Bakuman is an anime series based on the manga of the same name by the creators of Death Note. The story was based on the Death Note creators’ experiences while under Shonen Jump when they were still new, and before they found success with Death Note and Platinum End. Some even say that the events from Bakuman were inspired by actual incidents that’s happened in the creators lives during the 2000s during the heydays of Death Note.
It focuses on high schoolers Morita and Akito who both want to be pretty popular mangakas in Japan while still in school and dealing with the “tradionalist” views from adults on how and what they should grow up to be and trying to especially get it popular enough to have an anime adaptation.
Morita’s uncle was known for creating a very popular manga series at the time but unfortunately but died from overwork. Morita is trying to forge his own path to achieve his goals while avoiding the same fate that befell his uncle. Morita’s family except for his mother, is not supportive of his career path but he is determined to follow his chosen career despite the naysayers.
Given the manga creator nature of the story, there is a lot of references to Shonen Jump mangas and some of the characters were based on people who worked for Shonen Jump at the time, from editors to other mangakas.
Everyone often has their own perspective on what is an ideal story and how mangaka should conduct themselves in the story. In real life, each mangaka has their own style of story like Ai Yazawa wouldn’t obviously carry the kind of writing style of Eichiro Oda. Just like it’s said to be in real life, creating a manga in the series isn’t easy and it shows the various pitfalls from ideas not being executed as how they want it to be, from the office politics especially from Shonen Jump during the time of the 2000s and in the anime what’s popular there at the moment was said to be gag manga.
The characters were likeable with Aoki who is from a Shojo background and Nakai who loves to be miserable without trying to improve his situation. The anime provides some insights on how manga making works and how it gets published at the time. The comedy in the series makes sense given the nature of the story.
The animation and the art were both ok. It really isn’t that easy being a mangaka there.
Overall, it was a decent series.
It gets 4 out of 5 stars.