Do not start with me. I know, I know, this manga is a wasteland. It pretends to be Yuri, so here we are. I try, to the best of my ability, to keep Okazu as comprehensive as possible without violating my own standards of  entertainment (which is why you have not seen a hentai collection review in a long while. They are so boring. Girls have unrealistic, messy sex. Wow. Really, how exciting.)

So, while Manga no Tsukurikata, Volume 6 (まんがの作り方) is not actually indecent by my very relaxed standards, it is no way decent, either. Indifferent manga artist Kawaguchi has been abandoned by Morishita who has a crush on her. Takeda, who has a crush on Morishita and hopes one day to debut herself has moved with her to Tokyo.

But, when Takeda sees Morishita’s editor macking on her, she realizes that her chances of debuting are small and something important happens – Takeda suddenly becomes the only character in the book that has a plot.

Crush, crush, nasty crush…the Yuri landscape painted in Manga no Tsurikata is grim. So grim, it’s a veritable DMZ of emotion. But now, after 6 volumes of watching two talentless hacks inexplicably make it in professional manga without hardly any effort, drive or skill, Takeda, bitter, unappreciated Takeda, stands up and takes this crappy series over as the only 3-dimensional character.

Ratings:

Art – Hirao nails ennui
Character – Practically existentialist
Story – I don’t know, maybe we’ll get one in Volume 7
Yuri – One for each crush (so, 3)
Service – I don’t want to think about it

Overall – Somewhere out there, someone must like this series. I wonder why

In Volume 3 of Manga no Tsukurikata (まんがの作り方), Kawaguchi continues to be an apathetic and uninspired artist and it beats me how she got enough work done to get a tankoubon out or how it could ever sell, since I can’t project that someone so passionless could draw a compelling story. She’s also a miserable girlfriend, if you can even call her that at all. Takeda’s spiteful and unpleasant and Morishita is…I don’t know what Morishita is. Masato’s just pathetic.

In fact, the *only* reason I picked this volume up is because I knew how it ended. That last chapter happened to be in an issue of Comic Ryuu I bought, and, so for the end chapter alone, I bought the volume. The rest of the volume was exactly as expected – a welter of uninspired writing about an uninspired artist, surrounded by dedication she does not deserve.

And when her girlfriend – the one person who has unreservedly supported her through everything, asks if she likes her, all Kawaguchi can muster is, “Mm.” /spitspitspit/

In a final push to getting a collected volume out, Takeda is extra-specially spiteful and mean and it’s pretty clear that Kawaguchi is using her too.

Clearly Kawaguchi thinks there’s something wrong with her behavior because, after thinking over the situation for a while, she asks Morishita to break up with her. Morishita isn’t surprised. She’s resigned to it.

But after the release of her manga volume and few days apart, Kawaguchi waits for Morishita outside work. Before the younger woman can run, Kawaguchi hands her a pen body. It’s been about two years, she points out. And for their one-year anniversary, she bought Morihita pen nibs. “Will you please go out with me,” she asks as she hand over the body of the pen. And Morishita says, “Yes.”

If this series ended here, it would be forgettable, but harmless. Since it continues, I expect *something* to develop between them now. For Kawaguchi to continue to be passive-aggressive would be unbearable. For Morishita to continue to put up with it would be unreasonable. I expect a Yuri story now, kthanxplz.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 5
Characters – 5
Yuri – 2
Service – 1

Overall – 5

And I want both of them to go tell Takeda to go hang. What a jerk.

In Volume 2 of Manga no Tsukurikata, it’s been a year and Morishita and Kawaguchi are still going out. They haven’t moved past the occasional hand-holding, but hey, that’s okay Kawaguchi’s manga is progressing, so…yay?

Kawaguchi’s plan appears to be working; by going out with Morishita, she has stimulated her creativity and her new manga series has debuted. She is thankful, she is kind, she gives Morishita a one-year anniversary present. Morishita is appreciative, but this prolonged strain on her one-sided feelings is starting to show. She has a crisis of faith about her own manga, and about her relationship with Kawaguchi.

I can’t blame Morishita – in a year, they still aren’t calling each other by their given names, a sign that they haven’t truly moved into any kind of intimate relationship at all. Kawaguchi is supportive and encouraging – everything a sempai ought to be, but still, is failing at the lover part.

For my part as a reader, I’m having a hard time understanding this manga. (“Understanding” as in, “why the heck am I reading this?”) It’s so barely Yuri that it’s almost unfair to give it that label, but it *is* Yuri. Morishita’s feelings are real. I’m having a lot of trouble coping with Kawaguchi’s attitude – a year is a loooooong time to string someone along when you don’t really love them. Her affection for the younger woman is undeniable, but that’s it – it’s affection. Like a sister, a friend, a sempai for her beloved kouhai. It’s annoying to watch Morishita hanging on the hook with no worm in sight.

And then there’s the real plot. The real plot has nothing whatsoever to do with any real or imagined relationship – it’s a meta-story about drawing a Yuri manga. Here I am, the mangaka says to us in each chapter, flailing around trying to write a Yuri manga when I don’t really “get” the whole thing. Which is exactly what the series feels like – a Yuri manga written by someone who doesn’t “get” the whole thing.

The issue of honesty that I brought up in Volume 1 is not addressed at all in Volume 2, and I feel like the mangaka has abdicated authority on the story, The potential is slipping away as chapter after chapter of not hardly anything glides by. As a story of a woman drawing manga, it’s not bad, but there’s this whole issue of her completely fake relationship in the way of my enjoying it. It’s not just Morishita who is being cheated out of a good experience, it’s the reader, as well.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 3
Service – 1

Overall – 6

Best chapter of this volume was when Kawaguchi’s fan/assistant arrives and spends the entire chapter cluelessly dissing Morishita’s art, not realizing she’s a popular mangaka in her own right.