…that no women could ever understand. I know I initially said I wasn’t going to write about this show again, but I lied. In what other anime can you find the following gems:
Miura: “Having someone assist you with the inking and tone would help a lot.”
Akito: “Maybe Miyoshi?”
Moritaka: “NO WOMAN WILL GET IN THE WAY OF OUR LOVE!She’s our last resort.”Miyoshi: “Shouldn’t I come then? I could do odd jobs. You’d calm down if a girl was there!”
Akito: “No! There will only be men working today; five of them. This is a man’s workplace.”Akito: “Miura! You didn’t say anything about a girl coming!”
Really? Are we really doing this?
Moritaka is out there, ‘ganbatte-ing’ it up, hobnobbing it with the manga “elite” at some New Year’s party, chilling with his bros and getting totally determined. What about his dear not-quite-a-girlfriend Miho? She’s like a caged bird sitting in her dark castle, waiting for her prince to text her about the amazing life he’s living:
How enviable! Miho even gets to play the damsel-in-distress in Moritaka’s fantasies! Oh no! Where’s a shounen hero when you need one? Thank god this is only a fantasy though. We wouldn’t want the real Miho going outside and getting raped all over the place. That’s just what faceless men in silly fedoras would like to do, i.e. tie you up and stick you up in some rape pyramid.
Moritaka blushes as he fantasizes about putting his not-quite-girlfriend in peril.
So I guess nothing has changed. Watching Bakuman is still like watching two guys bro-fisting over a Lego set while their wives cook and clean in the background.
Moritaka’s got Miho on such an idealized pedestal that I bet he’d rather make passionate love to his buddy Akito than misplace a single strand of hair on her silly, woman head. In fact, this show would be a lot more believable as shounen-ai.
The business of manga production
We all realize by now that this is Bakuman‘s greatest strength. These scenes can be a little dry though, especially when Miura is going on and on about dates, deadlines, and protocol. When the lead assistant tells Moritaka about a discrepancy in his art, I expect to see an example of said discrepancy. For a show about manga, the premiere episode has a surprising lack of, well, manga. For example, shouldn’t the opening have been in manga form with like panels and stuff instead of resembling every lame shounen anime out there? They didn’t even do any interesting shading here. Oh well, I guess Moritaka already thinks his first anime adaptation can’t be too far off.
In any case, I realize that this is a shounen series in itself, but everything gets too bogged down by the characters pausing every minute to ponder something corny and eye-rolling about determination and hard-work. Moritaka sees a professional in action and, with a dumb look on his face, thinks, “He’s really great! I have to work hard!” Later in the same damn episode:
Akito: “Can we be like that?”
Moritaka: “I want to be able to come here every year.”
Akito: “Yeah, we’ll definitely come back.”
Hattori: “For that, you need to work hard….”
Good lord, I get it — you have to work hard. We all have to work hard. Rock hard. But just how many times can you say the same damn thing in a single episode? Bakuman would do itself a huge favor by just sticking to its “How to make a manga!” premise. After all, how many other anime series out there can deliver on the same goods? On the other hand, we already have a billion shounen series out there about determined, hard-working kids. So, y’know, don’t focus on the one aspect of the anime that is generic as all hell.
The stupid faces of Bakuman
I couldn’t stand Bakuman in manga form so I doubt I’d cope with the anime version. Your reviews kindly remind me of this fact. There are several other great mangas about manga-artists out there (and I’m pretty sure Bakuman was originally inspired by Manga-michi) so it saddens me that this one is the most popular and well known…
It was kinda fun to mock, but I don’t really plan on following this show all season long. The minutiae of making a manga never really did interest me. There was some hope Bakuman could rectify this problem, but it didn’t.
Are you going to watch Fate/zero ? or Hunter X Hunter remake those seem to be more main stream animes.
I’m going to have try watching Fate/Zero again tomorrow because I tried earlier today and it bored the hell out of me. Just a bunch of men talking, talking, talking. And yeah, I’ll watch Hunter x Hunter. Just haven’t gotten around to it.
Fate/Zero is at its beginning stage, so it’s basically boring dialogue at the start. Also, Fate/Zero is attempting to stand on its own, so its expositions dominate. I’m thinking it’ll get better considering the opening song was livelier in comparison to Fate/Stay Night’s.
If you need to have boring dialogue to set up a story though, isn’t this a clue to rework the plot?
The faces in the manga are lovely. Actually, the manga itself has a more crazy feeling to it, while the anime tries to be calmer. Which… comes off as bad. I’ve only read the first 3 volumes, but the romance part wasn’t as annoying in it.
I think the romance part just makes the show an easy target. Is this unfair? Eh, who cares? An anime can’t cry and people who do like Bakuman don’t normally read this blog anyway.
Such a meanie
Oh well~
Yeah, it should be a Shounen-ai; what happens when they’re separated from each other for a period? They both fall apart and become desperate and depressed. What happens when they’re separated from their apparent girlfriends? Nothing at all. It’s funny how the only female character I can remember who isn’t a girlfriend/relative (the female manga writer) thinks they’re kinda pathetic, though, given that they’re obvious author avatars. And for a series about how great being a manga writer is, it’s actually incredibly bleak when you look beyond the surface; main character’s uncle worked himself to death, they have to totally throw away their idea of a good story to shift units, the people who employ them basically rip them off at every turn, sounds like a laugh. And the main characters are so boring that they don’t even come top of those character polls Jump is so keen on.
And I’d still watch it over any of the other series that have come out so far in this series.
I just looking forward to Nizuma Eiji and the new manga guy whose name I continuously forget. Bakuman is bland, but the manga production part of the series is what motivates me to watch. The moment they tone down on the manga… dropping it.
In fact, this show would be a lot more believable as shounen-ai.
If it were, it’d be mildly interesting to watch. As someone who likes to draw I thought I’d give it a shot but Bakuman is so horribly sexist and I was somewhat mortified how they portrayed the women here especially when Shounen Jump has successful titles like D.Grayman, Reborn and enigma which were written and drawn by women. Bleh.
Yeah, I wondered why there was such a lack of women at the New Year’s party. Some pretty lady showed up, but she didn’t even have a single line.
but she didn’t even have a single line.
In the Bakuman universe you can’t be a woman and have something relevant to say I guess.
Ghostlightning reads your blog…i think.
I only read the manga up to a point. don’t get how people can tolerate the naivety. “we’ll be together when your manga is turned into an anime~”. yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh…right.
i wish they’d just follow kaiji (which i really recommend you watch, if u want puzzles you can follow) and remove women from the “bakuman universe” altogether. the mangaka seriously doesn’t know how to write women or romantic plots. death note lacked in that department too. orrr he is just a blatant sexist.
Don’t think so. Not since we first started blogging, anyway.
Well, Death Note was pretty sexist too!
i think you missed the point i was trying to make. i know death note was sexist. the question i posed was – is he doing this on purpose or is he just bad at writing women-related shit?
I think few people are explicitly sexist so it would really depend on what you think sexism means. The answer to your question is probably somewhere in between, but closer to the latter.
Hahahaha o wow o god what is this
episode 2
hahahaha
bakuman you so bad
I haven’t and won’t watch it! So I don’t know what you’re talking about!
It focuses in romance and drama. I guess you know how that usually turns out to be, only this time, even worse.
I am reading the manga and I think that is pretty good but I agree with you it is a little bit sexist but even if I don’t like that is something that I had to get used to considering that they are japanese and that mangas are based in a japanese society. Even some mangas that are written by women are sexist for example Kanan Minami or Mayu Shinjo mangas or shoujo in general is pretty weird to find a shoujo heroine that doesn’t need a man to depend on. Despite that the Bakuman drawing is very good except from when it is very comical and the story that is very entertaining and even if it’s not 100 % realistic I have learned a lot I know that the lesson of working hard is very common but that’s what shonen is about and I like that and another good point are the characters. Finally, even if Bakuman can be a little sexist in volume 19 it shows that Miho Azuki is a strong woman.