I suppose the downside of this episode was that Azuki can't say year. "We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a happy new e"
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But really a lot of good stuff. Like I thought having them lose like that would have been crazy. Best to leave things like who is the best to the readers. Long as a few people thought it was possible for Ashirogi to win then it should be fine. In the end it needed the other editors to say "whoa wait a second" since obviously Sasaki wasn't going to do anything himself.
Now they are going to head into the fight with a solid new manga. Of course Fukuda seems ready to take action with a new one-shot, but they should still be fine. I'm not surprised Fukuda wanted to do something since while Kiyoshi is doing fine, it seems like it will always just be fine and not great.
And finally Ashirogi gets Hattori back! The dark age of Miura has finally passed. Frankly it was about time and this is the perfect combination for them to reach their potential.
Good news as well for Hattori who needed to escape that crazy girl. Throwing Miura at her was worth some laughs. While he's once again inheriting way more than he deserves, at least Miura shouldn't be able to damage Niizuma too much. Niizuma seems less reliant on his editor to begin with since he does everything at his pace.
Didn't think that they would copy Niizuma and Akina by having Takagi switch to just giving the script. In a sense it seems like a waste since Takagi has gotten all that experience in putting together the panels. Still its almost a benefit for him since he can divert work into other things. If he's focusing on the story and Mashiro the art it almost seems fitting that he'd only worry about the words.
Anyways things are finally looking good.