DUE FOR EDIT - OUTDATEDI haven't written a review on AniList before, so bear with me if I repeat words or what not.
# MY REVIEW OF BAKUMAN
SPOILERS!!
Bakuman is a wonderful story of growth, dreams, hard work, trial and errors, and dedication. The story never finds itself straying off its course in the slightest, it utilizes numerous points and characters to tell its compelling story to move it to a higher peak. The authors did a wonderful job- its outstanding dedication from them to tell a story about making manga, having to come up with countless ideas, designs, stories, pages, just anything that can be shoved into a manga, in a manga itself. I personally may just get absorbed into stories more often than not, but this story lured me into it with ease, easier than any other manga I've read. Reading about manga within a manga made me forget I was reading manga in the first place, and it thrilled me when the characters had their own peak, as if I was there myself.
I would more than definitely recommend this if you are looking to make comics/manga yourself, have an interest in how manga is made, are a fan Ooba and Obata, or simply want to read a great story.
Now, I'm going to deep dive into what makes this story wonderful.
THE BEGINNING/INCITING INCIDENT
9/10
Bakuman starts off strong in its first chapter, it performs what is necessary for a first chapter, in great fashion too.
We're introduced to Mashiro's Uncle, Nobuhiro (or Taro Kawaguchi, his pen name), introducing the story on the first page, along with Mashiro himself, speaking of art, showing essentially the biggest concept of the story in one of the first speech bubbles, which leads into the second page, using the key, "My Uncle never said 'Manga Artist'", conveying the idea of art further, into manga, now giving the great idea of what the story will tell.
Naturally, we're shown the main characters daily life at school, and Miho, the girl he likes, along with him drawing her. A few pages later, after he returns home from school, he returns to the school having forgot his notebook, finding Akito with it, where he proposes him to assist him in making manga, showing the next greatest idea of the story. As a normal chapter one, it carries its own character arc, so Mashiro will refuse this, recalling his uncle creating manga, bent on the proposal.
But Akito calls Mashiro, telling him he's going to "confess" to Mashiro's crush, Miho, so he tails along.
THE INCITING INCIDENT
Akito "confesses" to Miho that he is going to create manga, and there, putting Mashiro in the heat, Mashiro agrees to assist Akito in creating manga, as he'll do the art and Akito will write. Mashiro then boldly proposes that if he gets an anime, and Miho voices the heroine, if they can get married, and she agrees.
The inciting incident and first chapter of Bakuman introduce the entire idea of the series, that is conveyed from beginning to end- creating manga with Akito, rising high enough to get an anime, and marrying the girl of Mashiro's dreams.
PACING
9/10
The story overall has a great consistency, but there are points that could've dwelled on a point a little more or go without the heavy ideas, making parts of the story seem long and extra, and other parts seeming short and not explanatory enough, but overall, every point is still run across for the most part, and you don't notice it too much with the obsessive text within Bakuman.
PLOT TWISTS
9/10
I personally don't think Bakuman contains too many twists, but rather a massive range of possibilities that could happen. So, rather, Bakuman's twists are more "who will win this manga competition" or "how will this rivalry end up" scenarios, leading it to pose numerous outcomes that are within expectation but not outside of it.
Within the first half of the story, we're used to see Muto Ashirogo's stories end up lower than the main characters expected, mostly due to their lack of experience, making the ratings be a very high point in those chapters. The idea of the ratings is pretty frequent throughout, but it seems to diminish around the ending 20 chapters or so.
STORY AND CHARACTERS
10/10
The story is all about making manga, chasing after dreams, and knocking down anything in your way.
It follows the main characters, Akito Takagi and Moritaka Mashiro (Muto Ashirogi - pen name together) in making manga, beginning with their first story, The Two Earths. They were brought into making more compelling stories and building on art from then on, publishing a few more one-shots and attempting for series, which eventually hits them to Detective Trap. Right before and during the serialization of Trap, numerous characters are introduced, which all carry their own individual story. So, I'll talk of a few of them in a moment. The story carries through hardships and obstacles on the road to having a manga hit enough to get an anime, which they'll land around chapter 150, with Reversi, which is made by the authors to be more like Death Note, even showing how they originally wanted their story to end. Directly after that manga ends, the anime is released, after previous problems with Miho, but she ends up voicing the heroine, and the story ends with a proposal.
Eiji Nizuma
Eiji is first shown as a more angsty, annoying, yet productive character, it was hard for me at first to like him. His character quickly builds, showing him as a more goofy, honest, genius, and lovable character. Eiji creates Crow, which through most of the story, is where Mashiro and Akito are trying to aim as high for. Eiji carries a great rivalry with the main characters, and numerous other characters play part in rivalries with him, such as when he claims he'll end Crow the way he wants if nobody else beats his ranking for roughly 14 weeks.
Akira Hattori
Hattori is a character I loved from the first pages of his appearance; he always had a very positive upbeat aura to him. He assists Mashiro and Takagi in their ambitions to make manga as their editor until Detective Trap became a series, and again after Perfect Crime Party becomes a series, helping them then on until the end of the story. He motivates the main characters from the beginning, until even after the stories events are done.
Kazuya Hiramaru
I saw Hiramaru as an opposite- he was written opposite from the main character, except for the fact he still looked toward a life of manga to reach love. He is introduced as a "genius" manga artist who picked up one volume of Shonen Jump and decided to make a story, that ended up serialized. Throughout the rest of the story, there are little pages and chapters dedicated to him and his editor that add perfect comedy to the story, of Hiramaru pleading to stop drawing manga, and his editor bribing or manipulating him into continuously drawing, for nearly the 10 years of events in Bakuman, most of the time being bribed by Yuriko Aoki's existence, pretty much. He keeps on chasing her throughout the story, starting with nothing, to tea parties, then a trip to the amusement park where he proposes to her, and they become engaged. Hiramaru is a perfect seasoning to the story.
WORLD BUILDING
6/10
It's a story about making manga, so realistically, the world isn't all that important, but I still believe it's a key element in a story. It uses Japan as its overall setting, which ends up in an overall lack of the world building, but we do see the characters move about cities and such.
CLIMAX
10/10
There are numerous points where you can say the true climax of Bakuman is, but I'd argue the real climax was the whole debate over Miho and Mashiro's relationship, along with her role of the voice actor of Reversi's anime, and the ending to the Reversi manga.
The ending to that manga was proof that the story led up to the point of Mashiro and Akito being phenomenal manga creators, being able to end their manga the "perfect" way, and causing an outroar of the wonderful ending, and previously before, the deal with Mashiro and Miho's relationship on the news confirmed the stakes of their future marriage and their dreams haven't perished in the ten years of hard work and dedication. With the beginning help of Shinta Fukuda, the whole fiasco between the relationship is soon cleared up, and Miho nails the role of Naho in the Reversi anime, leading to the real dream that Mashiro proposed 10 years prior.
ARCS
8/10
The arcs of Bakuman are overall a learning experience for the main characters, leading them to push themselves further and more beyond than previous. The arcs usually involve the struggle of creating manga and competing against another manga author, sometimes diving into the personal life of the characters, though those are mostly character arcs that span throughout most of the story, such as the disgusting decline of Takuro Nakai.
ENDING
10/10
Some may disagree with me here, but I think the ending was perfect.
The entire story led to the moment that Mashiro and Miho would get married, since the proposal to get married after they reach their dreams in chapter 1.
Yes, the ending was quite abrupt, and no wedding was actually seen, but I think it was perfect, in the Bakuman way.
The story began with a very sudden and impulsive though bursting out from Mashiro, which began the story, and it ended just as sudden and impulsive as those words came out of his mouth.
We are carried through the story with the love of Mashiro and Miho second to making manga, and seeing it finally come to life with Mashiro's proposal at the same place it all began and the kiss we waited 175 chapters for was the perfect ending for a story like this.
I believe Bakuman is truly a tale that can live up to a peak of the manga industry. 
