Should I watch Bakuman?
Note: Im LA
An anime about making manga, with all the gamble, dreams and effort that goes into it, this is Bakuman.
Bakuman is definitely one of the earliest "working anime" anime LA heard of before Shirobako for anime about anime and Sora ga Seiyuu! for anime about voice acting. Bakuman is about the struggles and dreams of Akito Takagi voiced by Satoshi Hino and Moritaka Mashiro voiced by Atsushi Abe wanting to become mangaka, more specifically Shounen Jump ohh LA means Shounen Jack. They face and work with their rivals, strict editorials "missions" and deadlines, hard work into their manga's as well as the process of even making different kinds of manga in the process.
Although Takagi's dream is just to be a mangaka (more on the writers side of things) by working together with Mashiro and getting rich with it, Mashiro (the illustrator) has another goal of wanting a manga to be serialized as a promise for him and his love interest Miho Azuki voiced by Saori Hayami to be the lead heroine and then get married after. Sure it adds in the romance element into this anime but it works for a huge degree for Mashiro's ambitions to be the best in Shounen Jack and his goal striving for him to do be number 1#.
Now you'd think this anime is nothing but the intricacies of making manga, how Shounen Jack handles their manga and whatnot and it does but it also greatly develop their core cast and rivals as well. Some of the biggest surprises for LA for characters would go to Takagi and Kaya Miyoshi voiced by Sayuri Yahagi as they actually get together quite early on and with Kaya wanting to full out support Takagi and Mashiro venture into the strict and volatile world of shounen manga (this and because Kaya is best friends with Miho). Next would be Takagi and Mashiro's rivals more specifically Eijii Nizuma voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto and Shinta Fukuda voiced by Junichi Sawabe. Eijii for being Takagi and Mashiro's primary rival in the early episodes as Eijii is a genius yet hyperactively unfocused mangaka but becoming a sorta frienemy mentor to them later on and Takagi and Mashiro striving to be better than Eijii. Fukuda is more in line the actual rival to Takagi and Mashiro as he's alot more serious in wanting to be serialized like Takagi and Mashiro's goal for this season. Really in essences this anime season really doesn't have the typical rival scthick where the rival is the "bad guy" while making Takagi and Mashiro look better, each of their rivals had their quirks and styles of manga even making their rivals have more than the one dimensional personality of a rival making them to be memorable in a ways (well the exception is Koogy voiced by Shoutarou Morikubo but he never directly confronted Takagi and Mashiro in saying their his rival or his ethnics in making manga was the wrong way to do it etc.)
The other surprising notion is that both of Takagi and Mashiro's respective love interests aren't just one-dimensional cheerleaders. Again there's Kaya and how she supports their ventures into manga but she has personality outside being one of their cheerleader for them (by that, she your typical brutish tsundere but definitely more on the dere side and her even wanting to be a writer like Takagi) and even sometimes causes rifts between Takagi and Mashiro through Takagi wanting to take his relationship with Kaya more seriously while not concentrating on manga. Miho on the other hand, although in this season she's IS a sideline cheerleader love interest for Mashiro, Miho has her own ambitions of being a voice actor so she can be the lead heroine of Mashiro's serialized manga turn anime and she too faces adversity and fears by being an "amateur voice actor" albeit not in great detail to Mashiro's journey to be serialized.
And finally, LA would like to point out that even the editors of Shounen Jack develops along with their respective mangaka but the best focused ones goes to Takagi and Mashiro's editor Akira Hattori and Yuujirou Hattori, Eijii Nizuma and Shinta Fukuda's editor and Hisashi Sasaki voiced by Kenyuu Horiuchi the Editor-in-Chief of Shounen Jack gets some focus (mainly business-supportive-wise NOT personally of course). What else can LA say but the obvious for Bakuman, character development is excellently done even for this HUGE cast of mangaka's, editors, love interests and rivals of the sort get the subtle detail treatment and LA loves it!.
The animation done by JC Staff is greatly done in almost every front, from the slick character designs to the manga's that many of the mangaka's gives out are in superb quality, better yet are many of the scenes where people are reading the manga (and voice acted out in people's heads) and the manga is shown to great detail as well. JC Staff really outdid themselves with the animation and manga aesthetics with this one.
The voice work was also pretty great with no grating annoying voices in sight. Highlights would go to Atsushi Abe and Satoshi Hino of course, but the craziest voice actor easily goes to Nobuhiko Okamoto doing an almost 24/7 "Awakened Level 5 Accelerator" vocals on Eijii Nizuma...just JESUS Nobuhiko go all out with this one. However LA's favourite voice actors would go to Sayuri Yahagi as Kaya...because of her deredere vocals being amazing alright..simple as that.
Ok, LA didn't find many faults with Bakuman but just one little thing that kinda dumbfounded LA about Bakuman would be why Shounen Jump was changed to Shounen Jack, because here's the thing, Bakuman namedrops ALOT of manga from Shounen Jump, from Naruto, Bleach to One Piece and they even have manga covers showing them yet Jump changed to Jack?, was it because JC couldn't get the "license" to have Jump namedropped but their titles instead or that Jump just didn't want unblazened advertising in an anime because that would be unfair advertising for other manga magazines?, which doesn't makes sense due to Shounen Jump's titles being referenced alot but not Jump itself?...LA doesn't know WHY but still irked LA they changed it.
However if there is one little fault LA could see and this is entirely LA's perspective and that is Mashiro and Miho's long distance relationship as it were. LA already defended this relationship as Miho and Mashiro both have their own ambitions that leads into their dream, however besides the two being the cheerleaders on both sides, their interactions largely consisted of being twice shy and only rarely opening up to each other but being supportive nonetheless. LA isn't saying this relationship is horrible or anything and LA is sure this relationship would develop further from this in the next season but you can see why LA kinda already favoured Kaya and Takagi more due to their fast process and taking it further than most anime romances do even for a beta couple.
Bakuman is the gamble of the imagination taken real form, of dreams coming true be for the riches or the glory of being serialized. Bakuman is by all means a GREAT anime about looking at the inner workings of the manga industry and it's mangaka's and with fully fleshed out characters, a concentrated focused plot from both it's shounen and romantic aspects and intensity and anticipation of many of the competitions of the best manga being serialized. LA just can't wait to watch the second season!.
Note: Im LA
An anime about making manga, with all the gamble, dreams and effort that goes into it, this is Bakuman.
Bakuman is definitely one of the earliest "working anime" anime LA heard of before Shirobako for anime about anime and Sora ga Seiyuu! for anime about voice acting. Bakuman is about the struggles and dreams of Akito Takagi voiced by Satoshi Hino and Moritaka Mashiro voiced by Atsushi Abe wanting to become mangaka, more specifically Shounen Jump ohh LA means Shounen Jack. They face and work with their rivals, strict editorials "missions" and deadlines, hard work into their manga's as well as the process of even making different kinds of manga in the process.
Although Takagi's dream is just to be a mangaka (more on the writers side of things) by working together with Mashiro and getting rich with it, Mashiro (the illustrator) has another goal of wanting a manga to be serialized as a promise for him and his love interest Miho Azuki voiced by Saori Hayami to be the lead heroine and then get married after. Sure it adds in the romance element into this anime but it works for a huge degree for Mashiro's ambitions to be the best in Shounen Jack and his goal striving for him to do be number 1#.
Now you'd think this anime is nothing but the intricacies of making manga, how Shounen Jack handles their manga and whatnot and it does but it also greatly develop their core cast and rivals as well. Some of the biggest surprises for LA for characters would go to Takagi and Kaya Miyoshi voiced by Sayuri Yahagi as they actually get together quite early on and with Kaya wanting to full out support Takagi and Mashiro venture into the strict and volatile world of shounen manga (this and because Kaya is best friends with Miho). Next would be Takagi and Mashiro's rivals more specifically Eijii Nizuma voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto and Shinta Fukuda voiced by Junichi Sawabe. Eijii for being Takagi and Mashiro's primary rival in the early episodes as Eijii is a genius yet hyperactively unfocused mangaka but becoming a sorta frienemy mentor to them later on and Takagi and Mashiro striving to be better than Eijii. Fukuda is more in line the actual rival to Takagi and Mashiro as he's alot more serious in wanting to be serialized like Takagi and Mashiro's goal for this season. Really in essences this anime season really doesn't have the typical rival scthick where the rival is the "bad guy" while making Takagi and Mashiro look better, each of their rivals had their quirks and styles of manga even making their rivals have more than the one dimensional personality of a rival making them to be memorable in a ways (well the exception is Koogy voiced by Shoutarou Morikubo but he never directly confronted Takagi and Mashiro in saying their his rival or his ethnics in making manga was the wrong way to do it etc.)
The other surprising notion is that both of Takagi and Mashiro's respective love interests aren't just one-dimensional cheerleaders. Again there's Kaya and how she supports their ventures into manga but she has personality outside being one of their cheerleader for them (by that, she your typical brutish tsundere but definitely more on the dere side and her even wanting to be a writer like Takagi) and even sometimes causes rifts between Takagi and Mashiro through Takagi wanting to take his relationship with Kaya more seriously while not concentrating on manga. Miho on the other hand, although in this season she's IS a sideline cheerleader love interest for Mashiro, Miho has her own ambitions of being a voice actor so she can be the lead heroine of Mashiro's serialized manga turn anime and she too faces adversity and fears by being an "amateur voice actor" albeit not in great detail to Mashiro's journey to be serialized.
And finally, LA would like to point out that even the editors of Shounen Jack develops along with their respective mangaka but the best focused ones goes to Takagi and Mashiro's editor Akira Hattori and Yuujirou Hattori, Eijii Nizuma and Shinta Fukuda's editor and Hisashi Sasaki voiced by Kenyuu Horiuchi the Editor-in-Chief of Shounen Jack gets some focus (mainly business-supportive-wise NOT personally of course). What else can LA say but the obvious for Bakuman, character development is excellently done even for this HUGE cast of mangaka's, editors, love interests and rivals of the sort get the subtle detail treatment and LA loves it!.
The animation done by JC Staff is greatly done in almost every front, from the slick character designs to the manga's that many of the mangaka's gives out are in superb quality, better yet are many of the scenes where people are reading the manga (and voice acted out in people's heads) and the manga is shown to great detail as well. JC Staff really outdid themselves with the animation and manga aesthetics with this one.
The voice work was also pretty great with no grating annoying voices in sight. Highlights would go to Atsushi Abe and Satoshi Hino of course, but the craziest voice actor easily goes to Nobuhiko Okamoto doing an almost 24/7 "Awakened Level 5 Accelerator" vocals on Eijii Nizuma...just JESUS Nobuhiko go all out with this one. However LA's favourite voice actors would go to Sayuri Yahagi as Kaya...because of her deredere vocals being amazing alright..simple as that.
Ok, LA didn't find many faults with Bakuman but just one little thing that kinda dumbfounded LA about Bakuman would be why Shounen Jump was changed to Shounen Jack, because here's the thing, Bakuman namedrops ALOT of manga from Shounen Jump, from Naruto, Bleach to One Piece and they even have manga covers showing them yet Jump changed to Jack?, was it because JC couldn't get the "license" to have Jump namedropped but their titles instead or that Jump just didn't want unblazened advertising in an anime because that would be unfair advertising for other manga magazines?, which doesn't makes sense due to Shounen Jump's titles being referenced alot but not Jump itself?...LA doesn't know WHY but still irked LA they changed it.
However if there is one little fault LA could see and this is entirely LA's perspective and that is Mashiro and Miho's long distance relationship as it were. LA already defended this relationship as Miho and Mashiro both have their own ambitions that leads into their dream, however besides the two being the cheerleaders on both sides, their interactions largely consisted of being twice shy and only rarely opening up to each other but being supportive nonetheless. LA isn't saying this relationship is horrible or anything and LA is sure this relationship would develop further from this in the next season but you can see why LA kinda already favoured Kaya and Takagi more due to their fast process and taking it further than most anime romances do even for a beta couple.
Bakuman is the gamble of the imagination taken real form, of dreams coming true be for the riches or the glory of being serialized. Bakuman is by all means a GREAT anime about looking at the inner workings of the manga industry and it's mangaka's and with fully fleshed out characters, a concentrated focused plot from both it's shounen and romantic aspects and intensity and anticipation of many of the competitions of the best manga being serialized. LA just can't wait to watch the second season!.
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