Bakuman. / First Impressions

「協力と条件」 (Kyouryoku to Jyouken)
“Cooperation and Conditions”

Watching our dynamic duo start working together was fun, but the biggest draw this week had to be all the character character development combined with well timed fast forwards. To think, that just last week our duo were close to never being a duo again.

While Mashiro and Takagi were able to fix their friendship, I was afraid that our current three person group would never be able to work together. Seeing how Mashiro could easily be considered the third wheel, I wasn’t sure who to sympathize with whenever Mashiro would turn down help from Kaya or snap at Takagi. Combined with Takagi’s superhuman power to drop anything (including Kaya) on a moments notice and a head so dense that it might rival a certain IS driver’s, it felt like a pretty caustic environment to make friends in. Which is why I felt so relieved to finally watch our trio pull together for their most recent project. Watching Mashiro act like a stud and Kaya break down in tears of happiness when Mashiro accepted her help gave me a big smile.

With Kaya actively working together with our dynamic duo, everything seemed to flow a little more smoothly. I don’t know if it was just me, but the jokes this week felt more funny than usual. While I was ready to watch Hattori’s master plan to bring our duo back together backfire right in his face, I wasn’t ready for the ingenious way our duo avoided a girl’s love confession. Their timing to just how serious they were about the whole thing really tickled my funny bone. It never fails to amaze me how well they play off just how strange their relationships are.

With Shady Detective TRAP being accepted as an entry into the Golden Future Cup, I’m super excited to hopefully watch our duo finally come out on top. With no Nizuma to worry about and an invigorated Hattori to assist them, I can’t imagine how things can go wrong from here. While I don’t expect Fukuda to do anything crazy, was that Koogy at the end of the preview? I thought he was a musician, not a mangaka!

* I hope I’m not the only one who felt bad for the lady that was passing out something on the street. Even though she was probably only used as a way to measure how fast time was moving, it must take a lot of dedication to stand out there for months on end!

 

Preview

26 Comments

    1. As Takaii said, she was really just there to help show time passing outside the Jack building. In Japan, it’s really common to see people like that handing out tissues on the streets — everybody uses tissues after all, and they bundle a little advertisement with it. It’s actually a pretty clever marketing gimmick, but yeah, standing out in the cold/warm/rainy/whatever weather like that must suck.

      ObsidianTK
      Reply

  3. Yeah, I felt sad for the tissue lady, too (I think she was passing out tissues). I kept expecting her to be explained, as I didn’t remember seeing her before. The other day I was walking downtown and some guys were holding signs about a sale on furniture, despite the fact that it was freezing cold. I hope I don’t end up with a job like that. I hate the cold.

    Joojoobees
    Reply

    2. Seconded! I’ve been waiting for Aoki since the series started, and even though I know they won’t get to any of her really good parts this season, and maybe not even next season, I’m still super excited to see my favorite character animated.

      ObsidianTK
      Reply

  8. I was somewhat disappointed at Hattori’s reaction when he found out that Ashirogi Muto was back together. Mashiro and Takagi were like “Yeah, we’re going to get him good!” and Hattori had a pretty epic imagination of what Mashiro and Takagi were suppose to be like when they found out each other doing the same thing but Hattori’s expression was a bit more like “-___- hm….alright. Good for you two”. I was expecting a more of a (O口O) face.

    koager
    Reply

  10. That lady.. Times are rough. :1

    I felt so bad for that girl! But I laugh SOOO HARD when our duo looked to each other and smirked. It’s so freakin cool to have personal inside jokes with your friends and then laugh about them when others don’t know what’s going on. Makes you feel closer. I think that’s one of the many reasons I (among others) may feel so attached to Mashiro and Takagi. 😀

    Shirt
    Reply

  11. I didn’t notice this until now, but… does EVERYONE in this series have the curtains-match-the-windows thing going on? I thought with Mashiro/Takagi/Eiji it was just to keep up with blue/yellow/red triad, but Aoki, Kaya, Azuki, and Fukuda (are his eyes grey…?) seem to be doing it, too.

    Jacaranda
    Reply

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