Bakuman movie review

From Juhan Shuttai! to Bakuman, we've got another story about making manga. In Bakuman, its about two high school kids played by Kenshin and Soujiro from the Rurouni Kenshin movies who are trying to get their manga serialised in Shonen Jump. The movie also features an all star cast from Yamada Takayuki playing a minor role to Shometani Shota.

I've got two problems with Bakuman in that the two main characters aren't very interesting and they are really not underdogs especially with them not having produced a manga before and all of a sudden getting the attention from an editor in Jump.

There was no ganbarre feel for me and I was more interested in the who had already payed their dues to the manga gods. Its as if Sakuragi joined the Shohoku basketball club and he can already shoot and do crossovers from day 1, just not as good.

Its a two hour movie and they had to skip a couple of steps but the fact neither of them are interesting doesn't help. They try to make them underdogs by making their rival a super genius but this super genius has been drawing manga since he was a kid.

There are a lot of talented artists in Japan and a lot of them just do doujinshi. What it takes for someone to go from amateur to pro the movie kind of tells you but doesn't articulate it in a way that's beyond skin deep. I'm talking about perspective, art consistancy, how to pace the story for whatever pages are needed a week. Stuff like that.

Instead, its too concerned with the manga rankings and we're talking about Shonen Jump here, which has LoToveRu where stupid protagonist has his face shoved up girls' crotches every chapter.

Yami no Bansosha is a love letter to making manga wrapped up as a mystery dorama. Bakuman is a love letter to manga for the masses that only goes as deep as a slogan. Meh. Bakuman has made me want to rewatch Yami no Bansosha for the fourth time though.