The march toward manga relevancy continues.

Last week, our intrepid duo fell just short of winning some publication award. No big deal right? After all, it was their very first shot at this mangaka thing. Undeterred, Mashiro and Takagi charge forward again this week… by wasting lots and lots of paper.

Nobody has a computer, I guess. This seems to be how every manga-focused episode will play out. When the anime isn’t busying itself with Mashiro’s silly puppy love, the anime pounds us with montages after montages of furrowed brows and flying ink.

Too bad everything Takagi writes seems to be sci-fi derivatives. It might just be a smart move on their part though. Why take a chance when the wildly popular shounens are stuff like Naruto and Bleach?

The pair nevertheless manage to impress Hattori yet again though I wonder if he’s just desperate to save his job. Hattori wants to encourage the pair so after effusively praising their improvement since the first attempt, Hattori submits their next piece for judgment as well. This time, however, we don’t have to wait an episode to see the results. Unsurprisingly, the duo fall just short for the second time in a row, but it’s still no big deal, right? I’m sure it took Shakespeare a while to get his acts together. Eh? EH? Ah, whatever… actually, Mashiro takes the loss like a little bitch:

Really, dude? Really?

Fin tells me this is where the manga differs from the anime adaptation. Apparently, Mashiro and Takagi are far more analytical (Fin said it reminded her of Death Note) about their failures in the manga. I had my differences with Death Note, but I dunno, I think this show could use a little bit of Death Note in them. A few wacky potato chips eating scenes could really spice up the repetitive montages in Bakuman.

Mashiro and Takagi’s failure doesn’t go unnoticed. In comes Ishizawa, some classmate with an ugly and punchable face. Oooh, you know he’s a bad guy. He starts taunting their artwork, blaming the pair’s latest shortcomings on Mashiro and Mashiro alone. Apparently, Ishizawa wanted to collaborate with Takagi before the events of the anime started, but in the first episode, Takagi went and recruited Mashiro instead.

Like it was with Eiji, Ishizawa’s portrayal is laughably immature. All the “bad guys” are not only jerks, they even have to be physically unattractive while they’re at it. It’s not quite on par with Shyamalan including a film critic in one of his movies just to be brutally killed, but the antagonists in Bakuman just aren’t credible. The one-sided portrayal (so far) of both Eiji and Ishizawa actually does the story a disservice: I’m not sympathizing with Mashiro like I assume the story wants me to.

While all of this is going on, Miho returns to the silent woman in the background status, daintily watching Mashiro strive for greatness. It’s almost like she’s the loyal housewife awaiting her salaryman husband’s big success. Oh yeah, she’s taking vocal lessons, which was so important that the anime allotted all of five seconds to it. Considering the females in Death Note, however, Miho’s character might actually be an improvement.

Also there’s some quick mention of Takagi’s grades falling yadda yadda yadda.