Bakuman

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Bakuman

Plot:

Bakuman tells the story of Moritaka Mashiro, a normal high school student who doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. One day he draws a picture of Azuki Miho, a girl he is secretly fond of, during class and forgets the notebook at school. He comes back to find a boy named Akito Takagi waiting for him with his notebook. Takagi tries to convince Mashiro to become a mangaka with him, only leading to Mashiro’s disagreement. Mashiro goes home and starts to think about his uncle, who was a mangaka at one point. Mashiro is interrupted by a phone call from Takagi, who says that he is going to tell Azuki that Mashiro likes her. Mashiro runs down to Azuki’s house to find Takagi waiting for him. Once Azuki comes out of the door, Takagi tells her that he and Mashiro are aiming to be mangaka. Mashiro then learns that she wants to be a seiyū and has shown promise in the field. Mashiro, once again, thinking about his uncle, accidentally proposes to Azuki. Azuki promises that she will marry him, after their dreams come true, with the condition that they must not see each other until it happens.

Bakuman

Characters:

Main characters:

Moritaka ‘Saiko’ Mashiro (真城 最高, Mashiro Moritaka)
The main character of the story. After mistakenly confessing to Miho, he decided to publish a manga series with Akito. He is often called Saikō (サイコー, Saikō?). which annoys him slightly, but only when Akito calls him that. He and Akito get off to a rocky start, but then they become good friends. He is an extremely talented artist, but is highly dissatisfied with his manga drawings. He is trying to use a G pen, which is necessary for manga art, his uncle could never get used to it, and so far, Moritaka can’t either. He is engaged to Azuki, but they made a promise to not marry until both their dreams have come true.

Akito ‘Shujin’ Takagi (高木 秋人, Takagi Akito)
Moritaka’s classmate. Other people in his class call him Shūto (シュート, Shūto?), which Moritaka gets annoyed by, and instead calls him Shūjin (シュージン, Shūjin?), which sounds like Shūjin (囚人, Shūjin?), the Japanese word for “prisoner.” The reason is that Moritaka thinks that while “Shūto” sounds cool, his own nickname, “Saikō,” makes it sound like people are making fun of him. Other than that, Akito can also be read as Shūjin. Akito loves manga, and wants to write out plotlines for them. He is later confronted by Miho’s best friend, Miyoshi Kaya, who had told him Miho’s secret dream and secretly liked him. He tries to hide the truth behind all by saying that “he wanted to talk to her” which surprises Miyoshi. The two eventually begin going out.

Miho Azuki (亜豆 美保, Azuki Miho)
Moritaka’s now former classmate, crush and fiancee whom promised to marry him under the conditions of their dreams coming true. She wants to be a voice actress, and Moritaka also promises that when his manga becomes an anime, they’ll hire her to be one of the voice actresses, specifically the voice of their female lead.

Kaya Miyoshi (見吉 香耶, Miyoshi Kaya)
Miho’s best friend, who is in 9th year, class 2 in the same school as Miho and Mashiro. Though being her best friend, she doesn’t know that Miho likes Mashiro. She confronts Takagi about having asked Miho about her dream, given that she had told him, which results into Takagi making her believe that he likes her, which surprises her, given that she likes him and she tells him she’ll have to think about it. She and Takagi eventually begin going out. Miyoshi plans to go to Yakusa North High, the same high school Moritaka and Tagaki are planning to go to.

Eiji Nīzuma (新妻 エイジ, Nīzuma Eiji)
A 15-year-old high schooler from Aomori in northern Japan. He won the Tezuka Award on his manga Large bander. Moritaka and Akito read about him in an issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump, and declared him as their new rival. He agreed to move to Tokyo under the condition that if he became the most popular author in Jump, he would have the right to cancel one series he hates. Despite Masahiro and Takagi viewing him as a rival, when they first met Eiji he was very friendly with them, saying that their work in Akamaru was his favorite and that he was glad to make friends his age in Jump, to their surprise.

Editorial department of Jump:

Hattori (服部, Hattori)
An editor of Weekly Shōnen Jump. His first name is “哲” (The pronunciation is unclear). Being in charge of them both, he shares Moritaka and Akito’s goal to defeat Eiji.

Yūjirō (雄二郎, Yūjirō)
An editor of Weekly Shōnen Jump. His surname is unknown. He is in charge of Eiji Nīzuma.

Classmates:

Aiko Iwase (岩瀬 愛子, Iwase Aiko)
Moritaka’s female classmate. She has the best results among girls in the class. Iwase believed that she and Shujin were a couple after they shook hands when he beat her in scores, much to Shujin’s surprise, who believed that she was merely being competitive. She and Kaya forced Shujin to choose between them and walked away crying after Shujin chose manga over her, showing how much she cared for him.

Ishizawa (石沢, Ishizawa)
A kid from Class 1 that is said to be a mangaka but only draws cute headshots of girls. His first name is unknown. He thinks that he can draw better than Moritaka and that Moritaka is pulling Shujin down.

Others:

Nobuhiro Mashiro (真城 信弘, Mashiro Nobuhiro)
Moritaka’s uncle. He died due to overwork, but Moritaka thought he committed suicide until he saw his studio. He uses his pen name Tarō Kawaguchi (川口 たろう, Kawaguchi Tarō?) for his works. Nobuhiro wrote the manga series Chō-hero Densetsu (超ヒーロー伝説, Chō hīrō Densetsu?, literally - “Superhero Legend”) which was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump. Chō-hero Densetsu is a obvious reference to Tottemo! Luckyman. He liked Miho’s mother, but was too late to confess to her.

Miyuki Azuki (亜豆 美雪, Azuki Miyuki)
Miho’s mother. Her maiden name was Haruno (春野, Haruno?). She was Nobuhiro’s crush, but couldn’t wait for him to confess and married another man.

Manga series:

Fictional:

Chō-hero Densetsu (超ヒーロー伝説, Chō hīrō Densetsu?, literally “Superhero Legend”)
The manga series by Nobuhiro Mashiro. Chō-hero Densetsu was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump and published under the Jump Comics line. Chō-hero Densetsu could possibly be a reference to Tottemo! Luckyman.

Large bander
2nd Prize winner of the Tezuka Award by Eiji Nīzuma (15).

Futatsu no Chikyū (ふたつの地球, Futatsu no Chikyū? literally “Two Earths”)
The first manga that Moritaka and Akito completed by a collaboration.

Ichioku bun no (1億分の, Ichioku bun no? literally “Rank among 100,000,000″)
The second manga that Moritaka and Akito completed by a collaboration.

Haiten Pipe (ハイテンピープー, Haiten Pīpū?)
A series of Eiji Nīzuma’s which won first prize in Weekly Shōnen Jump.

Kono Yo wa Kane to Chie (この世は金と知恵, Kono Yo wa Kane to Chie? literally “This World is Money and Wisdom”)
The third manga that Moritaka and Akito completed by a collaboration.

Crow
Manga created by Eiji Nizuma that get 1st place in Akamaru Jump.

Yellow Hit
Manga created by Eiji Nizuma that was originally going to be serialized.

Nonfictional:

Many real-life manga series can be seen in Bakuman. Nobuhiro’s manga collection is filled with real Jump Comics series, including Dragon Ball, Bastard!!, Beet the Vandel Buster, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, and Gintama.

Ashita no Joe (あしたのジョー, Ashita no Jō?, literally “Tommorow’s Joe”)
A manga series created by Tetsuya Chiba and Asao Takamori. Ashita no Joe was serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shōnen Magazine. This is Moritaka’s favorite manga.

Otoko no Jōken (男の条件, Otoko no Jōken? literally: “How to be a Man” or “A Man’s Condition”)
A manga series by Noboru Kawasaki and Ikki Kajiwara, from the 50’s and 60’s manga magazine Shōnen Book by Shueisha. The series was later moved to Weekly Shōnen Jump at Shōnen Book’s end.

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