Bakuman. / First Impressions

「火曜と金曜」 (Kayou to Kinyou)
“Tuesday and Friday”

After a whole week of not watching Bakuman, I almost forgot what Takagi was talking about in the beginning. But as the memories started flooding back, I was excited to remember about how I wanted to watch how everyone’s manuscript would turn out.

While this episode could easily be considered one that was made just to push things forward (seeing how it was full of time skips), I thought there were still some pretty interesting moments. The main one for me was how the published manuscripts were given voice overs. For those of you who watched FLCL way back when, I thought it was awesome when they had a full blown scene done entirely with manga panels. Switch back to Bakuman, and I was blown away that each manuscript got some time to shine. While I liked our dynamic duo’s piece the best, Aoki’s story combined with Nakai’s art was pretty amazing. Something about the story seemed really interesting — interesting enough that I’d watch if it was turned into an anime.

But the part that I relished the most had to be when everyone looked at Koogy’s entry in disbelief. That arrogant guy, waiting up to the last minute to make his manuscript really started to get on my nerves — his superfluous attitude just makes me want to throw something at him! But when I saw just how ridiculous his entry looked, you can bet that there was a grin on my face. I mean, it was so ridiculous that Mashiro even made a joke about it!

Amongst all the drama, I’m glad that there were some intimate moments sprinkled throughout the episode. From watching Mashiro’s Grandfather directly (and his Mother indrectly) support his work to Azuki giving that “look” whenever Koogy’s face showed up, the short intimate moments really helped bring everything together. The one question that’s been bugging me is if the guy who was eavesdropping on our dynamic duo has any significance. Something about his general demeanor and way of talking was just creepy.

 

Preview

27 Comments

  1. This whole episode looked anime original, it was a nice take at speeding things up and from the next episode it looks like Jack comics is in trouble =P of what we know 4 new serializations no way! time for survival of the fittest! Beezlebub or Kiyoshi!

    Bluance
    Reply

  6. Ugh, Koogy’s smug smile at the end. You just know that means he did well, even after waiting until the last minute and everyone other mangaka said it was bad. Pure exploitation of this fanbase…..

    Bossun
    Reply

  9. Half the episode was a filler the other half was from the manga. The filler get my approval, well done!
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Otaku_Brawler
    Reply

  11. Great episode, but I gotta say my favorite scene was Fukuda, Nakai, and Niizuma’s reaction to the Koogy manga. Him stomping off like that saying he was gonna quit, then waltzing back in after Nakai’s comment was priceless. Also props on the FLCL refrence. I wish there was more of that too.

    Namzor
    Reply

      1. Season 2 has been confirmed for this coming fall.

        I would be really, really surprised if that spoiler you’re referencing ends this season — they’ve kept a steady pace of 1-2 chapters an episode this whole season, and the events you’re talking about don’t happen until chapter 44, and we’re currently on chapter 31. In my opinion, it’s much more likely that they’re going to end on a hopeful note with the events of chapter 34.

        ObsidianTK
        Reply

      1. That wouldn’t be so bad as well. He is a branding genius. He already has name recognition and acces to media. In some plottwist he might even hire our protagonist.
        But that would be a bit realistic and not the shounen way.

        outcast
        Reply

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