Book Review: Bakuman Vol. 1
Bakuman is a Japanese manga with a story that revolves around manga.
I was wondering when they would come to create a story for that and they did it in 2009. The only other one I know is Making Comics by Scott Mccloud, which is a one volume instructional book.
Bakuman is created by Japanese writer Tsugumi Ohba, who's also the author of hit series Death Note, and illustrator Takeshi Obata, who also draws for Hikaru No Go.
The story isn't an autobiography of the creators, but a story of two students trying to break into manga drawing. In volume 1, it begins with Akito Takagi, the smartest student in class, trying to team up with Moritaka Mashiro who can draw pretty well. Takagi's secret ambition is to be a manga creator and Mashiro is just trying to figure out what to do with his life after junior high school.
We learn as the characters learn about the trade, all the little things that go behind the scenes to create a manga series, like coming up with a story, finding an editor, getting work serialized. The characters make quite a lot of reference to real world manga, like Death Note, Shonen Jump, so it really creates a believable world. The story takes a while to build up though.
This series is translated and distributed by Viz Media. The price of the book is US$9.99 which is quite steep, compared to the Japanese edition which is only 420 Yen. I don't usually read English editions of Japanese comics because of the steep pricing. Even the Chinese translated edition is cheaper. Hopefully, in future volumes, we can also find out how manga is priced and distributed.
If you're interesting in how manga is created, this is a series you might want to check out.
4 out of 5 stars
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Bakuman Vol 1 is available on Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | JP | CN)
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Comments
I'm so thrilled you've put up
I'm so thrilled you've put up a review for this! I've been reading Bakuman ever since it debuted and no one else ever believed me when I said it was an excellent manga. It's fun for artists as well as it references to a lot of tools that we often use; the G-Pen for instance.
You're right about costs though. $10 USD or about $13 in Canada is pretty average here. There's a lot of talk about manga going digital as well though I've yet to see any official press releases confirming that. I'll personally keep buying printed books, but I do hope that if digital volumes are being released they'll be less expensive especially with e-readers becoming more popular now.
Awesome, this series is one
Awesome, this series is one of my favorites:)
@Nameless I hope it goes
@Nameless
I hope it goes digital. I've recently read a manga on an ebook and I have to say that's the future.
Oh no, please not. I don't
In reply to @Nameless I hope it goes by Teoh Yi Chie
Oh no, please not. I don't like ebooks. I can't understand how anyone wants to pay money for a "scan" if you get the "real" book for little more? Except maybe for pure "fast food". I just prefer reading wherever I want without being bound to a computer screen or electricity.
@Bakuman:
I didn't really like it. In fact, I kinda hated it even. The female characters were kinda sexist and the guy characters were rather boring...couldn't grow attached to any of them and while it surely is interesting to see how manga production works, it failed to be very entertaining as an ongoing story. So I stopped after book 3. Not my thing.
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