on. As for the gross part, the features they choose to accentuate for stylistic purposes really gross me out. Focusing on the eyelids instead of the eyes, the flappy lips, snot, and various other weird things. The girls, oddly, don't seem to suffer from this. Probably because the author doesn't see it as appropriate to have unattractive girls. *insert mumbling about sexism here* Takeshi Obata is still one of my favorite artists ever, but I don't think he's suited for this style. I always saw him less as a gag artist and more of a refined artist.
 * Obata's first series, Cyborg Jiichan G, was (as I understand, not having read) a gag manga.
 * I really hate how all the girls so far are either stupid, annoying, bland, or very easy to hate as characters. Also, I dislike how, in the first few chapters, Saiko's mom brings up some valid points about why she doesn't want Saiko to be a mangaka, but when she talks to his dad, the Dad says basically the equivalent of "Oh, you women wouldn't understand". It's a good manga, it's a good story, I love the art, and I love the characters but I can't stop wishing that the authors would stop being so mean to the gals.
 * Saiko's mother would be a case of Straw Man Has a Point if not for the fact that Saiko acknowledges the low probability of success, but the problem is that she seems unwilling to accept Saiko's concessions (giving up if he can't get results by the time he graduates from college), making her seem overly stubborn. In the anime, she appears to gradually soften over time, as seen in the way she approaches the subject in one of the scenes at the breakfast table with Saiko's grandfather, and when she lets him stay at his uncle's office. Miho is somewhat underdeveloped, and while this is, to an extent earlier on, Fridge Brilliance (as Saiko doesn't really know the girl he's working so hard to earn the right to marry), it would be nice to see her personality besides her love for Saiko explored more in depth. It was fairly interesting early on to see her tease Saiko about the length of this email, especially when Saiko reacts in surprise at seeing that side of her, a it was an event that showed there was more to her than Saiko thought.
 * Furthermore. That one line Saiko's father says actually explains and makes sense when you think of it in the context of a common trope, how Women Are Wiser. "Men have Dreams that Women can't understand." Think about it in the context of that trope, in that women are typically wiser and more knowledgeable than men. The line means in that context that women, with more common wisdom to them (like why being a manga-ka is a painfully bad idea from a logical standpoint) therefore actually go against dreams because of that wisdom, being by that logic unable to understand why a man would seek out a goal that makes no sense. Men, by the same logic of having less wisdom, are in turn perceived as being able to dream bigger than women, unrestrained by common wisdom of what is "the smart thing" to do. The men will, by this logic, have seemingly insane dreams the wiser women can't understand. So there you have it, an explanation of how that one line is actually a subtle case of Positive Discrimination for both genders; women are wise, but therefore are much more grounded in their realities, while men are less wise and therefore much more free to dream big and accept the consequences.
 * Couldn't they have ever shown Iwase as a mangaka outside of her rivalry and pride? I think it'd be great character development for her if she actually learns to enjoy writing manga for what it is itself. She's been writing Natural for a few years now; a rivalry can drive you for only so long. I think the award ceremony would have been a great moment to show this, but all she does is brag how her series is longer than Ashirogi Muto's (though she did blush when Takagi complimented her).
 * Nakai. Ever since Nanamine brought him back, he's done nothing but show how far he's gone. Every time he had a moment to show he still had some decency left (feeling uncomfortable about Nanamine's methods, realizing his current position would do nothing to gain Aoki's respect), he quickly squashed it by showing that he was lazy, sexist slob right afterwards. He even turned down Fukai's help when it was offered hoping he'd get into a girl's pants. So why he is allowed redemption by presumably mooching off of Hiramaru? If this is just so we get more gags off of Hiramaru's suffering, well, shit.
 * Simply put, Nakai was allowed redemption by Hiramaru's offer for a few different reasons. One being that they were both drunk/punch drunk, and not entirely all there. Second, Hiramaru was considering Nakai to be Not So Different to what he himself could become, and felt like giving the guy a hand. Third, and this is what really matters, Nakai held himself back from hitting his Moral Event Horizon. With Aoki right there for him to assault/whatever the hell else he could think of, he basically had the woman he hated in his hands... But stopped himself. By holding himself back from attacking her, he stopped himself from jumping any farther down the Slippery Slope, and Hiramaru took this opportunity to give Nakai a hand in moving on. This stops Nakai from having a grudge against Aoki and frees her from any feelings of guilt, Hiramaru gets to look semi-badass in front of the woman he likes, and Nakai himself gets another shot at life as a mangaka, and this time without having Nanamine's influence.
 * Also, why did Aoki offer herself up to Nakai? If she was the one who wronged him, kudos to her, but hell, SHE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG.
 * She had a similar attitude in Chapter 70 ("I feel like it's my fault he's leaving"), possibly because her refusal to associate with him any longer led to him going back home, and while none of her actions were wrong, her rejection of him indirectly led to Nakai's present state.
 * If PCP isn't going to get an anime, why did they bother showing us the anime proposals?
 * The main problem was the inability to get a sponsor, possibly to indicate that popularity isn't everything.
 * Was there any reason for Moritaka to hide that his uncle was in love with Miho's mother from Miho? He states that there wasn't any reason to tell her, but earlier scenes seem to indicate that he was actively trying to prevent Miho from finding out, including asking her mother not to tell her after hearing that she didn't know (and becoming quite relieved). It doesn't seem to have any benefit, and ends up getting him in trouble with Miho.
 * Miyuki told Nobuhiro, after getting engaged, that she could only write to him until she got married (although it seems he ended the correspondence immediately after hearing this), but still continued to read his manga and watch his anime. What exactly are the rules for contact between married women and male friends in Japan, or was this self-imposed on Miyuki's part in order to fully commit to her husband?
 * I always thought it was the latter, that while she loved her soon-to-be husband, she still had some underlying feelings for Nobuhiro and felt that could complicate things later.
 * Couldn't the whole anime thing get resolved if they got an OVA? It's technically an anime, though I have no idea how the making-an-OVA process would go, or if the same sponsor thing would arise.
 * I believe that if it were to occur, that would mean that Bakuman is close to an end.
 * In the anime, why is Shounen Jump called Shounen Jack? I would understand if they were talking about another magazine (say, Sunday or Magazine) but why do they have to change it when Bakuman serialized in Jump? Gintama has no problems saying "Jump" all the time...
 * Copyright issues.
 * That and Gintama never says Weekly Shonen Jump or Shonen Jump, they just say Jump, definitely keeping the Trademark away from being used.
 * That makes sense.