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tora76 's review for:
Bakuman, Vol. 20
by Takeshi Obata, Tsugumi Ohba
When Mashiro and Takagi are in 9th grade, they make a pact with Azuki, the girl Mashiro has a crush on. She will become a famous seiyuu and they will become famous mangakas, and when their manga gets made into an anime, she will play the heroine. And when that day comes, when their dreams come true, Mashiro and Azuki will get married. The manga spans the next eight years and follows their manga career through its ups and downs.
I love Obata's art with a passion. He is one of my favorite artists, maybe my top favorite, and I have enjoyed previous series he's illustrated, including his previous collaboration with Ooba, Death Note. Which I originally read when I was a pretty uncritical reader and totally did not notice the gobs of misogyny all over the place.
Unfortunately, Bakuman is also filled with misogyny and practically every chapter had me gnashing my teeth for some reason or other. Maybe because it's a realistic series, but it bothered me a lot more in Bakuman than in stuff like Naruto or Bleach, which I know are often just as horrible. I don't know, it just felt different to me to see Kaya, Takagi's girlfriend/wife try to find her own dream to follow before quickly giving up and cheerfully declaring that her dream was to see Azuki, Mashiro, and Takagi fulfill their dreams! And then have much of her screentime be when she's cleaning their studio. (And that's just one of many examples...)
And yet, despite all that, I still enjoyed it. I loved the behind-the-scenes look at Weekly Shounen Jump and the manga industry in general, and I loved seeing all the manga everyone came up with in the series (one of them actually did get a single chapter posted as a bonus in one issue of Jump, but there were a lot that I wished were real manga!). There are also some really awesome characters, especially Niizuma Eiji. And as much as I rolled my eyes at Mashiro and Azuki's ~pure romance~, I couldn't help but root for them at the end.
I love Obata's art with a passion. He is one of my favorite artists, maybe my top favorite, and I have enjoyed previous series he's illustrated, including his previous collaboration with Ooba, Death Note. Which I originally read when I was a pretty uncritical reader and totally did not notice the gobs of misogyny all over the place.
Unfortunately, Bakuman is also filled with misogyny and practically every chapter had me gnashing my teeth for some reason or other. Maybe because it's a realistic series, but it bothered me a lot more in Bakuman than in stuff like Naruto or Bleach, which I know are often just as horrible. I don't know, it just felt different to me to see Kaya, Takagi's girlfriend/wife try to find her own dream to follow before quickly giving up and cheerfully declaring that her dream was to see Azuki, Mashiro, and Takagi fulfill their dreams! And then have much of her screentime be when she's cleaning their studio. (And that's just one of many examples...)
And yet, despite all that, I still enjoyed it. I loved the behind-the-scenes look at Weekly Shounen Jump and the manga industry in general, and I loved seeing all the manga everyone came up with in the series (one of them actually did get a single chapter posted as a bonus in one issue of Jump, but there were a lot that I wished were real manga!). There are also some really awesome characters, especially Niizuma Eiji. And as much as I rolled my eyes at Mashiro and Azuki's ~pure romance~, I couldn't help but root for them at the end.