I Found Cool Stuff -- Chapter 2: BAKUMAN
Today's entry is a manga by the creative team of DeathNote: Artist Obata Takeshi (who also drew Hikaru no Go), and writer Ohba Tsubumi, who has never been seen in public and is apparently a pseudonym. After DeathNote wrapped up, they started this project in August 2008, and it's still running today in Japan's Shonen Jump weekly anthology.
BAKUMAN is mostly about two teenagers who decide to become professional mangaka (manga creators). The main viewpoint character is the artist half of the duo, with his best friend as the writer. Both protagonists extensive personalities and lives for slice-of-life stories, and both have love interests, allowing for romance storylines. But the real meat of the story lies in the behind-the-scenes look at the manga industry, and Shonen Jump in particular.
The story pulls no punches about the subject. It's no easy lark to become a manga pro. You have to be talented, but you also have to be lucky. It's a rough job, with unforgiving deadlines and other hassles, and even serious health risks. At no point does the main character's success seem a sure thing. In fact, so far they've had limited success at best.
Another nice detail is the rich supporting cast. The aforementioned love interests are as engaging and three-dimensional as the leads, unusual enough to get your attention, but real enough to seem like someone you might meet. There's also a sizable community of other up-and-coming mangaka that are breaking into the industry around the same time: another youthful prodigy with once-in-a-generation genuine genius, a longtime assistant who's desperate to take things to the next level, an abrasive hothead with a drive to change the manga industry from within, a female author who struggles with being a token female in a male-dominated Shonen Manga industry, and the drifter who stumbled into the manga industry almost by accident when it turned out he had unusual talent for it. All of these characters (and more, I've barely scratched the surface) have stories to tell, stories that I've enjoyed so far and can't wait to learn more about.
A small caveat: the title is a bit odd. At no point in the story has the word "Bakuman" even been mentioned. The leads have produced several notable manga stories by this point; some sci-fi, some horror, a detective adventure story, and a children's gag comedy, for example. When discussing genres to work with, they do sometimes touch upon classic Japanese superhero tropes, like Kamen Rider or Inazuman or Gatchaman... so presumably, at some point the duo will try to work on this genre for real and Bakuman will be the name of their protagonist. But that's just speculation.
Not only is the story fascinating, but the art is fantastic. Obata has a real knack for taking quiet and mundane activities -- playing Go, writing in a notebook, and now drawing manga -- and making them dynamic and exciting. He uses caricature when appropriate, but keeps the people real and relatable. The manga produced by the various mangaka in the cast are all in different styles, yet are all drawn by Obata, which gives him a nice chance to show off his range.
Here's an example, the splash intro page of the very first chapter:
Despite being the brainchild of the very popular DeathNote crew, Bakuman doesn't seem to have really made waves in American manga fandom just yet. My understanding is that the manga has been licensed for American release through Viz (I've been reading scanlations) for the near future, and an anime based on this will air in late 2010 in Japan.
Scanlations aren't hard to find if you look, and I strongly encourage you to look, and then purchase this manga when it comes out. I plan to support the official release and collect every last volume of this that I can.