8. Uncertainties and Expectations
Takagi comes up with some more ideas, including One Hundred Millionth, a story about people being ranked according to their abilities, and Hattori is impressed with the story, causing Mashiro to wonder if his art is good enough. The story is chosen as one of the finalists, but does not make it to the four chosen for the award or honorable mentions. Shortly afterward, Ishizawa, a classmate, claims that Mashiro's art is holding Takagi down. Takagi gets angry and punches Ishizawa.
Sub
Dub
Bakuman.
Bakuman.
Format:
Anime
Status:
Finished
Episodes:
25
Rating:
79
Studios:
J.C. Staff
Country:
JP
Duration:
24 min
Season:
FALL 2010
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Regrets and Understandings
Takagi is suspended for a week after punching Ishizawa, causing Mashiro to worry about him. He goes over to visit Takagi and learns that the story ideas he submitted to him were only a few of the ones he came up with. Mashiro then learns that Miyoshi and Aiko Iwase, the second best student in his grade, both have feelings for Takagi. Takagi tells them that he likes them both, but cannot be in a relationship with either due to his manga career. Iwase tells him to quit writing manga and leaves, while Miyoshi promises to support him. Miyoshi gets angry after Takagi admits that he only spoke to her to get information about Azuki for Mashiro, and Mashiro leaves with his determination restored.
Dreams and Reality
Moritaka Mashiro, an average student with a talent for drawing, forgets his notebook at school, where his classmate Akito Takagi finds and looks through it. Takagi likes his drawings and asks Mashiro to team up with him to create a best-selling manga. Mashiro refuses because his uncle was a manga artist until he died from overworking, while deeply in debt, which derails his dream. Takagi soon invites him to visit Miho Azuki, the girl Mashiro has an unrequited crush on, and Takagi tells her of his plan to create a manga that will become an anime, in which she will play the heroine. Mashiro also proposes to marry Azuki when both their dreams come true, and she agrees that they will, but shall not see each other until then. With this motivation, Mashiro decides to become a manga artist.
Dumb and Smart
Mashiro chats with Takagi, who tells him that he chose Mashiro because he is smarter than many of his peers in matters outside of scholarship, and that he believes Azuki has a similar kind of intelligence, with the ability to be appealling to others. Mashiro tells Takagi that he believes his uncle committed suicide, and thus suspects that his parents will oppose him becoming a manga artist. Mashiro's mother says his uncle did not commit suicide, but still opposes his decision until his father and grandfather show support for his dream. Mashiro's grandfather gives him his deceased uncle's studio apartment, and Mashiro brings Takagi to see it.
Parent and Child
Mashiro and Takagi arrive at Mashiro's uncle's apartment, where they look around and Mashiro shows Takagi the manuscripts and storyboards, that the author of a manga series produces before drawing it. Mashiro realizes that his uncle was working extremely hard until his death and vows to approach it with the same resolve. Mashiro and Takagi find letters between his uncle and his friend from childhood, which stop before his hit manga was serialized, and looking at a yearbook photo of her, realized that he had been in love with Azuki's mother. They go to visit Azuki's mother the next day, and learn that she was also in love with him, but never could admit it and fell in love with someone else. Mashiro asks Azuki's mother not to tell her about the relationship between her and her uncle, and he then sets out to make a manga.
Time and Keys
Mashiro shows Takagi all that he has drawn and points out all the mistakes he has made, as well as the finer points of using tools for drawing manga. When Takagi questions him, Mashiro tells him about G-Pens and Kabura pens, making manuscripts, and Taro Kawaguchi's three rules to a successful manga: conceit, doing your best, and luck. When they go to a convenience store, Takagi notices that the latest issue of Jack has a semi-finalist named Eiji Nizuma, a fifteen year old manga creator. The two discuss their high schools, manga, and editors, thus coming to the conclusion that they would finish the manuscript for a manga by summer's end and show it to an editor of Jack. While walking home with Takagi, Mashiro encounters Azuki by chance; while the two are unable to look at each other as they pass, they both turn back to look.
Summer and Names
Recalling when he and Azuki turned back to look at each other at the same time, Mashiro tells Takagi that he and Azuki have been on the same frequency for years, indicating that they are connected without having to say anything about it. Azuki's best friend Kaya Miyoshi goes to Takagi to complain about him telling Azuki about her dream, and as she does so, gives indications of romantic interest in Takagi that Mashiro and Miyoshi notice. During the summer, Mashiro and Takagi stay at Mashiro's uncle's office, and work on a manga called The Two Earths. When it is complete, they call the Shonen Jack editorial department.
Carrot and Stick
Mashiro and Takagi meet with Akira Hattori, one of the editors at Shonen Jack. He notes that their work has flaws, as it is too text-driven and not drawn in manga style, but they have potential. He tells them that they are better suited to figuring out what could be a hit and drawing that, rather than drawing what they want, and while they are less likely to get a smash hit with that skillset, they are more likely to follow up on one if they do. Hattori gives them his contact information, encouraging them to come to him with their work. At school, the teacher decides to seat boys and girls next to each other, resulting in Mashiro sitting next to Azuki.
Tears and Tears
After meeting with Hattori, Mashiro and Takagi continue working on new submissions, and Mashiro writes notes to Azuki in class. Azuki cries after Mashiro asks her if they have to wait to be together until they have fulfilled their dreams, and she gives him her email. Mashiro is anxious to submit a work for the Tezuka Award so that Azuki can smile again, but Takagi suggests that they should proceed more cautiously and make their manga as good as it can be. Hattori calls them, and tells them that the work they submitted did not even make it to the finalists, but Takagi and Mashiro resolve to keep trying and go for the next Tezuka award, much to Hattori's pleasure. Nizuma receives a visit from his editor and the editor in chief, and agrees to move to Tokyo to write his manga if he gets the right to cancel one series after becoming the top-ranked manga artist.
Uncertainties and Expectations
Takagi comes up with some more ideas, including One Hundred Millionth, a story about people being ranked according to their abilities, and Hattori is impressed with the story, causing Mashiro to wonder if his art is good enough. The story is chosen as one of the finalists, but does not make it to the four chosen for the award or honorable mentions. Shortly afterward, Ishizawa, a classmate, claims that Mashiro's art is holding Takagi down. Takagi gets angry and punches Ishizawa.
Regrets and Understandings
Takagi is suspended for a week after punching Ishizawa, causing Mashiro to worry about him. He goes over to visit Takagi and learns that the story ideas he submitted to him were only a few of the ones he came up with. Mashiro then learns that Miyoshi and Aiko Iwase, the second best student in his grade, both have feelings for Takagi. Takagi tells them that he likes them both, but cannot be in a relationship with either due to his manga career. Iwase tells him to quit writing manga and leaves, while Miyoshi promises to support him. Miyoshi gets angry after Takagi admits that he only spoke to her to get information about Azuki for Mashiro, and Mashiro leaves with his determination restored.
10 and 2
Mashiro and Takagi meet with Hattori, who says the manga artists liked their work, but the editors judging it thought it would never be published. Mashiro, wanting to progress faster than he is now, wonders if he could submit a work for serialization, and Hattori is doubtful. The editor in chief says that work needs to be good to be serialized, but Mashiro and Takagi are not good enough yet, and need a good main character to do so. Their early attempts are unimpressive, but Hattori suggests that a cult hit that only 20 percent of the reader base would read, but consider their favorite, might be a way for Mashiro and Takagi to get first place. Takagi mentions an idea he has called Money and Intelligence, in which people sell the contents of their minds to others, and Hattori suggests that they work on it.