Bakuman Season 3 - 01

[gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="title"]

Bakuman is back! Bakuman is back! Sorry, I just couldn't contain my excitement for another season of Bakuman. A little strange, seeing as how I know how it ends.

Clearly the third season doesn't waste any time in getting back to the story, and with good reason. We don't know if this is the last we'll see of the anime, so there is no merit in wasting time but that doesn't mean the story is going to be all about the speed.

This first episode took its sweet time and that is good. The romantic moments between Azuki and Mashiro are very limited throughout the series so a whole episode dedicated to them which didn't rush anything is never something to complain about. Only 1.5 chapters of the manga were adapted for this episode, which spells more good news for me in that J.C. Staff aren't rushing the story; they may still choose to omit an arc or two but they're not rushing.

A pivotal point in the story as you might imagine and some of you may actually know. Azuki and Mashiro's relationship always faces hardships and this episode added to what was in the manga with very little original content. The emotion was the usual high level of quality so I can't really say much about that, but there was unusually high amount of focus on Mashiro's hands in between all this.

The significance of why his hands are in focus so much should be made clear in future episodes, but I wonder if it was truly necessary for this move in art direction. It didn't bother me, instead it left me feeling confused about whether it was necessary or not.

Nothing much to say. Nizuma's presence wasn't overstepping any boundaries which was pleasing in its own way and Akina Aiko came off as just the right amount of woman scorned/vengeful irrational. I'd tell many of you to savour the moment she got yelled at by Miura - a rarity - but she's still not completely detestable as a character.

Next time we're getting back into the main story, and don't forget what Ashirogi Muto have to achieve.