Bakuman – 01

An ambitious-less boy, an ambitious boy, a girl that sets one dream with some serious gambling of luck into motion~!

Hoshi: As one of the more anticipated shows of the Fall season, I quickly felt overwhelmed, and it’s only the first episode! ^^; Yet after some emails, and dear Kyokai’s help, we managed to pull off this tag team for Bakuman! It’s not in the very fun conversation style due to the time differences among Kyokai, Hato-kun and me, so we’re doing this Metanorn-style (as I like to call it) ^^

Now onto the first episode of Bakuman!:

Moritaka Mashiro is a normal boy, pretty negative in that he doesn’t truly aspire to do anything big; he just wants to get a steady job and get on with his life. One day he accidently leaves his notebook at school with the drawing he did of the girl he has a crush on, Azuki Miho.

At home, he realizes it’s gone, and decides to go back to school to get it. Once he’s there however, one of his classmates, Akito Takagi, is in the classroom, and he is holding…his notebook.

Death Note reference NUMBAH 1!

Akito begins to tell him that since he sits way in the back, he knew what he drew in his notebook, knew he forgot it, knew he’d eventually come back for it. He then tells him he’ll give him back the notebook, but on one condition: Moritaka has to team up with him to write a manga.

Death Note/ Hikaru no Go reference NUMBAH 2!

Moritaka instantly refuses, telling him about the gamble becoming a manga artist is. Akito isn’t fazed though, and keeps persisting. Moritaka finally tells him he’ll think about it.

Seriously…it doesn’t bother him.

We then are sent to a flashback, telling the bitter story of his uncle, a manga artist who created the series that appears in the opening of the episode, called Super Hero Legends. His uncle ended up dying however from overworking to try and create another series as big as the one he did before.

In present time, Moritaka suddenly gets a call from Akito, saying he’s going to confess to Azuki! And that, would he like to come along? After a bit of convincing, he ends up going with Akito to Azuki’s house, where Akito nervously rings her doorbell.

Once she finally starts talking on the intercom, Akito asks her to step outside, then telling her his plan to become a manga artist, and that he knows of Azuki’s dream of wanting to become a voice actress. Suddenly Moritaka chimes in saying that he’s teaming up with him.

Azuki instantly is happy, and asks that if there manga gets turned into an anime…then they’ll make her the heroine’s voice actress, says Moritaka. Azuki is so happy she meets them at gate, looking so extremely cute in Moritaka’s eyes that suddenly he says, “Then after our dreams come true will you marry me?”

Azuki is so surprised, she disappears into her house. Suddenly, however, Azuki’s voice is heard from the intercom, and she replies, “Yes, I promise.”

But as the two boys start freaking out, there’s a catch: Azuki and Moritaka can’t meet each other until that day all of their dreams come true.

With that, Moritaka finally gets the drive to be a manga artist, but not necessarily with Akito….

This makes me laugh for some reason~ xD

End thoughts~

Kyokai: The beginning sequence of Super Hero Legends literally gave me a start because I went, “Am I watching the right title? Did someone just trick me?!” But naaah! It was all good. I went Toumaaaa~ (Imagine Index-tan’s voice), when Moritaka started speaking and of course, he’s voiced by Abe. The first episode was pure WIN~ as I’m one of those people who have not read the manga as yet and were waiting for the anime to see what was really up. Being one of the top anime to watch out for, this sure delivered background of the characters and the shoujo feel. I was pretty miffed with J.C. Staff for ruining Kaichou wa Maid-sama!; thus, very skeptical about maintenance of quality. I was glad to be wrong.

Now consider this, shouldn’t Bakuman be heaven for the otaku like us because we already read so much manga and watch anime? Who doesn’t have a slight inclination to try out some drawing manga-style and write a story that would get illustration? Reading about and getting inspiration from a budding team of Mangakas and Seiyuu is right up our alley after all. That is the reason, I instantly liked Saiko and Akito; the latter a bit more due to his spontaneity, ambition and confidence to actually stand up for his dreams. There are not a lot of teenagers who can do that and though it’s not really Saiko’s fault for being a bit wary of the whole Mangaka business due to his uncle’s fate; he definitely possesses talent and should make better use of it. I wasn’t expecting the romantic angle to start so early but hey, it’s better to be clear than beating around the bush. Miho seems cute enough and the one voicing her, Saori Hayami is climbing the seiyuu rope for a breakthrough as well. Her friend seemed interesting as well so knowing all of them should be fun.

I hope J.C. Staff sticks to the original material and do not deviate too much in case of plot. I expect good stuff from Kenichi Kasai, who directed Nodame Cantabile and Honey and Clover (two of my favourite shoujos) and would definitely follow this throughout the season.

Hato-kun: Well, I knew Bakuman was going to be popular. That was apparent from the beginning. But the question on everyones mind is “Will it be any good?” Well, if we’re going from that first episode alone, it’s going to be great. Without a doubt the best episode of any show I watched all day and will be a great starting episode for a great series. The characters are particularly memorable and that first half hour was emotionally charging.

See, why can’t there be more shows like this? They draw you in with a simple premise, they don’t bombard you with information and names and theories and magic and all. They, unfortunately, take you by the hand and guide you. When you think about it, it’s almost stupid, a media treating you as a sort of child, but if that’s what makes a show, then so be it. I’m fine with that.

Though, the best scene from this episode has to be the confession by accident. Saying his uncle’s line out loud was pretty hilarious, and their reactions, I thought couldn’t be topped until she agreed (which you could see coming from a mile away). So far? A simple, innocent and fun-filled romance story, with a splash of pop culture and references galore thrown in. The result? We’ll just have to wait and see. (And in case you were wondering, yes, at first, I did think this was some sort of sequel to Bakugan. Boy, was I wrong. )

Hoshi: (I’m gonna lie, I thought that too Hato, that it was something related to Bakugan, hahaha.) First off, I want to admit that…the opening TOTALLY threw me off the first time I played it. (Don’t tell me you weren’t thrown off too!) I thought I had downloaded the wrong anime! But then I fast forwarded it a bit, and I was like, “Ohhh, okay, I get it!” I actually preferred that silly opening to the actually opening to Bakuman though; it’s sooooooooooooooooooooooo borrrrrring. The song is just BLEAH, I’m sorry. It’s too slow for an opening! The ending song even has more hype!

Anyways, away from the ranting of the opening credits, the beginning of the actual episode was a bit depressing, which I should suspect from such a negative character Moritaka starts out as. I was kinda expecting comedy from at least the middle of the episode, but it actually doesn’t really start towards the end, when they go to Azuki’s house, which was fine, as long as there was some comedy xD

I’m totally loving Akito Takagi already, and he’s probably going to be my favorite character for Bakuman from now on, hahaha. He’s so funny, and not that bad looking either ;D (Hoshi is a megane fan~). I think I mostly like him because he kinda reminds me of myself; he’s a writer, he’s pretty ridiculous, he has out-of-the-blue ideas, etc. I can relate to Mortikata too though; we doesn’t get those kind of negative thoughts every now and then?

Since it looks like there might be some romance in this, I’m afraid they might get too shoujo-y :/ I want more of this ridiculous comedy I saw at the end. I haven’t read the manga to Bakuman before, so please don’t give me any signs as to what kind of mood this goes into! I want to see myself~.

Another thing I’m worried about with doing episodics on this is that…I’m going to get bored with it. I have that feeling already, which scares me. I typically wouldn’t watch this kind of show, only if it has a lot of comedy. Someone promised me that Bakuman did, so I went for this. If I’m going to be cheated out of comedy then you might see some negative reviews, warning you now x’D (I’m pretty picky with school-setting shows). I think this feeling is mostly because I’m used to such fast-paced and intense shows (like Kuroshitsuji II was), and Bakuman is probably not going to be too intense, maybe a little drama now and then but nothing to really make you stress out over it. Bakuman seems more like a…leisure show; a show that makes you laugh and smile, not bite your nails from so much anxiety.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention…did anyone catch the two Death Note references in there?! I KNOW I DID, heehee. I think I might end up making that a weekly thing; see how many references the show makes to Takeshi Obata’s famous works (i.e Hikaru no Go and Death Note). Then at the end of the series count it all up for the final total! (Yesss, what a plan indeed…*strokes chin thoughtfully*)

Overall, Bakuman gets four and a half out of five stars from me. It was pretty entertaining, especially the ending xD I’m mostly hooked by how exactly are they going to do this crazy idea, hahaha. Animation-wise, it gets four out of five stars. It’s really nice, and clean, pretty realistic with good character movements. For some reason I’m really loving the eyes, except for Azuki’s eyes. THEY’RE SO SMALL o____o When I saw the trailer I was like, “What is up with those EYES?!” I’m too used to girls having those big, cutsie eyes, lawl~

I’m really excited to do episodics on Bakuman, and even though I haven’t done a review on this type of show before, I will be doing my best!

Preview: A very short preview from what looks like Moritaka’s point of view as we see many glittery and lovely images of our fair ‘Madonna’ (as Akito called her), Azuki. The narration seems a bit negative though as it looks like maybe Moritaka’s father and grandfather might not approve. Let’s see how our aspiring mangakas will work this out! ;D