Bakuman (anime version)

[Spark Of Spirit]

Watching the beginning of episode 17 and I get this:

Mashiro (about to knock on Eiji's door to become an assistant): Niizuma Eiji... I could gain something from this!
*Theme song plays* YOUR LOVE!

They really do try to bend the focus a lot here.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

For all of the things that I hate about this anime adaptation, I will praise it for one thing: They freaking nail Eiji's character. I don't know who his voice actor is, but he does a fucking fantastic job playing the character. This is what I imagined him sounding like in the manga. The VA really emphasizes how HE emphasizes sound effects out loud, and I just really enjoy how much fun the VA seems to be having playing that character, because he is indeed a very fun character.

That said, I'm really disappointed with this anime adaptation. It falls far short of the much better treatment that Death Note got when it was adapted into an anime. Sure, half of the 2nd arc was cut out, but at least they were trying to keep the show interesting and entertaining for both newcomers who hadn't read the manga as well as people who already read the manga. As for Bakuman, it feels like an inferior copy and paste version of the manga, for the most part, with some useless filler that accomplishes nothing, so I really see little to no reason to keep watching it. If its only going to be 25 episodes long, then I'll follow it until it finishes up its run, but its really far below the standards that I was expecting for an animated adaptation of such an enjoyable manga, personally.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It feels... less exciting than the manga does. While the VAs are generally pretty good, the show only takes off when it focuses on the manga stuff. I mean, the relationships are an important part of the story, but they are not the central focus and they seem to be brought up anytime Hattori or Eiji isn't on the damn screen making it feel like Ashirogi is only doing manga to help Mashiro get a date at times.

I know moe and stuff is popular, but Bakuman isn't moe so I really wish they would stop emphasizing the romance aspect to hook that audience.

We're at episode 17 and we just met Fukuda and Nakai. This means in the next 8 episodes we need to see Ashirogi make up, write Detective Trap, compete against the other members of team Fukuda (we haven't met Aoki yet either), meet Koogi and his plot to win by using his fans... And judging by the pace we've had so far, I don't expect them to get through the Ashirogi fight (which was quite a long time in the manga) in any real brevity.

I think I'm going to have to add something into the Shonen piece about the anime.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Episode 18 was the best one so far because it was totally focused on the manga aspect and the little filler they added actually enhanced the main plot this time.

If only the rest of the anime was as good as this episode was. True to the manga, but enhanced parts of it to improve upon it. I always love when Mashiro, Fukuda, and Eiji have a manga discussion, too. 

The only problem is where the episode ends... it took quite a while to solve in the manga, so I'm really hoping it's faster here. But with the anime's rather lax pacing... I dunno.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Man, I almost forgot about the part when Mashiro worked as an assistant for Eiji and met Fukuda and Nakai over there. I always found it to be a really interesting situation and each character seemed to gain a lot out of the experience. Also, I'm liking Eiji's voice even more the more that I hear it. His voice actor clearly nails his character down.

Still, aside from the most recent episode, the anime has been pretty slow-paced and disappointing. I think its just the fact that the producers of the anime seem so keen on trying to fiddle around with its tone and focus more on the romance sub-plot to try and get the moe crowd interested in watching it since those types of shows are currently more popular in Japan. It just gives me yet another reason to get pissed off at the moe crowd and moe anime in general, and I really don't like how much they are emphasizing that tone and aspect of the story over what its actually even about. In truth I always found the romance aspect of Bakuman to be complete shit, even in the manga. That said, I also find it to be a very minor part of the story, so it didn't bother me much in the manga at all. I've always been into Bakuman purely for its insight into the world of shonen manga.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Season 1 has come to an end (yes season 2 has been confirmed), and I now must post my impressions.

First, there was too much filler added. The stuff that added to the main plot about manga was fine (including introducing Iwase and Hiramaru earlier), however there was way too much emphasis on the relationship aspect, even dedicating a whole filler episode to it. I'm almost convinced the only reason this was given an anime was to try to appeal to Moe fans and hook in the people that like shows about nothing at all.

The real issue is that everything they added (the final episode showing each mangaka was fantastic) that had to do with manga was perfect but the addition of a slower pace (which is far slower than the manga) as well as more relationship stuff threw off the pacing of the episodes. Anyone who has read Bakuman from the beginning knows the whole manga is centered on manga first and foremost with the relationships as merely the background factor. It is not a romance.

My only gripe manga wise was that we did not see any anime of the manga series. I think not making episode 17 and using its budget to make anime scenes for them would have done far more to help give the anime even the ounce of style the manga has, as it is it was merely serviceable.

In summary, it's a decent anime series, but the manga is WAY better. The anime has added filler to an already tightly paced story and is just a more fun read. The only thing I could really recommend over the manga is that the VA cast fits like a glove. Great casting on them. (Even if the most important characters take over 20 damn episodes to appear) If you aren't reading Bakuman, go do that first.

[Avaitor]

I watched the first episode, thought it was a fine if basic direct adaptation, and never felt the need to watch any more at the time.

It's a shame that they messed around with it so much. Ah well.

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's serviceable, but it is not as good as it should be.

And that fucking OP is total garbage. Seriously, what the hell is that supposed to be?

[Avaitor]

Yeah, if you played my podcast tonight, Vekou was talking about it, and he came to pretty much the same conclusion as you did. Good when it doesn't focus on the romantic aspects.

And the OP sucked. Hard. I hated it when I first spun that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Sorry, but I just barely managed to make it through the 1st season. To be precise, its certainly not a bad anime adaptation if someone were to watch it without having already read the manga, but considering how well the anime for Death Note got treated when that got adapted from the manga, I am disappointed by how little care and effort was put into adapting Bakuman past the 1st episode. I just found the entire series to be a boring retread of what I had already read in the manga, and the slow pacing and needless filler made me just wish that I were reading the manga instead. To be fair I'll give season 2 a chance and hope that maybe the anime producers have learned from the mistakes which they made in season 1, but I'm not really looking forward to it much anymore. Overall I found the anime to be a waste of time if you've already read the manga, but I suppose I wouldn't mind recommending it to someone who just downright refuses to read manga but would still be interested in this sort of story (though I'd advise them to keep their expectations a bit lower than if I were to recommend the manga, after all).

[Daxdiv]

.

And that fucking OP is total garbage. Seriously, what the hell is that supposed to be?

After listening to the opening, I got to say that the opening they gave to One Piece, Kaze Wo Sagashite, a song I can't get behind because the guy that created it said that he thinks that anime is kids stuff,  is more pleasant to the ears. This is worse than garbage. I rather be listening to ABK48 singing something. Let the hate comments commence.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Nice, they got rid of that ass-retarded opening from season 1. That's certainly a +1 for this anime, even if the new opening isn't anything all that special (it at least seems like gold in comparison to the first one, and to be fair it seems fitting enough for this type of series). It also starts off with a surprise opening animation for Detective Trap....that unfortunately only lasts 10 seconds. Its Mashiro imagining an anime opening in his head and then it shows that he's day-dreaming after the "Shady Detective Trap" title comes up, which is kind of a bummer because I was hopening that they would go with a full opening song for it like they did for Super Hero Legend back in the 1st season. It was still a nice way to start things off, nonetheless, though. I haven't watched beyond the opening since the anime hasn't been given any subtitles yet, but it at least looks like its starting off on the right foot this time. I'll have to see the full episode before I can be sure of that, though, and even though Desensitized is doing a write-up for it I think that I'll also offer up a second opinion of mine.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The OP is already a 100% improvement. Heck, if it was just something like Eiji badly singing karaoke to some moe show it would be a massive improvement alone.

I'll save my thoughts for the feature, but that is one thing that needed to be addressed more than anything.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

As far as the OP and ED themes for Bakuman goes, am I alone in actually really liking the 2nd ED to the 1st season? I'm not sure, but it just had a really cool beat to it that got it stuck in my head for quite a while. I actually think it would have made a much more fitting OP song than the actual OP song that we got in season 1 (hell, even the 1st ED would have been a better opening song, or just about ANYTHING else for that matter).

[Spark Of Spirit]

Nah, I also really like both EDs for season 1. They both held to the theme of a tough road ahead and they were both 'driving' songs that pumped you up... Which is Bakuman- it's supposed to be about hot blooded shonen (in multiple ways) and they both fit.

The lazy OP from a boyband that was slow as molasses and centered on one subplot in the story as if it was the whole purpose of the anime was simply not.