Search Results for: bakuman
Bakuman (vols. 3-5) by Tsugumi Ohba, art by Takeshi Obata, translated by Tetsuichiro Miyaki
Manga-maker wannabes: check out this illuminating insider look (but do start with volumes 1 and 2), then make sure to study every detail if you’re hoping to break into one of the toughest industries around.
But before we talk story, here’s a quick refresher on names: Moritaka Mashiro is the artist (and primary narrator) who also goes by Saikō, an alternative pronunciation of Moritaka (which means “most high”); Akito Takagi is the writer also known as Shūjin (from Takagi, which means “autumn person”) – together, the high schoolers create manga as Muto Ashirogi. Okay, so we’re all clear now who’s who, right?
Volume 3 opens with a third-place win for Muto Ashirogi in manga magazine Akamaru Jump. It’s a good showing, but not good enough to get their own series. While Mashiro and Takagi are in the Shueisha office arguing with their editor Hattori about next steps, boy-genius Eiji Nizuma (who’s showing more and more similarities to “L” in Ohba/Obata’s legendary series, Death Note) arrives in the midst of a mobile yelling match with his editor, and the whole office witnesses his genius in action. Meanwhile, Miho breaks into the voiceover business with her first (small) part, which makes Mashiro want to work even harder so they can be together sooner than later. Takagi finally succumbs to the less-than-subtle charms of schoolmate Miyoshi, which makes Mashiro question Takagi’s commitment to becoming the next great manga team. The pair take the summer break apart: while Takagi works to create a bestselling storyline, Mashiro joins Nizuma’s team in hopes of becoming a better manga-maker. In Nizuma’s studio, he meets fellow assistants Fukuda, another young determined manga artist, and Nakai, a middle-aged manga veteran who’s always an assistant, never the artist (but just wait …!).
The summer separation becomes an actual rift in volume 4 and the dynamic duo part ways! Say it ain’t so! … Okay, it ain’t so (only for a couple of chapters). WHEW! When they realize they’re completely in synch about the next manga project, they’re convinced that Muto Ashirogi is destined for greatness and promise to work harder than ever. Over in voiceover-land, Miho’s up against a skeezy manager who’s demanding she do things she won’t be proud of …
Volume 5 opens with four additions to the Muto Ashirogi studio – three new assistants and Miyoshi who turns out to be rather helpful now that she’s decided that enabling the boys’ success is her dream, too. They’ve also been assigned a new editor, who is not nearly as experienced as Hattori who got them this far. Staying ahead of the competition – many of whom also now happen to be their friends – requires more work than Mashiro and Takagi ever imagined, never mind passing their last year of high school, getting any sleep, and everything else. These teenage manga-makers are living their dream … right …?
Realizing this is shōnen manga (targeted specifically at a young male audience), I know I shouldn’t be surprised that the artist’s angle focuses far too often on Miyoshi’s ample body parts (are comments about the color and pattern of her underwear really necessary??!!). We don’t see Miho as often, but her costumes (for voiceovers?!) sure are noticeably skimpy. Testosterone-titillations aside, how disappointing and annoying that Miyoshi gives up her own dream of becoming a cell phone novelist to ease the boys’ path to success. Which makes me ask, why can’t boys’ manga have more lasting girl power thrown in?
Ever so begrudgingly moving such complaints aside, Bakuman does make for fascinating reading about the challenging, fickle world of manga-making … and ultimately makes us manga addicts that much more appreciative of the tenacity of the artists’ achievements.
Click here to check out all Bakuman volumes on BookDragon.
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2011 (United States)
BAKUMAN © Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Original Japanese edition published by Shueisha Inc, Continue reading
Bakuman 2 by Tsugumi Ohba, art by Takeshi Obata, translated by Tetsuichiro Miyaki
The Three (teenage) Musketeers from Bakuman 1 are back: writer Takagi, artist Mashiro, and voice actress Azuki. They’re even more determined that they become a successful manga team (Takagi and Mashiro), with characters that Azuki can someday (soon!) bring to life with her voiceovers.
As young as they are, artist Mashiro and actress-to-be Azuki have already promised marriage to each other as soon as they achieve success. Never mind that they’ve taken a virtual vow of silence with each other in the meantime … how can they possibly get to know one another beyond their dreamy gazes? But apparently in-class, on-the-margin scribbles (they’re arbitrarily assigned seats next to each other!), as well as texts and emails seem to be okay communication aids, so maybe they’ll eventually discover each other’s souls. Hey, this is 21st century-style courting, after all!
But back to the boys … and the manga-making. The new volume opens with Takagi and Mashiro outside the offices of real-life publishing giant Shueisha, waiting to meet with their very own editor, Akira Hattori, who works on the ever-popular, highly influential Weekly Shōnen Jump manga magazine. Hattori is willing to take a chance on the youthful pair, even placing them head-to-head with the latest manga sensation, 15-year-old high school prodigy Eiji Nizuma. Hattori is critical but encouraging, which is just what the boys need to get them to the next level … and soon enough, publication here they come!
Volume 2 provides a detailed, insider look at the calculated, micro-managed world of manga publishing, essential reading for any wannabe manga-makers. The Ohba/Obata team is certainly well aware of the pitfalls, challenges, and especially the upside to worldwide success as they’re also the creators of the international enterprise spawned from their mega-selling Death Note series. What a chance to learn the (grueling) process from the experts, complete with unforgettable facial expressions and associated weeping and whooping! Go, team, go!
To get the backstory with the debut volume, click here.
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2010 (United States)
BAKUMAN © Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Original Japanese edition published by Shueisha Inc. Continue reading
Bakuman 1 by Tsugumi Ohba, art by Takeshi Obata, translated by Tetsuichiro Miyaki
At 14, Moritaka Mashiro figures he’s “just going to live a normal life.” For a teenager, that translates into “getting into a good high school, a good college and a good company to work for.” But he’s not quite ready to mindlessly accept such a “boring future,” least of all because just one word from the gorgeous Miho Azuki could make him forget everything else …
When Mashiro rushes back to school for a mislaid notebook he needs for an upcoming test, he finds top student Akito Takagi waiting for him. Takagi has a dream that he’s convinced only Mashiro can help make come true … by combining his writing skills with Mashiro’s already award-winning drawing prowess, the two boys could become the next great manga team!
Mashiro’s got plenty of arguments not to even try, least of all memories of his young uncle who actually was a manga artist and died mysteriously and tragically three years ago. He’s got all the statistics that prove how impossible such a manga dream is, even quoting the author of the real-life phenomenally successful Death Note series as proof. The remark is, of course, a witty little self-reference as Bakuman is created by the same team as Death Note! Success has definitely not been elusive for this bestselling pair …
Takagi drags Azuki into a dreamy pact, forcing Mashiro to join in for the sake of his young love. Azuki confesses she wants to be a voice actress … and she wants to star in the boys’ anime, so they absolutely must be successful. When all their dreams come true, she promises she’ll even marry Mashiro, just like that! Oh, young 21st-century love!
That’s just the first chapter of this engaging, serendipity-filled new series about how effort, ingenuity, and fierce imagination just might make dreams come true. Something tells me this manga will have a long, long shelf life. Its still-popular predecessor Death Note had 12 volumes (in English alone), and spawned an anime series, a live-action film, video games, associated novels, and multiple soundtracks. A Bakuman franchise is inevitable …
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2010 (United States)
BAKUMAN © Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Original Japanese edition published by Shueisha Inc. Continue reading
I’ll Give It My All … Tomorrow (vols. 3-4) by Shunju Aono, English adaptation by Akemi Wegmüller
Nope, tomorrow still hasn’t arrived for midlife slacker Oguro. As volume 3 opens, Oguro continues to struggle with his manga-making, his disappointed father isn’t above smacking him since “just telling [him] isn’t doing it,” and his teenage daughter has little choice than to detachedly watch the father/son duels.
In between having powwows with himself at 15, 17, 22, 32, his current 42-year-old self, and God (!), Oguro works at H Burger, drinks with buddy Miyata, and churns out middling manga. Told by an expensive fortuneteller that changing his name will change his luck, Oguro decides he’s now “Person Nakamura,” ready to break “this unconscious tendency toward safety.” His inaugural work as Person, Revamp Yourself: Sayonara Stressful Lifestyle, not only reflects his new renegade spirit, but his editor Murakami actually likes the story! Could Oguro’s manga career finally be a possibility?
Since he dropped out of corporate life to pursue his manga dreams, Oguro himself hasn’t gotten very far, but he’s ironically inspired others to find freedom elsewhere: Miyata announces he’s trading in his white collar for a white apron and open a bakery, and Murakami decides life’s too short not to live an honest life and resigns his editor-ship after two years of holding Oguro’s hand.
So close to being published by volume 4, Oguro is – not surprisingly – the last to learn that Murakami has quit. Newbie editor Unami, just 23, offers to take on Oguro when no one else will claim him. At their first working meeting, Unami is blunt: her “I think you need to know when to give up” sends Oguro into a downward spiral so pathetic that he might actually be done with manga.
In a late-night, drunken reverie in Miyata’s new bakery, the old friends remember their poignant shared youth, and how they’ve always supported each other, even against the biggest bullies. Oguro’s memories of fighting against all odds as a kid, no matter the bloody consequences, recharges his commitment to manga: “I’m sticking with manga to the death.”
Meanwhile, editor Unami is battling demons of her own. She equates Oguro’s not-yet-successful devotion to her own father’s writing failures, and empathizes with what she believes must be Oguro’s daughter’s anguish over being a failure’s child. But Suzuko is making plans of her own, announcing to a surprised Oguro that she’s off to Finland to study architecture.
Lives are moving on … and as Oguro grows older, he hardly seems wiser. Still, his determination to live a life in pictures might yet convince even his staunchest naysayers otherwise.
Fans of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s Bakuman will definitely recognize many of the processes (obstacles?) of getting manga published, although the experience of reading both series couldn’t be less similar: Bakuman’s creators’ artwork is all about rich, glorious detail; Oguro’s maker Shunju Aono doesn’t move much beyond basic line drawing here. Still, Oguro’s simplicity exudes a certain naïve charm, and when even the “brutally honest” Unami gets pulled back into Oguro’s orbit, hope returns anew that even slackers might someday, somehow give it their all … even as soon as tomorrow.
Click here for previous volumes on BookDragon.
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2011 (United States)
OREWAMADA HONKIDASHITENAIDAKE © Shunju Aono
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc. Continue reading
Death Note (vol. 1) by Tsugumi Ohba, art by Takeshi Obata, translated by Tetsuichiro Miyaki
As my children get more tech-savvy which means I become more of a Luddite, their favorite exasperated phrase seems to be “Maaaah-ahm, you just do this!” So in one of my son’s ‘just‘ moments, I got him to download Viz Media’s free iPad app for reading manga. The original announcement came with a free download of the opening volume of the phenomenally successful Death Note series – in case you had any doubt, the graphics are eye-poppingly stunning. Available in English in 12 volumes, the series has also spawned a virtual enterprise of anime, live-action films, video games, and on and on … who knew death could be so addictive?
Here’s the premise: high schooler Light Yagami is pretty close to perfect (that in itself is fantasy, some parents might argue). He’s got perfect grades, is popular at school, and well-loved at home. With such a perfect life, he’s also getting rather bored.
When he finds a mysterious how-to-notebook-of-sorts, he’s not quite certain that the contents are real … until he follows the directions and realizes he can control death. Choosing a violent criminal as his initial test case, Light writes the criminal’s name while visualizing his face; eerily, the notebook claims its first victim. Enter Ryuk, visible only to Light as the Death Note’s new owner; Ryuk is the Death Note’s shinigami – a death god (the word shinigami is also a homonym for ‘death paper,’ or ‘death note’).
Being a genius, Light sees all sorts of endless possibilities, most obviously purging the world of evil. With Ryuk’s encouragement, Light gets to play god from a distance, without bloodshed (as long as that’s what he chooses). As he progressively wipes out who he deems good or evil, the police quickly take notice and the entire international community joins in on the hunt …
Created by the same dynamic duo whose latest series is Bakuman, Death Note is a chilling look at infinite power. The ultimate question is never far: what would YOU do?
For all the other volumes of Death Note (12 total) on BookDragon, click here.
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2005 (United States)
DESU NŌTO © Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Original Japanese edition published by Shueisha Inc. Continue reading
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Subscribe to RSS
