Akito Takagi

**Akito Takagi** is one of the main characters from the *Bakuman* anime and manga.

Mashiro's classmate and the smartest student in their class. Takagi comes up with the idea to become a mangaka with Mashiro in order to do something more interesting with his life.

In the AWA fics, Akito is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

Akito is quite tall and skinny, with medium length blond hair, gold/yellow eyes and wears glasses. He is quite often seen wearing a large pair of headphones around his neck (which are Sony MDR-XD100). He often wears a red track sweater. At the start of the manga, Akito's hairstyle was more curly and wild, but it has now flattened.

## **Personality**

Intelligent and calculating, Takagi is very observant of his surroundings. At the beginning of the story, he stated that he has neither ability to sing nor outstanding looks, which could help in show-business, thus deciding to stick with manga, calling it a popular modern medium and a quick way to earn money. He dreamed of creating manga since his childhood, but lacked the skill to draw, something he made up for by teaming up with Mashiro. A good manga writer, Takagi only has trouble with gags, something that lead to the end of Tanto. He is also very awkward when it comes to romance in his younger days, often accidentally insulting Miyoshi. He is not very good at hiding his frustration, such as when Tanto was failing. He also seems to have care greatly about society's opinion on his work, not being able to bear complaints on PCP from enraged parents, them saying it has a bad influence on their children. Becoming more and more bothered by those complaints, he finally snaps, venting his anger on Miyoshi in the process. He hates to lose in the reader polls more than anything because of his rivalry with Iwase. He is also considerate of his friends, often coming up with advice or actions that help out. While usually calm, Takagi can be enraged quickly when others insult his friends, seen as he punched Ishizawa - not caring about being suspended from school - when the latter was making fun of Mashiro's art.

Some in the Jump editorial office say that Takagi might make a great editor, if he chooses that path in the future; Takagi had greatly helped Shun with making Rubuta & Peace in a Jump-worthy manga.

## **Trivia**

* Takagi wears Converse brand shoes (he wears the All Star Model) and Sony brand headphones.
* Takagi ranked 5th in Weekly Shonen Jump popularity character polls.
* Takagi bears a slight resemblance to Light Yagami from *Death Note*, another manga created by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba
* Takagi can be compared to Tsugumi Ohba, the writer of *Bakuman*partnered with illustrator Takeshi Obata.
* Ironically, despite Dragon Ball being his favorite manga, Takagi is nearly the opposite from Akira Toriyama (the author of Dragon Ball). Takagi dislike creating gag stories, while Toriyama appears to enjoy it. Takagi prefers to plan out his stories in advance, while Toriyama would often make up plot points on the spot. Takagi’s work is non-mainstream in nature, while Toriyama is one of the pioneers of mainstream storytelling in Shonen Jump.
* He among Moritaka Mashiro made a cameo in To Aru Majutsu no Index episode 10 walking near Accelerator.
* Occasionally in the more recent chapters, when receiving calls from Jump, he has a smartphone resembling the Galaxy S line of phones by Samsung.
* In the anime, Akito already has his hair the style it would be later in the manga. Possibly done, so as to not confuse anyone by the sudden change.