Category: Bakuman

A decent ending. It’s not bad, but it didn’t stand out either. It was probably the most shounen episode of this entire series: the lead couple got through, while some of the minor rivals did not and have to wait for their next chance. Not very exciting, although the creators did do a nice job on the build-up and the arduous wait.

Overall, Bakuman never really made itself stand out, aside from perhaps one episode in the middle (the one where Niizuma Eiji suddenly decided to write the wrong manga and where Moritaka and Akito suddenly switched over to a battle manga). Bakuman has been more of a show to just casually watch, which it did nicely, and it kept my attention, but I’m still feeling like I’m missing something here.

In any case, for a series that you all forced me to blog, it was pretty interesting. I still really like the way that I’ve been having this contest for four years now, and yet you somehow always manage to pick out a different series: Gundam 00, Tytania, Kimi ni Todoke and Bakuman all were wonderfully diverse, and I’m definitely going to do this again for Autumn 2011.

Now that most of the Autumn 2010 has ended (with the exception of Star Driver, which will end tomorrow), it’s also time to look back on the past Autumn Season. And overall, I’d call it interesting, fun, yet also underwhelming. The thing is, that Autumn Seasons always have many more series than Winter Seasons. And yet none of the series that premiered during Autumn 2010 came close to matching the top three series of Winter 2011.

It had a lot of interesting (Yakumo, Letter Bee), unique (Panty and Stocking, Soredemo Machi) and hilarious (Milky Holmes, Squid Girl, Kuragehime) series, and yet none of them really stood out or ended up as amazing, and all of the ones that did have ambition were held back by something (almost always having to do with being too short and failing to actually notice that). We’ve had more major seasons that only showed four shows to continue past 13 episodes, but the shows that did continue were absolutely amazing. Take Spring 2008: Himitsu and Real Drive were some of the very few series that were actually long, but they really were some amazing and unique series. Here, Letter Bee, Bakuman and Star Driver: they all just didn’t want to be the hit of the season, it seems. Instead, it mostly stands out as an overall very fun season to watch, because again: there were a lot of fun and interesting series.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Aah, it’s like Kimi ni Todoke all over again!

Leaving that aside though, I liked what this episode did with its pacing: it went fast, then slow, then fast, then slow again, alternating between the developing the romance and the manga publishing. This show has always had its fast paced and slow-paced moments, but I don’t think that they ever meshed together as well as this episode, especially its first half. This kind of balance was especially missing in the first half of this series.

The worst part of this episode was the way in which the creators tried to introduce this new characters. “Oh no, I’m not conspicuous at all. I’m just reading a magazine here”. I mean, I can understand hiding the face of your villain for building up tension, but in a manga writing anime it just has no purpose and just ends up looking silly, especially when they try to play it straight like that.

Overall, if I had to congratulate the creators of the anime for one thing, it’d be making me think that the pacing of the anime went up during the past episodes, while in fact they animated even less of the manga for each episode. To me, someone who hasn’t read the manga, it did not feel out of place, unlike the first half that was in retrospective rather boring to sit through. At this point, I don’t think that I’d recommend this series, but that mostly is because of the reason that this series doesn’t feel complete at this point. With that, the first half just isn’t worth it. It’ll be up to the second season to change that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So, one advantage of that slow pacing is that the episodes that DO have a lot of stuff happening really end up standing out. This episode really caught me by surprise and it was one of the best episodes yet. The change of pace was really welcome, and it showed a ton of new stuff.

Basically the entire premise of this episode was that it showed the start of a whole bunch of new manga from nearly all of the important characters. Also, finally we actually got a good glimpse of what the stories were that they wrote were like. They were only short blurbs, but it’s great to see actually something more than some random pictures here and there of which we don’t know how they tell their story.

The reactions of everyone were what sold this episode to me, though. This episode was full of emotions. Mostly cheerful ones, making this a very uplifting episode. Ideally I would have wished that the entire series was this dynamic, but at least we’re seeing the build-up really pay off at this point now. At this pace though< i can really see the second season becoming awesome. If it makes good use of the build-up of this first season and remains as dynamic as its best episodes then it can become an excellent coming of age series. In any case, if it wasn't for that second season, then I this really wouldn't have been a good place to end this series... Rating: ** (Excellent)

Three episodes left, and this show comes with an anti-climax. Interesting, that after all of the build-up of the previous episode, all that the characters did in this series was get fired up, try out some stuff, realize that they don’t work and continuing where they left off. If anything, this was an episode to boost their confidence and resolve, more than anythings else, and I’m not sure whether the right place for that is so near to a major cliff-hanger.

Also, am i the only one who felt that the audience for Miho’s event was a little… stalkerish? I mean, it was just creepy in \the way that they just kept staring at her without saying anything, or even looking at each other.

Overall, I think that this is the part where this show is getting a bit repetitive. The interesting part about this episode was the way that all of the mangaka commented on each other’s stories and all, but this was the umpth time in which we saw the lead couple in a minor setback, only to get more motivation to go on and create their story. It probably won’t be a problem for the rest of this first season, but the second season does need to pay attention to this.
Rating: * (Good)

Quite a strange build up at the end of this episode, when suddenly it turned out to be that some random J-rock idol decided that he wants to become a mangaka. Now, things can often get quite disastrous when people like that suddenly think that they’ve got talent and use their popularity to give themselves a boost in popularity, but there are of course exceptions. I wonder what kind of approach Bakuman will take to this, but for that we need to wait till next week.

In either case, it’s going to be bad for Moritaka and Akito because the fangirls will make it very difficult for them to rank in first in these manga power rankings. Most of this episode was really about fleshing out their goals of becoming the first: showing them work hard and missing sleep in order to catch their deadlines.

Oh, and that thirty-year-old guy also is making some progress, in quite a strange way, working together with this eccentric girl. The character designs of the latter probably point to the fact that she’ll be a major character later in the series. In any case it’s a bit late for her to make any impact on the first season, with only one month left.

Speaking of which, I wonder whether the creators are going for some sort of cliff-hanger, or whether the story is just going to stop for half a year (assuming that the second season airs next Autumn season). I do hope that at the very least, this thing is going to end with some sort of strange hook. Looking back, Bakuman’s first season has been quite good, but it still has a few too many episodes that were just too slow, but it’s not like it was like Nurarihyon no Mago whose first season was nothing but build-up. If the second season keeps up this pacing, it’s got quite a good chance to become a great series.
Rating: * (Good)

One thing I noticed is that in this second half, the creators (of the anime, I mean), have felt a bit freer with the drawings in this series. I don’t mean freer from the manga, but instead freer from the fact that this is aired on NHK. The drawings are messier, the camera angles are more creative, and especially this is a good example of it. Heck, there have been plenty of series that aired on the NHK Educational characters that were completely unconventional and kicked ass (Giant Killing for example).

This episode again was great.The characters in this series, safe from perhaps Miho, are starting to feel like genuine high school students. They’re genuine and at this point they’ve become pretty well fleshed out with believable characters. This episode also formed a major benchmark: if they didn’t make this episode’s goal, Moritaka would not have made his goal. On top of that, I also laughed harder at the jokes in this episode than with any other episode of this series so far. Great sign.

Also, this episode had this strange quirk of introducing timeskip with that random woman who was handing around fliers of some sort. Neat addition. On top of that, is it me or are the voice actors in this series also getting better?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ah, the episode of “let’s break up only to get back together at the end”. It’s often used, because it can get a lot of good stuff out of the characters and get them to view things from a different side. Bakuman made well use of that, and this episode was once again excellent.

I especially liked the way Hattori subtly tried to get the both of them back together again. I loved it when this guy gets fired up: he just switches back and forth between composed and energetic. Moritaka and Akito also were great in the way that they continue do talk to each other. I’ve probably said this before, but for a shounen jump adaptation, there really is a ton of dialogue in this series.

The strange thing is that from the different poses here, I can see how this once was a hot blooded series about making a manga, like with the strange over the top expressions that sometimes pop up in the middle of a sentence. Those probably would have felt much more in place with a faster pacing, but it does achieve an interesting little effect here. Most slow paced shows try to be as accurate and detailed as possible, while this show tries out all kinds of poses and artwork. Although some of the artwork remains rushed and unfinished.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Akito’s brother… am I the only one who got Light vibes from him?

Anyway, it’s taken a while, but I’m liking this series quite a bit at this point. After the Nurarihyon no Mago debacle, I really began to fear for series that took their time at the start, but this thankfully proved to be a good example of how to do this. We’ve seen eighteen episodes of development into these characters, and it’s paying off quite nicely at this point and turning Akito and Moritaka especially into well rounded characters.

This episode also reminded me of how this is coming from the Death Note authors: we’re talking about a shounen jump adaptation here, and yet this episode was filled with dialogue (though admittedly it’s not as extreme as it was in Death Note). It’s what made this episode really interesting in any case.

Even though the tone is apparently very different compared to the manga, I do understand now why everyone forced me to blog this show. Even the series’ weak side, the romance, got progressed quite a bit in this episode. Akito and Kaya actually feel like a genuine couple now, and this finally sparked Moritaka to do something about his own as well. The past episodes have also upped the pacing a tiny notch, and if the creators can keep this up for both the rest of this season and the sequel, this could turn into quite a satisfying series in the end.
Rating: ** (Excellent)