Summary

Takagi and Miyoshi have their wedding ceremony, during which Mashiro and Hattori step outside to continue an argument that they raised during the ceremony. After seeing Niizuma claim Ashirogi Muto to be his rival, Mashiro gets the urge to quit Tanto and aim to beat Niizuma with a better work. When Takagi agrees, the two go to the editorial department and make a deal with chief editor Heishi: they have to submit a work that can beat Niizuma to the serialization committee by the end of the year, or they will be banned from drawing for Jack.

Impression

No-one’s actually come out and said it before, but it’s been obvious for some time that everyone around Ashirogi Muto aren’t taking Tanto amazingly well. Apart from Niizuma saying he doesn’t even read it anymore, there’s Hattori trying his hardest to motivate Ashirogi through Iwase, and the assistants don’t even laugh when reading over the manuscript. Even Azuki said that “it’ll be popular with the kids” when it was first serialized – implying it’s not so hot with everyone else. While Tanto isn’t exactly a crappy manga, it definitely doesn’t fulfill Ashirogi’s potential, and leaves them with a bit of a roadblock since they can’t get anywhere with it. Yes Miura, this is all your fault. So what to do now? Well, cause yet another shitstorm in the editing department and quit of course! trollface

I thought it was going to be a peaceful wedding, then I remembered that this is Bakuman xD I wish Mashiro was going to be a bit more subtle rather than just standing up and shouting like that, which definitely worried everyone else, especially Takagi. In all other situations Takagi would have been right to go and find out what’s going on, but at his own wedding? Miyoshi must have been kinda pissed to see that he found someone else’s argument more important. Oh wait, I think I have to call her Kaya now don’t I?

He sure made the decision to quit really fast though, right after interaction with Hattori and Azuki, as well as seeing Niizuma on TV. It must have really stung for the TV presenter to know who Niizuma was (as well as group Crow with Shounen Jump flagships like Naruto and One Piece) but not have any idea who Ashirogi Muto is, despite them writing for the same magazine.

Ashirogi are treading on very thin ice right now, since if they fail to get serialized by the end of the year, their dream is pretty much over. It’s not gonna be that easy as well, as they’ve seen with Tanto, and new competitors are probably going to stand in their way. The other part of the agreement also bugs me – Ashirogi’s new manga having to surpass Crow and +Natural. Since it’s the serialization panel that decides which manga to put in and kick out, will they judge Ashirogi’s work based on whether it’s good enough to get serialized, or whether it can beat Niizuma Eiji?

Also – given everything that’s happened, I don’t think this is of any significance (yet) but Iwase’s started making moves on Hattori. Awkward much?