Bakuman - Episode 12

We're practically at the half-way mark for Bakuman's first season (with a second seemingly already confirmed), and it certainly seems that Moritaka and Akito are going up in the world as they find themselves treated to a meal out by their editor Hattori before being similarly treated to a taxi ride home after a long meeting to discuss the nitty-gritty of their NEXT submission.

With the boy's work on that effort rumbling away in the background throughout, our thoughts for this episode again turn back to romance, and once again we're less than surprised to see problems brewing in the already dysfunctional relationship between Miho and Moritaka.  For starters, the latter still hasn't given the former his e-mai address, but there's more to it than that - with graduation coming up fast the days of sitting next to one another are about to come to an end, but even worse Miho is about to move away, something which she hasn't told Moritaka about yet.  In fact, it seems as though she doesn't even plan to.

Thus, the rest of this episode is spent with Miyoshi in particular running around and sticking her nose in to try and do something, anything to bring Miho and Moritaka closer together before they graduate, only to find her plans of dates and romance closed down by one party or another, largely because the parties in question are ridiculously idealistic morons.  Good grief you two, you both like one another so get a room already and let's stop all this "only when we've achieved our dreams" bollocks, seriously...

In essence, that previous sentence again exposes the biggest problem with Bakuman once it shifts away from its nifty manga creation angle into the mysterious world of the human heart.  While Miyoshi (and her relationship with Akito) has come on leaps and bounds in the last few episodes with or without the help of some "interesting" shorts, Miho and Moritaka remain an obstinate pair of useless fools whose folly began as a kind of cute and romantic ideal, but has increasingly become as irritating as its concept is stupid as the series has progressed.  We're now at the point where their non-interactions has me rolling my eyes, and in short it simply doesn't work for me, with Miyoshi's far more grounded approach offering the only salvation from the stupidity of the other main pairing.  Let's get back to the manga stuff please, before I cringe myself into an early grave...