[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.
