Bakuman 2 – Sexism Is the Key to Your Dreams!

lolwut (Yeah, I am way late to the party on this. That’s what I get for watching anime rather than reading manga.)

But, hey, I guess invisible fathers have earned the right to make rulings on things like this — that’s the kind of authority you get when you’re never around and don’t have real interactions with your kid. Why waste time with dumb shit like that when you can delegate to the little lady? That’s how men get things done. Respect.

Reading about some of the stuff in Bakuman, I can’t help but want to give the author the benefit of the doubt since the sexism seems just so absurd (and, really, probably not out of place given the subject matter). But you can never be too sure about these things; just when you think people can’t get any dumber, they always find a way to lower the bar. It could be deconstructing prevalent attitudes in the society/industry . . . or it could just be another example of them. Hell if I know.

I don’t think JC Staff really knows, either, since — if gg’s subtitles are more or less accurate, of course, and I’m assuming they are — it seems as if they tone down the scene where Takagi explains Azuki’s appeal and rips apart Iwase. Here, he kind of idealizes Azuki but kind of describes her as normal, too, whereas he chastises Iwase for just being book smart and nothing else. (Which is more anti-intellectual than sexist, I guess, haha.) But — again, benefit of the doubt here — it’s probably easy to forget that Takagi is in middle school and, thus, a dumbass, no matter how smart he is. How many non-dumbasses did you know in middle school, especially of the male persuasion? We’re fucking idiots.

By the way, I include myself in this: I was a major dumbass in middle school. Most of my friends were dumbasses, too, and these were honors students.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if any of the schools I went to kept tangible grade rankings that the students had easy access to at any time. Never really saw anyone engaging in intense competition over grades, myself . . . but, then again, I was a dumbass and a slacker, so all that kind of passed over my head. Also, I never went to any schools that were, shall we say, academic powerhouses. Getting people graduated and going to college was a pretty big victory around here, though the schools aren’t quite as dire as that makes them sound.

Anyway, Iwase is just competitive to me. Nothing really wrong with that unless she’s spiking Takagi’s drinks on the side or something. If Kare Kano teaches you anything, it’s that fiery, competitive girls are the best. Throw that whack shit out the window, Takagi.

Kind of lol’d at the passing of the key ceremony too. Have they been paying rent on the uncle’s apartment the entire time? That has to have added up to a hefty sum over time. Clearly, Practical Mom had no say in that decision.