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The manga and anime _Bakuman_ talks about two middle school boys wanting to be
published on a Shonen magazine. The anime clearly set a goal and create
antagonists for narration purposes but the story explain rather accurately
expectations, procedures and workloads of a real magazine.

Was Bakuman deliberately made and published on Shonen Jump to attract new
artists in the industry? If so, are there any documented effect of this type
of promotion nowadays, i.e. about more young people trying to join the
industry?


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manga-production bakuman
Was Bakuman deliberately made to attract new manga artists in the industry?


The magazine [_QuickJapan_ vol. 81](http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4778311566)
published interviews with the authors Ohba and Obata, and the editor Soichi
Aida. Aida stated that:

> Like how the number of players who play a sport would increase after a manga
> on the sport gets popular, I do think about people who would think "I might
> try drawing a manga" after reading _Bakuman_. If _Bakuman_ does well, we
> would see more people aspiring to be a manga artist. If we have more manga
> artist candidates, the future of _Jump_ is bright. As an editor, I do dream
> about those stuff.

He might be drawing an analogy with how the population of Go players increased
significantly after Obata's earlier work _Hikaru no Go_. More competitors +
survival of the fittest = only the best of the best can remain... that's the
editor's point of view.

Meanwhile, Obata has stated that he has always loved Fujiko Fujio A's _Manga
Michi_ (a semi-autobiographical work about the Fujiko Fujio duo), and the idea
for _Bakuman_ started from wanting to do a _Manga Michi_ of his own. So, you
can say that it was less about "bringing in fresh air to the industry" for the
authors, at least; but there was no reason to keep the editors and the
publisher from anticipating it.

As for the effect on the industry, the number of young people bringing their
manga to _Jump_ office did increase, according to the QJ magazine.


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