Written by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata, Bakuman began in Weekly Shonen Jump on 8 August 2008 and ended on 23 April 2012 at chapter 176, collected in 20 volumes. Moritaka Mashiro can draw and Akito Takagi can write, and together they aim to be serialised in the magazine they are themselves reading.
What separates it from other stories about ambition is how much of the industry it puts on the page: being assigned an editor, entering newcomer awards, the serialisation meeting, the reader survey tallied every week, and the fact that a low ranking ends a series. Talent does not guarantee survival here, and what an artist wants to draw keeps failing to line up with what sells.
Their rival Eiji Nizuma is written as a genuinely overwhelming talent, so the leads start at a disadvantage and stay there for a long time; closing that gap is the work of all twenty volumes. Complete, with animated and live-action adaptations.
