As far as the spoiler goes, I will only get into the basic premise, which will be revealed anyway in the first few episodes.
Bakuman, the manga, comes from the same manga-artists that brought you Death Note (Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata). Perhaps because Death Note was such a huge success as a manga and perhaps internationally even more as an anime, it would not seem such a bad idea to create another anime based on another work by the authors.
Bakuman itself, however, urges you to think differently. This is a slice-of-life manga/anime about what it means to become the best manga artist/author out there (even though it favors manga-elements to realism most of the time) and yeah, along the way come these offers for anime-adaptations as well. What we learn is that it is a tough competitive world out there for a Japanese mangaka to be serialized in a very popular manga-magazine like Weekly Shōnen Jump, but also to remain serialized long enough to be able to get these offers for anime productions (we are generally talking about years here).
With this in mind, Bakuman indeed carries a very interesting premise to have made it this far (all the way into an anime). We mainly follow Mashiro and Takagi from their mid-teens to their twenty-somethings as they aspire to become the most successful manga-artists out there. That is to say, successful enough for Mashiro to fulfill a promise with his youth-crush Miho to get an anime adaptation in which Miho will star as a voice-actress.
Another one of those typical Japanese "let's grow up and fulfill our promise to each-other" premises you say? Think again. This series goes to great lengths to depict all the painstaking hard work that goes into creating and publishing a successful manga and this is both its strength and it weakness. If you are a creative type, who knows about the sacrifices you are going to have to make to perfect your art, you can definitely relate to all this. Others, and maybe in particular the Death-Note anime fan-boys out there, looking for an easier emotional fix, might find Bakuman a bit long-winding after a while.
It is true that Mashiro and Takagi will fail a lot throughout the series with their mangas, but with their talents they manage to get a little better and a little closer to their dreams each time. Add to this a lot of subplots, that will involve other characters like girlfriends, rival artists, magazine-editors and families, which take up a huge chunk of time as well, and you will end up with a story that seems to progress a lot slower towards its goals than say Death-Note. Yet I gotta say, I like the ride and I find the little creative details, such as the manga-within-a-manga/anime parts very inspiring. Creating a manga like this must have been a mangaka's wet dream...
It is awesome that the anime production studio has chosen to stick very close to the manga. The main reason is perhaps because a story with this much focus on the creative processes behind a manga has rarely been done before and the studio just wasn't going to take chances with leaving too much stuff out. I also like very much how the characters are portrayed in the anime, from their personalities to their voice work, this is another strong point for the anime. Even though, considering its scope, some characters and relations will appear a little flat/stereotypical to some who are seeking a really deep story, but it is nothing the manga itself doesn't suffer from as well.
Skipping the manga makes watching the anime more fun, but ultimately the set-up is more suited for manga-form, so if you are watching season two right now and like me decided you don't want to wait for new episodes and decided on reading on in the manga, you will probably find yourself more hooked onto the manga instead. And yeah, your vote for the anime will drop just as well as mine did...
Death-note is the better anime, Bakuman is the better manga... In my humble opinion.
Bakuman, the manga, comes from the same manga-artists that brought you Death Note (Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata). Perhaps because Death Note was such a huge success as a manga and perhaps internationally even more as an anime, it would not seem such a bad idea to create another anime based on another work by the authors.
Bakuman itself, however, urges you to think differently. This is a slice-of-life manga/anime about what it means to become the best manga artist/author out there (even though it favors manga-elements to realism most of the time) and yeah, along the way come these offers for anime-adaptations as well. What we learn is that it is a tough competitive world out there for a Japanese mangaka to be serialized in a very popular manga-magazine like Weekly Shōnen Jump, but also to remain serialized long enough to be able to get these offers for anime productions (we are generally talking about years here).
With this in mind, Bakuman indeed carries a very interesting premise to have made it this far (all the way into an anime). We mainly follow Mashiro and Takagi from their mid-teens to their twenty-somethings as they aspire to become the most successful manga-artists out there. That is to say, successful enough for Mashiro to fulfill a promise with his youth-crush Miho to get an anime adaptation in which Miho will star as a voice-actress.
Another one of those typical Japanese "let's grow up and fulfill our promise to each-other" premises you say? Think again. This series goes to great lengths to depict all the painstaking hard work that goes into creating and publishing a successful manga and this is both its strength and it weakness. If you are a creative type, who knows about the sacrifices you are going to have to make to perfect your art, you can definitely relate to all this. Others, and maybe in particular the Death-Note anime fan-boys out there, looking for an easier emotional fix, might find Bakuman a bit long-winding after a while.
It is true that Mashiro and Takagi will fail a lot throughout the series with their mangas, but with their talents they manage to get a little better and a little closer to their dreams each time. Add to this a lot of subplots, that will involve other characters like girlfriends, rival artists, magazine-editors and families, which take up a huge chunk of time as well, and you will end up with a story that seems to progress a lot slower towards its goals than say Death-Note. Yet I gotta say, I like the ride and I find the little creative details, such as the manga-within-a-manga/anime parts very inspiring. Creating a manga like this must have been a mangaka's wet dream...
It is awesome that the anime production studio has chosen to stick very close to the manga. The main reason is perhaps because a story with this much focus on the creative processes behind a manga has rarely been done before and the studio just wasn't going to take chances with leaving too much stuff out. I also like very much how the characters are portrayed in the anime, from their personalities to their voice work, this is another strong point for the anime. Even though, considering its scope, some characters and relations will appear a little flat/stereotypical to some who are seeking a really deep story, but it is nothing the manga itself doesn't suffer from as well.
Skipping the manga makes watching the anime more fun, but ultimately the set-up is more suited for manga-form, so if you are watching season two right now and like me decided you don't want to wait for new episodes and decided on reading on in the manga, you will probably find yourself more hooked onto the manga instead. And yeah, your vote for the anime will drop just as well as mine did...
Death-note is the better anime, Bakuman is the better manga... In my humble opinion.