CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

From Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the duo who brought you Death Note...


[SIZE="7"]Bakuman (バクマン)[/SIZE]

Bakuman follows the story of high school student Moritaka Mashiro, a talented artist who does not know what he wants to do with his future. One day he draws a picture of Azuki Miho, a girl he is secretly fond of, during class and forgets the notebook at school. He comes back to find that his classmate Akito Takagi is waiting for him with his notebook. Takagi tries to convince Mashiro to become a mangaka, a manga artist, with him, only leading to Mashiro's disagreement. Mashiro goes home and thinks about his mangaka uncle, who had only one successful series before he died in obscurity. Mashiro is interrupted by a phone call from Takagi, who says that he is going to tell Azuki that Mashiro likes her. Mashiro runs down to Azuki's house to find Takagi waiting for him. Once Azuki comes out to meet them, Takagi tells her that he and Mashiro are aiming to be mangaka. Mashiro then learns that she wants to be a seiyū, a voice actor, and has shown promise in the field. Mashiro, once again thinking about his uncle, accidentally proposes to Azuki. She accepts. However, she will only marry him after they achieve their dreams. In addition, they cannot see each other until then.

Why is Bakuman so great?
Just because it's not something deep and dark like Death Note doesn't mean that Ohba's writing gets worse. You can expect the same quality of writing from Death Note, just not as serious business. You'd be surprised at the number of twists and turns that can spring from a manga about publishing. The characters are fantastic and numerous. Most of these other characters are editors and other mangaka. Some of them don't turn out to be who you might have expected them to be.

What's most interesting about Bakuman is that it gives you a look at the process of how manga is created. You can see it go from concept to draft to drawing to printing. You get to see the internal politics of a manga publication and the process that a manga has to go through in order to get published and serialized. It has some really interesting opinions that get pretty meta about how Shounen Jump is run. And, it has some pretty neat ideas for manga series.

I've been following it since the first week it was published and pretty much every chapter has been great. It's amazing how each week's chapter ends up springing a twist or cliffhanger while managing to move the plot forward at a good pace and making sense. It's gripping like Death Note was, except instead of elaborate murders, we're dealing with Shounen Jump rankings.

If you like manga (especially ones that run in Shounen Jump), you should read this. And then we can talk about it here (especially the latest chapter's developments), in it's own thread that it most certainly deserves.

Just seeing you talk about it makes me want to read it. Has it been licensed? And by whom, under what line? Basically, is it Shonen Jump, since those are cheaper?

Viz licensed Bakuman just a short time ago and are planning to serialize it in the SJ magazine itself. So, the volumes will come out slower, but there is only about 4 volumes out in Japan currently.

Anyway, I've been liking it quite a bit, and been actually finding the ins-and-outs of serialization rather fascinating...assuming it's (mostly) accurate.

As a side note, Shueisha has opened an english portal site for Weekly Jump.

Yeah, the Bakuman license was just announced last week at SDCC. It's still in serialization in Japan and hit chapter 48 this week.

Chapter 48:
[spoiler]See, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. When the talk of the hiatus first started, I was expecting them to either truck on with shounen logic or to get hiatus'd and do something else. I didn't imagine a long battle involving everyone else threatening to go on hiatus too.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Yeah, everything is just sort of escalating, but it's darn entertaining and I'm not sure what's going to happen. In real life, the head editor guy would probably be in the right, but here, who knows...[/spoiler]

I'm looking forward the anime version to see the characters drawing in violent, energetic strokes that leave a trace of blue light on their wake.

Is it misogynistic and unrealistic? Yes.

Does that make it any less awesome? Absolutely not.

This is the only thing I read in Jump nowadays =/

Is it really misogynistic? I'm not sure I agree with that. It's just typically Shounen in its perception of the opposite sex.

Bakuman is, so far, pretty darned good. However, I'm not considering it as good as DN. It reminds me, in a very weird way, of Hikaru no Go, although it would be difficult for me to explain why.

The relationship between the main character and the love interest is almost too precious for words, by the way. Like a couple of bashful sixth-graders. This is possibly part of the reason I like it. Until this last school-year ended, I had a sixth-grader in the house.

Anyway, look forward to it. It gives a lot of interesting little peeks at what the world of manga publishing is like. Sort of in the same way "Anime Runner Kuromi" gave us a glimpse at the (pre-CGI) world of animation production.

I want to like Bakuman, but I can't bring myself to read it. Ohba and Obata have collectively left a bad taste in my mouth after Death Note, so I'm going to need some convincing before I take up anything by them for awhile, even if it's as far removed from investigative mind games as a teenaged Manga studio.

EricTheFred (post: 1334941) wrote:It reminds me, in a very weird way, of Hikaru no Go, although it would be difficult for me to explain why.

Probably because it's the same artist.

Fish and Chips (post: 1334957) wrote:Probably because it's the same artist.

True, but I was talking about the story (which is a different author.) Although I suppose it's possible that whatever drew Obata to Hikaru was the same sort of thing that drew him to Bakuman, and I am detecting that similarity.

Chapter 49:
[spoiler]I wonder what would happen if there were a cabal of mangaka friends that would do the same thing in real world Jump. Something interesting that I noticed was that the issue of Jump with the boycotts and the first volume of Detective Trap went on sale on the same day. I don't remember them ever talking about being at the point where they could start selling tankobons.[/spoiler]
Fish: What exactly was it about Death Note that turned you against it?

I have to admit I'm curious as well.

Bakuman is extremely enjoyable, and without the supernatural oddness of the previous two series from this manga team I'm really enjoying it more. The insights into the manga industry and the story line are both great and entertaining, if at times a little goofy (the whole pledge thing).

Chapter 50:
[spoiler][SIZE="6"]GUTS[/SIZE]
Crisis averted![/spoiler]

Chapter 51: Everything looks fine after they solved their last crisis, right?
[spoiler]As it turns out, no. Here, we have them trying to figure out what to do with their mystery manga, while facing a competitor in the form of a well established mystery writer. It's kind of strange how the default option when rankings are low is to turn it into a battle manga.[/spoiler]

Chapter 53:
[spoiler]CANCELLED.

This isn't too surprising, since there was some speculation that they'd have to fail at some point. It makes sense. A mangaka's first project isn't always the one that'll make them huge and it'll be interesting to see what sorts of things they come up with for their next series. I liked the way they handled the news.

Something that hadn't occurred to me was the sorts of situations that might happen when they try to become serialized during college. It certainly is a place more ripe for dramabombs and the like.

And I love how different Azuki's texts are from how she acts in person.

That said, guesses on the type of manga they'll be doing next? ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)[/spoiler]