Bakuman vol. 17
Another thing that occurred while reading the previous topic was, “How did this make it by Kodansha’s editorial staff?” Granted, I could very well be in the minority when it comes to appreciating “Attack on Titan’s” virtues but those two volumes definitely left me with the feeling that it could’ve been greatly improved had it been kicked back to the mangaka for further revision. The need for proper editorial guidance is something that comes up fairly often in the pages of “Bakuman” with this volume providing a moral, rather than objective, lesson in the perils that come from trying to circumvent it.
The previous volume left off with a curious resurgence of veteran B-list creators in the offices and pages of Shonen Jump. How were these older mangaka, who had only produced marginally successful works in the past, suddenly able to deliver great stories which appealed to Jump’s audience? That’s because it’s part of a dastardly — yes DASTARDLY — plan by Tohru Nanamine to show that his “crowdsourced” approach to producing manga has merit. He also plans to destroy the “Muto Ashirogi” duo of Mashiro and Takagi using this approach, but that’s a ways down the line.
Nanamine has been a lively and intriguing character in this series not only because he represents its sole outright villain, but also because of the gray area his methods for creating manga exist in. The “collective” he worked with for his first go-round might have been anathema to the creator-driven ethic in most manga yet it produced a lot of good work and even got him a series before the audience lost interest and his megalomania to top Mashiro and Takagi got the better of him. This time out, he has an even more ambitious approach: a whole company dedicated to creating manga with promising creators creating storyboards targeted to veteran artists which are then passed on to highschoolers in a manga-cafe environment for final evaluation.
That Nanamine has effectively created a microcosm of the manga creation and consumption cycle is impressive and it also produces results with several of the one-shots from his company ranking in the top five for the issues of Jump that they were published in. Were he a decent human being, then this system could’ve taken him quite far; however, he is not and his plans wind up backfiring once his real aim for the company is revealed which turns all of the series’ creators against him. While he is quite despicable, Nanamine is also tragic in the way that he has yet to realize that truly great works of sequential art can’t be created by such micromanagement or explicitly trying to cater to the public’s tastes. They can only be created by that one creator, or two if they’re as in synch as Muto Ashirogi is, who comes up with a unique well-executed idea that gives the public what they didn’t know they wanted. There’s no doubt that Nanamine’s method would probably lead any creator to a comfortable career, but it’s hard to imagine it ultimately producing anything of lasting value.
Though his schemes hit a roadblock here, I can’t help but feel that they represent a missed opportunity in this series. That Nanamine will return before the series wraps up seems a foregone conclusion since he has yet to learn his lesson. However, the ultimate method by which his comeuppance is delivered here feels a bit arbitrary for my tastes. I realize that in order to flesh it out would involve the creators tipping their hand as to the ultimate surprise, but the way it’s presented in the story feels more like they’re telling him — and by extension the audience — that his methods are wrong than by actually showing why this is the case.
Frankly, it would’ve been more interesting to see Nanamine succeed and get third place in the polls behind Ashirogi. While it’s doubtful that he would’ve kept his self-imposed promise to listen to his editor Kosugi at first, it would’ve kept him at the magazine and given the poor editor a chance to try and show him the error of his ways. Kosugi tries to do that here, but it comes in the form of a big speech which is ultimately disregarded and leaves us with the impression that, put-upon as he is, the man is ultimately pretty bad at his job.
Present through all of this is Ashirogi’s editor Akira Hattori. Since the beginning of the series, he has been established as the best kind of editor, one who knows how to encourage the creators under his supervision, who can recognize flaws in their writing, and who knows when to tell them to really go for it and follow their instincts. It’s that last part that’s key here as Hattori ultimately believes that it’s a creator’s job to ultimately surpass their editor, but only after they have a solid grasp on the fundamentals of creating good manga. That’s the feeling I was missing from “Attack on Titan” and those two volumes left me thinking that its creator wound up with an editor who was more like Kosugi than Hattori.
The volume wraps up with Jump’s editor-in-chief making an (Temporary? Permanent?) exit from the series, but not before imparting some wisdom to Eiji Nizuma and Mashiro and Takagi. This also has the effect of establishing that the real goal of the latter two is to surpass Nizuma at last. That they will seems to me to be a foregone conclusion, though the history of the series indicates to me that it’s a victory that will at least feel earned. What I’m interested in seeing is Nanamine’s eventual return, because as with Kung Fu the ultimate demonstration of one’s abilities in shonen manga is to make your opponent understand your point of view and turn them into your friend. I can’t see that not happening here — this is too positive a series for Nanaminie’s character arc to end in self-destruction — and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the creators pull it off.