Summary: The story of Bakuman continues from its first season as Takagi and Mashiro try to live through the endless hardships of having a serialized manga in Shonen Jack.
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Story/Plot:
In the first season of Bakuman, I couldn’t help but notice how unpredictable this whole thing was, and how much the plot twists sometimes turned out completely outside of what I had predicted. Now, moving on to Bakuman II… That feature was aggravated. I swear, every time I would predict something, it would turn out to be completely wrong. And, I must say, I absolutely loved it. The show surprised me all throughout, the plot twists were well thought, and I continuously had this feeling of awesomeness that kept clinging to me. The pace was great, and if it wasn’t the greatest plot I have seen in my life nothing will ever beat Chihayafuru in my heart, it definitely satisfied me and it was mainly the reason why I enjoyed watching this every week. If there was one thing I would have liked to see develop a bit however, it’s the relationship between Mashiro and Azuki. There wasn’t many events which linked them together this season, and I would’ve enjoyed seeing them together a bit more after the hospital scene, which was way back in episode 6.
9.5/10
Characters
Was there a lot of growth shows this season in character development? Did the characters actually learn? Man oh man, I don’t think they could’ve learned any more than this. With the hardships they went through this season, Takagi and Mashiro are completely different from what they were when Detective Trap got serialized, definitely. The appearance of Miura involved much character development as well, since he barely had any experience in editing and had to learn as much as Ashirogi Muto did. In terms of other side characters, I can’t say anything wrong about any of it, since everyone had their own little moment of glory. I particularly like Nakai and Aoki, however I must say that I wish Nakai will come back some day, since I liked him a lot. Moreover, I wish there was a bit more to it than just him leaving and quitting manga, it’s kinda… Sad? For him to spend all his life longing for a goal which he end up giving up on…
Overall, I was really happy with pretty much everything in terms of character, except maybe for the fact that Azuki was very absent in this season, which was mentioned above already.
8.5/10
Technicalities
I’ve got nothing bad to say about it, I’ve got nothing especially good to say about it either. The art was nice, the animation was well done, the OST was fine and the OP and ED were tolerable, although not my favourites. The one thing about this show that I found very unique in terms of animation were the humouristic drama and the whacko facial expressions characters would have sometimes. The way the drama was expressed when Aoki Kou’s confessed was definitely original, and the producers did a great job at making it a lot less heavy for everyone else, and mostly funny.
7.5/10
Overall Impression
Why, I haven’t watched much this season, but this was one of my favourites! Especially in terms of plot, I was blown away, and I absolutely loved watching this every week to figure out what was going to happen to our favourite mangakas. For a shounen anime, the concept stood out, the ideas were original and the whole thing only made me want to watch more every time. This second season wasn’t deceiving at all, and in the end I can only hope that the thirs season coming out next fall will be just as great, if not better than this. According to Vantage, it will be glorious… We’ll see about that ^.^
8.5/10