Bakuman

Bakuman (バクマン。; stylized as BAKUMAN。) is a Japanese manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, the same creative team responsible for Death Note. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from August 2008 to April 2012, with its 176 chapters collected into 20 tankōbon volumes. The story follows talented artist Moritaka Mashiro and aspiring writer Akito Takagi, two ninth grade boys who wish to become manga artists, with Mashiro as the illustrator and Takagi as the writer. Some characters resemble real authors and editors of Weekly Shōnen Jump, and many manga titles mentioned in Bakuman have actually been published in the magazine. It is the first manga released online by Shueisha in multiple languages before becoming available in print outside Japan. In 2009, Viz Media licensed the manga for English release in North America. Besides releasing the series in collected volumes, they also released it in their online manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. A 75-episode anime television adaptation of the series by J.C.Staff was broadcast for three seasons on NHK Educational TV from October 2010 to March 2013. A live-action film adaptation was released in October 2015. Bakuman topped the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list for male readers in 2010, was the seventh best-selling manga series of 2011 and the 10th best of 2012. The manga has over 15 million copies in circulation.