The cliche, this is my first review ever. I may have some bias in me but so does most reviews. On to the review of Shuukan Shounen Hachi.

At first I hesitated to read this manga because it was about people writing manga. I tend to stay clear of series like this (like I have not read Bakuman). After reading this series, my entire perception of these types of manga has changed in a positive light.

The story starts with Yasaka Hachiki. He is ordinary and has no formal training in drawing manga.
Then there is Mikeya "Mike" Touma, a classmate completely opposite from each other.

Story: 93/100
This series has 5 major genres, Shounen, School, Drama, Romance, and Comedy.
The story mainly focuses on Yasaka Hachiki and his two feel classmates (love interests) Handa Sasami and Inohara Ran.
It is a diamond in the rough kind of story. While he may not be polished, with enough time and effort he could easily become one of the greatest. When he gets placed in the lowest class, he has to face many challenges with his classmates and against them. Each experience makes his grow more and more along with everyone else. You get to see how each person within the story plays a part in the MC's growth, not just the MC but also some side characters. The MC is placed in a somewhat weird situation and has to compete against his classmates. The way he and the girls over come each trial leaves a smile on your face.
The story is a short 42 chapters long. While I personally wanted to know more about them and what they would do, the story would have eventually start to drop in quality, as it would be hard to create new situations without them seeming to be crazy.

Art: 100
A major factor that increases the joy I had while reading this was the art. I have not completed the authors other work but I can tell he has improved his style tremendously. The best and highest aspect of any manga artists art is that of emotion. Can the author bring forth the emotion on a characters face? Can he make the moment 100x better by making the characters feel and say what they are going through. I can say he has succeed tremendously. I could feel the emotions on each character, no matter how short of a time they stayed in the story. The close ups of characters faces are very detailed and can easily wow you each time you look at it. The author does not cop out of backgrounds either. While the backgrounds might not be extremely detailed for the most part (do to them being inside all the time), they always being context. The drawings of the landscape are always breathtaking to look at.

Characters: 100

As I said, I used to avoid series like this. The main reason was usually the characters. I thought they would be bland and boring. Boy was I wrong. No one felt unoriginal or a complete generic archetype.
My favorite was Inohara Ran. She brought light to the usually drama, stress filled life the characters have. She is carefree and energetic. Has a great sense of humor and knows how to lighten the mood when things go sour. Inohara can influence people to do better with her simple but effective words of encouragement.

The MC is a strong willed person that is set of his goal. He is not invincible or weak. He is in the middle, a man with potential. He can help influence people to do better but also needs influence from others himself. He was filled with emotions that he expressed openly with his friends. He also was the type to stand up to wrong doing.

Handa Sasami is the introvert, the quite shy one. She wore a panda head to hide her face. As time goes on she starts to open up. She is cute and a very talented person. While (from what I remember) Inohara helped Yasaka more mentally, Handa helped more physically as she was good at drawing.

Overall score: 100