Bakuman. 3

Introduction:
Professional manga creation was never pleasant work. The ammount of time spent on this work is unimaginable. Write original story, interesting characters and drawing all details most carefully is not as easy task at all. In addition, there can arise various mental and health problems and everything is all in order to satisfy the readers as much as possible. "Bakuman" will take us to the world of manga where two high school students will risk their career to create a manga which will be good enough to get an anime adaptation. Get ready for a great story where you will laugh with the heroes, be moved more than once and end the adventure satisfied with the achievements of these two mangakas.

Story:
"Bakuman" begins by introducing two middle school students, Moritaka Mahiro and Takagi Akito. While Mashiro has average grades and wants to live like any other Japanese person. But Akito despite having good grades, plans to become a mangaka. They are apparently complete opposites, but they are united by the fact that they both love manga more than any other person. Akito, first noticed Mashiro's incredible artistic talent and decides to involve him in the creation of his stories. Mashiro at first had a negative attitude towards this offer. The situation changes by making a promise to a classmate. Their journey of creating mangas begins.

"Bakuman" can engage the viewer for long hours. In it's early episodes the pacing is really intense so there is not a single time for being bored, the story develops at a dynamic pace and encourages you to watch the next episode. This production is incredibly accurate when it comes to the realism of a struggling newcomer mangakas life, Mashiro called this job a "gamble" which is a statement that the anime does for three seasons. Our characters must constantly fight to ensure that their manga will not be axed due to poor performance. Eternally creating new titles for the next big competition is nothing rare here. I must also admit that even such a plot can keep me in suspense. Not once i was stressed out together with the characters whether or not they manage to stay in the rankings. Over time, they meet more and more colleagues in the industry, and more precisely, enemies, which they must surpass for their dream to come true.

We don't get a typical shounen here, in which the main characters suddenly get better and better, but they have to struggle with new difficulties all the time. Going further into history, we begin to see some drama about the characters. It is associated with personal and even professional problems. They often doubt their skills or are on the verge of ending their careers. The story, despite its pace, sometimes takes a turn to explain certain issues to us or spend more time showing us problems our characters has to deal with. Sometimes there is too much of it. Monotony is also a problem that arises from time to time in the series. In the end, we get seventy-five episodes about the same but different things. You can easily see that the author was aware of this and developed the plot by adding more and more characters and plot threads. The ending is not the best, it's just simply, which everyone can expect. Too bad there will not be any plot twists in it.

Of course, "Bakuman" still has a romance tag to it. We will not forget about any of it the three seasons. We get enough scenes from it, with a good balance between drama and comedy. But the romantic threads were not carried out well. They were terribly prolonged, often uninteresting, and finally forced to use the simplest exits. Compared to other titles of the same genre, the quality is much worse.

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Characters:
The characters are what make Bakuman a better series. We are introduced to many well-written, realistic characters who sooner or later get the character development arcs. They are not empty. It's easy to identify them, cheer them on, stress or sympathize with them. The positivity is that the protagonists are not doomed to themselves, because they have a lot of friends who are always ready to help one another. Even other mangakas don't hold back from giving guidance to these guys, which helps them a lot in achieving their goal. The ever-developing brotherliness between Mashiro and Akito is pleasuring to watch, and the relationships between the other characters are very nice.

Character development is an important factor in this anime. With each episode, the characters becomes more emotionally mature and realize that this is not fun. The romance is also making itself felt, but the progress is still slow and uninteresting.

It is also worth adding that all mangakas are a reflection of real creators responsible for outstanding works. Mashiro and Akito reflect the duo responsible for this story. The first known and main antagonist of the anime, Niizuma Eiji is a genius based on Eiichiro Oda, the creator of "One Piece" who won second place at the "Tezuka Award" at the age of seventeen. On the other hand, Eiji won this award by being two years younger. The enemies you meet in the series are the next characters with similarities to the real creators can easily be noticed.

Graphics:
Let me put it briefly: it's great. A freely selected color palette adds emotion not only to the characters, but above all to the viewers. While watching your impressions will often change. The background looks incredibly picturesque and has many refined details about it. I would not be lying if I said that sometimes the viewer may spend more time watching the background than what is happening closer. Character designs are maybe simpler than the art, but the facial expressions are quite specific and in own way it's a good solution. Interestingly, while watching the manga creation process, the view is often changed to the guys works, thanks to which we can observe the increasing progress and how much they are still missing from the master level. I must add that the illustrations themselves look like they were taken from the real world, it's really effective. Art plays a very important role, without them the feelings from it would not be the same.

Both the openings and the endings of the series were made very well. The opening has a lot of animations and you can see that a lot of money has been invested in them. However, that doesn't mean the endings are anywhere below it. They are characterized by a large number of well-chosen transitions that end the episode perfectly.The art design was aesthetically pleasing and it would be a challenge to choose a better animation.

Sound:
"Bakuman" has a wide variety of songs. There will be no shortage of calmness, romance-suited songs, rock, electronics or other exciting music background. Openinigs and endings belong to the calmer part of the tracks, they fit perfectly without destroying the mood delivered in each anime episodes. The soundtrack effectively fits charming scenes while listening to it, we can feel a note of nostalgia, which makes a great impression. Unfortunately, the music, although it harmonizes perfectly with the rest of the aspects of the series, will rather appeal to specific types of audience.

Speaking of Seiyuu while listening to the voices of the characters, you can easily associate them with someone. And yes, the vast majority of them have already voiced popular and liked titles. They did a great job, perfectly blending and reflecting their voices to the characters. Okamoto Nobuhiko deserves special praise, without his voice Niizuma Eiji's character would not be the same. If I were to point out the biggest advantage of Bakuman, it would be voice actors.

Watanabe Jun, who also worked on such titles as "Kuroko no Basket season 2" and "Little Witch Academia", was responsible for the sound production. The composition belonged to "Audio Highs".

Conclusion/Summary:
For this title certainly cannot be denied originality. The simple idea of ​​creating a manga was presented in the most interesting way possible. Although it is monotonous in some of the following episodes, it is still not a bad production. Aside from a weak romance, it's hard to find major flaws in it. Technically, every part of it has been carefully well-done, which all viewers will appreciate. This anime is a great choice for beginners and old fans alike.