Before you even ask, yes, I’m just torturing myself by continuing to read this series. ^_^;;
In the first four volumes of Manga no Tsukurikata (まんがの作り方), we were introduced to Kawaguchi, a former mangaka who decides to take up the pen again, Morishita, a famous manga artist in her own right, and who is in love with Kawaguchi, and Takeda, who is a great admirer of Kawaguchi and of Sachi, Morishita’s professional penname.
In addition, we encounter Kawaguchi’s younger brother and her editor who seems to be seduced by the same glamour that Morishita is affected by. I call it a glamour because the Kawaguchi we’re seeing has…well…nothing going for her. She’s not too smart, not terribly creative, kind of lazy and yet, everyone loves her.
In response to importuning from her editor, Morishita decides to move to Tokyo and somewhat inexplicably Takeda decides to go with her. In the beginning of Volume 5 Kawaguchi visits them. In the early pages of the volume this panel appears:
For any number of reasons I think it a perfect analogy for the entire series.
In any case, Kawaguchi visits Morishita and Takeda, and we get to watch her reaffirm that she likes having Morishita around, but still doesn’t actually love her.
The rest of this volume is taken up with Takeda’s crisis of identity as she finally, painfully comes to terms with the fact that Morishita is her favorite manga artist, Sachi and while she adores Sachi and is thrilled to be able to help Sachi by doing housework and cooking for her, she really cannot stand Morishita.
And, erm…that’s about it for this Volume.
So, hey, more happened than in previous volumes, so I guess that’s good.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 3
Service – 1
Overall – 6
It always feels like this series is going to do something…and then…it never does.
This volume comes packaged with a short original doujinshi, “Ryuuna to Ichiko” in which a house fire brings a “cool” girl closer to the “nerdy” girl in class.
Wow, Erica. You have a huge amount more tolerance for pretty much zero story progression than I do.
At this point based on your summaries, I’m not really sure that it would make any difference if someone read the volumes out of order.
Reading the volumes ouf of order reminds me of…
I’ve once read the whole volume of Soryo’s Mars from the end to the beginning wondering why the narration suddenly became so complicated and only then realized that my version is mirrored and I shouldn’t have started from the right… That tought me that messing with order may enrich the experience of absorbing otherwise not-so-stimulating art :)
I’m glad that MnT exists. You know, it’s one of its kind. Maybe author’s act of desperation. Definetely failed experiment (how often do you get to see failed experiments develop for so long…?). Is Kawaguchi Author’s Avatar anyway?
Haha, you’re right, that panel really does symbolize the whole series.
Actually, this is one of those weird stories where there is a lot going on, but simply not in the direction most readers would like it to go. It’s very obvious to me that Kawaguchi loves Morishita a whole lot. The mere fact that a pretty woman like her doesn’t even once try to get something going on with someone else besides Morishita is quite telling, really.
The frustrating part is that we never find out why Kawaguchi holds herself back. Is she emotionally constipated? Is she afraid? Is she perhaps even just a bit mean, enjoying to string poor Morishita along? With every released chapter these questions become more pressing, and it’s about time the mangaka started addressing them.