Bakuman 2
Posted: October 11, 2010 Filed under: Bakuman 10 Comments »Tsugumi Ohba / Takeshi Obata – Viz – 2010 – 10+ volumes
Is it okay to review a series that is itself a critique of Shounen Jump manga? What do I say about it? It doesn’t have a Shounen Jump main character? That it’s not very mainstream? It’s already said all those things for me.
I somehow managed to avoid all the hype for Bakuman. Aside from being vaguely aware that people were excited about it, and reading some time ago that it was the newest series by the Death Note team and may be about manga creation, I pretty much screened everything else out. That worked well for Death Note, which I inhaled in a gigantic 6-volume dose in a very short time. Odds are, if you’re reading this, you know more about this series than I did when I picked this book up.
I still loved it. I had a vague idea that it was kind of like a modern Shounen Jump version of A Drifting Life, and a kind of roman à clef for the writer/artist pair within the first few pages. The latter sticks around in my mind, though it is likely untrue, but it’s not really easy to compare it to A Drifting Life. Basically, we meet up with writer Takagi and artist Mashiro as they are taking their work into Shueisha to be evaluated by a Jump editor. From there, we learn all about what it takes to make a Jump manga. Presumably all of it is true, since Bakuman is running in said magazine. We learn about what the editor is looking for, the process for submitting your story, what kind of contests you go through and where your work winds up from there, what kind of ideas make it and how they are interpreted, the competitive element, the editorial hierarchy and what it takes to finally have a series in Jump.
It’s utterly fascinating, and I learned so much from just this volume. This was an excellent place to enter the story too. It looks like the first volume may have mostly been “inspiration.” I will go back and read it, but all the good stuff seems to be here.
I love both the characters, too. They get along really well, I like the fact they are in high school, and I absolutely love Takagi’s stuck-up personality. I do like that Mashiro is the more realistic of the two, but he’s harder to like. He’s motivated to success by a promise to make his dream real before he’s allowed to date and marry the girl he has a crush on. He starts losing his patience at the end of the volume, and begins to get impatient about serialization and rebelling against an editor who’s been very good to them. Rushing forward doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I feel his heart is in the wrong place when it comes to his work… it’s the only thing I don’t like about it right now. I can see it becoming a source of conflict later on, though, so I can see why his personality had to be at least a little volatile.
Well, the other thing I don’t like about it is that I desperately wish it was about Weekly Shounen Champion and Akita Shoten. After seeing the editorial standards, the screening process, and the competitive element for Shounen Jump, I want to know what determines the rather distinctive, powerful flavor of Champion. It would be a lot funnier, I think. That’s not really a criticism, though, that’s just a wish.
I do love that the series seems to be about Death Note, almost. It can’t be, because Obata was drawing for years before Death Note, but there are so many similarities. A writer/artist team, the fact that they write a more mature story completely unlike anything else in Jump, and the dark and creepy tone of their story. Of course, I also cracked up at the Shounen Jump editor lecturing the boys on creating a more Shounen Jump hero, boys who are themselves Jump heroes that are unlike Jump heroes. It was killing me, but I’m also a huge geek. The Shounen Jump stuff might be less interesting to a casual reader. Then again, is there a casual reader that would pick up a series about making a Shounen Jump manga? Maybe if it was by the guys who did Death Note.
Obata’s artwork is definitely much different in this series than it was in Hikaru no Go, which I read the other day. There were a few gag panels that were difficult for me to believe were drawn by him. His character designs and style are just a bit different too, maybe a little simpler. It suits this series, though, and he still has very distinctive character designs that I enjoy immensely. Also, it’s creeping me out a little bit that the editor looks a little like Ryuk.
Overall, I got a big kick out of this, and it was really fun to read. It’s exciting to read the character’s ups and downs while trying to get their own series, and even more interesting to see how they juggle the workload of manga creation with junior high/high school. I love the dynamic between the two main characters, and I love all the information it provided about Shounen Jump. It’s a little geeky, and I’m sure there will be some who are disappointed it’s not at all like Death Note, but for a big comic nerd like me, there’s no better story.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
The series seems to be slightly autobiographical in parts. Some of the later Mangas Mashiro and Takagi create seem to be shout-outs to some of Obata’s early works, especially Cyborg Grandpa-G. That title was later a cult hit that seemed to be cancelled too soon.
Well as far as being realistic goes, Obata’s author comment in the first volume is “there’s no fantasy in this series so I’m a bit nervous about it” so it seems factual. There’s a youtube video too of a Japanese TV show about comics where they go to the SJ HQ, walk around with a copy of Bakuman and try to find the real life counter-parts to the editors contained within. They find the editor Hattori is based on…
Plus, the book design is real nice. It’s almost identical to the Japanese books and not a word bubble or sound effect is out of place hnwhich shows how much attention Viz must be paying to this series right now. I hope it continues through out.
I’ll tell you whats stopping me from picking this up. The allegations of sexism, which apparently is even more dominant than in death note. I’m very sensitive to this stuff and it was part of the reason I never went through with death note despite liking it. So.. Is it?
Nhu: From what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t call it sexist. There are only two female characters I’ve seen so far, the two girlfriends of the main characters. One of them is so shy that she won’t even talk to one of the boys, but she won’t date him until she’s far enough along in her singing career, which I thought was interesting. The other one is sort of a manga stereotype for the loud, pushy friend, but so far she does some enabling, of sorts, so she’s not quite relegated to a girlfriend background character.
The girl pursuing a singing career is more-or-less on equal ground with the boys drawing manga, though we don’t see much of her (at least in what I read). The artist character is very devoted to her, to the point that he’s rushing his manga career in order to get serialized faster and be declared a “success” in his career choice, so that the girl will feel more comfortable with him (or something, they have kind of a weird relationship). I’d be surprised to see any women on the manga side of the story, though, just because it’s Shounen Jump-centric and it’s not very common for women to draw for that magazine.
Autsanaut: Wow, it’s really interesting that they’re mapping everything out to the last detail. I did wonder how many of the editors were based on real people, and how flattering that may or may not be. Now I have to wonder if their rival is based on anybody in particular. It’s nice that Viz is putting so much work into the books, too. I’m looking forward to the rest, so I do hope that the series stays fairly popular and justifies all the extra effort.
@Nhu: I would say that sexism is more prevalent in Bakuman than Death Note, but would I consider those 2 works more sexist than other Jump series? No, the difference being that I believe Bakuman and Death Note accurately, or rather unapologetically, portray the kind of sexism ingrained into modern Japanese society. There’s no gratuitous fanservice. It kind of touches upon how poorly the female characters are treated instead of ignoring it altogether. It’s all very subtle but in a way it hits harder. For instance there’s one part where Takagi calls Azuki smart because she knows that a girl who seems super smart (and is proud of it) isn’t seen as attractive. Ouch. But sadly true for a lot of people. (Takagi isn’t necessarily condoning this view by the way, just giving an example.)
I would definitely say that it’s a series worth reading though. The most valuable insider’s look at the manga industry right now, even if it just focuses on Shonen Jump, that’s still the most widely circulated manga magazine in Japan and produces the top-selling series.
And for the record, she’s mainly pursuing a voice acting career. ^^;
@Autsanaut: Ooo what do I look up on youtube?
@Sesame: even better, here’s the video (skip to a bit more than halfway through) -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwwPNEYsVt4 (could’ve sworn there was an English subtitled one on there but I could not find it -_-)
@connie: I bet there’s a few editors who’ve turned down the chance to be drawn in: especially some of the later editors, some of whom are horrible people or lacking brains. What interests me more is some of the opinions expressed later on in the comic, which are quite critical of the way Jump is run. I wonder if their own editor starting sweating when they wrote some of this stuff in – or even if anything was cut out at their editors behest.
@Autsanaut: Omg it looks amazing, they have it for other SJ titles too! I want to watch more and hope that there’s one that’s subtitled but they’re hard to search for. i-i
IIRC There’s a little bit of pretty awful sexism from Takagi in the first book when he talks about how Miho is the smartest girl in class, so smart she knows to act dumb so she won’t be ostracized for being smart–not because _anyone_ would be ostracized for being smart, but because _girls_ would be. Maybe there’s some truth-about-Japan to that, but supposedly (I haven’t seen it) that line didn’t make it into the anime.
But I didn’t notice any persistent sexism, not really. Later there are two female creators as well. Although it still probably wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test.
Regardless, Bakuman is pretty fun. And the first book is worth reading for setting up some character stuff.
Although I just started re-reading Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga and… there are a couple of incredibly direct hits from that 20-year-old pseudo-mockery. (For example, EaMCDM starts off with the two choosing a pen-name and then dreaming about their wild future successes in outlandish terms. Bakuman… yeah.)
Bakuman is still a good series, despite certain displays of sexism. It just gets singled out because it’s a “slice-of-life” series.
I did write about the issue of sexism in Bakuman. You can read it at: http://www.mangatherapy.com/post/1543578362/sexism-in-japan-bakuman
I am glad that VIZ decided to bring this series over here. It’s a realistic series about what can really happen when working in the manga industry.