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Bakuman fanfic
This is embarrassingly late, because this rec is a story from last year's Yuletide, but better late than never, right?
Anything You Can Do (3060 words) by mmmdraco
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bakuman, Love Recipe (Manga)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fukuda Shinta, Hattori Yuujirou, Tomonori Ozawa
Summary: Where does being a BL mangaka fit between Road Racer GIRI and sleep? Fukuda isn't sure, but he's gonna make a place for it.
Bakuman is a Shonen Jump manga about a couple of teenage boys (a writer and an artist) who decide to write manga together with the goal of...wait for it...writing for Shonen Jump! (It's availabe in the US from Viz.) The series traces their path as an aspiring writer/artist duo that fights first to get their work accepted into Jump, and then to rise to the top of the rankings and have an anime based on their manga. It's written in a shonen action style, and though you would not expect a series about drawing manga to be exciting, it actually is very suspenseful and compelling. This article on Manga Bookshelf (with spoilers from Vol. 6) nicely illustrates how the manga manages to create suspense and tension without having any physical action. And coincidentally, Fukuda, the protagonist of the fanfic, appears in the second example shown.
It's a great manga, which perhaps is not surprising given that it's created by the duo that also created the Death Note manga. However, I can't recommend without it completely without reservation, since it contains some unfortunate undertones of sexism, both subtle and overt. Kaya, who is a friend to the Bakuman duo and later a love interest to Takagi (the writer half of the pair), is probably the best and most well-rounded female character in the series. She's strong, gutsy, and not at all shy about standing up for herself, but yet...she doesn't really have a dream of her own, and for that reason chooses to support Takagi and Mashiro's dream, which I find kind of sad. She's still young and attending school in the manga, so there's time for her to find herself, but I would have liked to have seen her have a goal of her own to aspire to. There's no reason why she couldn't have pursued a dream of her own while still supporting her friends' dream.
But getting back to the fanfic...Fukuda is my favorite character in the series, so I was delighted to find a story focusing on him! He's a supporting character in the manga, another manga-ka who is both a friend and a rival to the main characters Mashiro and Takagi. He's brash, impulsive, and a bit crude at times, though he's a good guy deep down. And he's also extremely competitive (as are all the other Jump artists), always striving to have the top-ranked story in Jump, and the success of his rivals only pushes him to strive even harder. This story nicely captures all those facets of his personality (especially the competitive part), with the added bonus of having him be gay (for me as a yaoi fangirl, anyway). The story deals with the issue realistically though without much angst: Fukuda is pretty matter of fact about it, but he's closeted due to the obvious reason that being gay might hurt the image of a Shonen Jump writer. Mostly as a lark, he draws a BL manga, but his competitive spirit arises, and he's soon fighting to get it published. It's a really fun look at how a Jump artist might tackle a BL manga, while still keeping Fukuda perfectly in character!
The story is a crossover with a real BL manga called Love Recipe, which I haven't read, but I had no problem following the story. I think you could probably read and enjoy it without having read Bakuman either, but obviously you have a much better understanding of the character if you're familiar with Bakuman and Fukuda.
Anything You Can Do (3060 words) by mmmdraco
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bakuman, Love Recipe (Manga)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fukuda Shinta, Hattori Yuujirou, Tomonori Ozawa
Summary: Where does being a BL mangaka fit between Road Racer GIRI and sleep? Fukuda isn't sure, but he's gonna make a place for it.
Bakuman is a Shonen Jump manga about a couple of teenage boys (a writer and an artist) who decide to write manga together with the goal of...wait for it...writing for Shonen Jump! (It's availabe in the US from Viz.) The series traces their path as an aspiring writer/artist duo that fights first to get their work accepted into Jump, and then to rise to the top of the rankings and have an anime based on their manga. It's written in a shonen action style, and though you would not expect a series about drawing manga to be exciting, it actually is very suspenseful and compelling. This article on Manga Bookshelf (with spoilers from Vol. 6) nicely illustrates how the manga manages to create suspense and tension without having any physical action. And coincidentally, Fukuda, the protagonist of the fanfic, appears in the second example shown.
It's a great manga, which perhaps is not surprising given that it's created by the duo that also created the Death Note manga. However, I can't recommend without it completely without reservation, since it contains some unfortunate undertones of sexism, both subtle and overt. Kaya, who is a friend to the Bakuman duo and later a love interest to Takagi (the writer half of the pair), is probably the best and most well-rounded female character in the series. She's strong, gutsy, and not at all shy about standing up for herself, but yet...she doesn't really have a dream of her own, and for that reason chooses to support Takagi and Mashiro's dream, which I find kind of sad. She's still young and attending school in the manga, so there's time for her to find herself, but I would have liked to have seen her have a goal of her own to aspire to. There's no reason why she couldn't have pursued a dream of her own while still supporting her friends' dream.
But getting back to the fanfic...Fukuda is my favorite character in the series, so I was delighted to find a story focusing on him! He's a supporting character in the manga, another manga-ka who is both a friend and a rival to the main characters Mashiro and Takagi. He's brash, impulsive, and a bit crude at times, though he's a good guy deep down. And he's also extremely competitive (as are all the other Jump artists), always striving to have the top-ranked story in Jump, and the success of his rivals only pushes him to strive even harder. This story nicely captures all those facets of his personality (especially the competitive part), with the added bonus of having him be gay (for me as a yaoi fangirl, anyway). The story deals with the issue realistically though without much angst: Fukuda is pretty matter of fact about it, but he's closeted due to the obvious reason that being gay might hurt the image of a Shonen Jump writer. Mostly as a lark, he draws a BL manga, but his competitive spirit arises, and he's soon fighting to get it published. It's a really fun look at how a Jump artist might tackle a BL manga, while still keeping Fukuda perfectly in character!
The story is a crossover with a real BL manga called Love Recipe, which I haven't read, but I had no problem following the story. I think you could probably read and enjoy it without having read Bakuman either, but obviously you have a much better understanding of the character if you're familiar with Bakuman and Fukuda.