Bakuman

*Bakuman* is a Weekly Shonen Jump manga about the manga industry, done by the same mangakas behind *Death Note*.

The plot follows Moritaka Mashiro; when he proposes to Miho Azuki that the two marry each other when she becomes a seiyuu for an anime adaptation of their manga, the two accept. He then starts making manga with Akito Takagi, under the pen name *Muto Ashirogi*.

Unfortunately, many of their manga end up cancelled with no anime adaptation ever given. Thus kickstarts many conflicts of *Bakuman*.

An anime adaptation by J.C. Staff (yes, *that* J.C. Staff) was also made.

Not to be confused with *Bakugan*. *Shirobako* does the same basic concept, except with anime.

As spoilers are mentioned, it's best if you watch or have knowledge of the anime before reading.

## Tropes

* Downwards Funnel: Many of the manga done by Ashirogi (Mashiro and Takagi's pen name, as noted above) never get an anime adaptation. The one time they do, they go through a lot of trouble with influencing the voice cast.
	+ *PCP*, in particular, will most likely never get an anime adaptation as no one is willing to sponsor it. This, coming from a manga that actually got an anime.
	+ As *Bakuman* is from the same people behind *Death Note*, Ashirogi's work actually gets a dose of Cerebus Syndrome. The duo started out very lighthearted with *Detective Trap*, and after a gag manga, their work gets darker from there.
* Only One Setting: The series never goes outside of Tokyo Prefecture, since the Chiyoda Ward is where Shueisha is located. Averted otherwise.
* Dubless Series: Only one volume's worth of episodes ever received an English dub. This dub in turn never released outside of North America.
* I Have Failed to Keep a Secret: Nakai's actions cost Nanamine dearly, but not before he got fired. Nanamine decided that instead of giving up, he decided to work on the manga himself until it got cancelled.
* Obscurity, much?: Parodied *extensively*. One moment, a manga could reach the top of the Jump rankings. The next, it tanks *hard*. Despite this, considering how *Bakuman* portrays *Jump*, if it gets serialized at all, mangakas can do no less than 10 chapters.
* Popularity Killoff: To avoid this, Eiji decided to end a manga the moment he was at #1 for many weeks in a row. The series he decided to end? His own, since he didn't want to draw it out for profit.
* Gainax Ruined the Ending: Not in the series itself, but to many, *many* Jump (as Bakuman portrays it) manga. It's either this, or No Ending at All.
* This gave us inspiration: One of Ashirogi's series, *Reversi*, is basically *Death Note* with a few noticeable changes. Slightly subverted since the mangakas who did *Death Note* also did *Bakuman*.
	+ Since the anime was picked up by the NHK, *Weekly Shonen Jump* is called *Weekly Shonen Jack* in the anime adaptation.
* You Are Fired: Nakai gets fired by Nanamine after the former ended up causing the latter's online help to bail. He later gets hired by another mangaka, though.
* Innocent punishment: Ashirogi Muto's work *PCP* gets very popular, but won't qualify for an anime whatsoever. This parallels *Death Note*, which actually *did* get an anime after it ended.
	+ And *PCP* in manga form is shown in the *Bakuman* anime despite the former's premise supposedly turning fictional anime sponsors away.