RTMI: Bakuman

Welcome to Relevant to My Interests! This is where we watch/read and review the anime series, or manga chapters that we think are particularly relevant to our interests!

Junior high student Mashiro Moritaka is the nephew of  well known mangaka (manga artist) Mashiro Nobuhiro. As a child, he dreamt of becoming  a mangaka himself  as he idolized his uncle, but an unfortunate event struck; his uncle died due to overwork. He gave up on his dream when suddenly, Takagi Akito, his classmate and also the top student of his school, found his notebook with a drawing of  his long-time crush, Azuki Miho.  Taking the notebook as hostage, Akito persuades Mashiro to team up and become mangakas.

At first, Mashiro   has second thoughts  about being a mangaka when Takagi suddenly gives him a telephone call and tells him that he’s going to confess to Miho. Panicking, Mashiro quickly went over to Miho’s house only to find out  Takagi was not going to make a confession of love, but a confession that the two of them will become mangakas. Surprisingly, Miho  became very happy and excited when she heard  it since she was aiming to be a seiyuu (voice actress). They promised that once their work becomes an anime, Miho will be the seiyuu of the main heroine.

Everything is going well when suddenly Mashiro  blurts out that after their dreams have come true, he wants to marry Miho. After hearing that, Miho blushed and quickly ran inside the house. Takagi – and even Mashiro himself – was shocked with what he just said. Mashiro thought that he was been dumped but they suddenly heard Miho’s voice  over the intercom and said yes, she will marry Mashiro which caused Mashiro and Takagi to be more shocked than earlier. But the deal is, they cannot see or talk to each other until they fulfill their dreams. With this, Mashiro has made up his mind that together with Takagi, they will become a successful mangakas.

With Mashiro as the illustrator and Takagi as the writer, they both work hard and do their best in order to publish their work on the one of the most known Manga Publisher in Japan, the Weekly Shounen Jump (Weekly Shounen Jack in Anime).

Colocoy thinks:

From the creators of DeathNote, Tsugumi Ohba (writer) and Takeshi Obata (illustrator), I didn’t expect a genre like Bakuman will be their next work. At first, I thought it wouldn’t expect it to be interesting because its title sounds like the other anime, “Bakugan”, but my opinion changed after reading the manga.

The story is like a manga within a manga since they are talking about “How do mangakas work on their mangas”. The whole process on how manga works inside the company is being discussed and some tips on how they draw their mangas. They also give some real mangas as example such as Naruto, One Piece, To-Love-Ru and Ashita no Joe to give more explanation to their current situation. The concept itself is very interesting (especially for me who once dreamed of becoming a comic artist myself way before) which gave me a reason to put it on my weekly manga reading list.

In addition, Mashiro and Miho’s love story is very very interesting. Even some may say that what they want is very idealistic in some point but my heart is somehow cheering for the both of them. Hence I think their love story is one of my favorite.

As an anime, JC Staff’s style was very well suited for Bakuman. The character design, the art style the music was fitted for the story (I wonder how they felt while putting other studio’s work on the background like Naruto /gg). They also managed to put the comedic reactions from the manga so it really feels like I am watching the anime. I also salute to whoever thought of using “Shounen Jack” as for publisher’s name, very clever if you ask me.

Though when I checked the voice actors of the characters, something bothered me. The main character, Mashiro, was voiced by Abe Atsushi which most of his voice was given to extra characters like an Ishbalan Boy in Full Metal Alchemist, and random boy in Asu no Yoichi (though he voiced for Kamijo Touma  of To aru Majutsu no Index), their supporting characters was voiced by more popular voice actors. Some examples are  Nizuma Eiji voiced by Okamoto Nobuhiko (Minami Itsuki of Air Gear, Layfon Alseif of Chrome Shelled Regios and Usui Takumi of Kaicho wa Maid-sama), Fukuda Shinta voiced by Suwabe Junichi (Archer of Fate/ Stay Night, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques of Bleach and Komuro Takashi of Highschool of the Dead) and Aoki Ko voiced by Kawasumi Ayako (Elie of Groove Adventure: Rave, Hime of Princess Resurrection and Saber of Fate/ Stay Night).

During the first season, they announced that their second editor, Miura Goro, won’t be appearing on the anime, HOWEVER, he suddenly made his appearance on the after credits of the last episode. After that scene, they announced that there will be a season 2! Something that must be looked forward in the upcoming animes! OH YEAH!

Tags: Anime & Manga, Bakuman, JC Staff, manga, RTMI, バクマン。