It looks like Obata and Ohba struck gold again. After the phenomenal success of Death Note, the duo came up with Bakuman, a manga about making manga. While this series is a whole lot different than Death Note, it still maintains Ohba's style of intelligent writing coupled with Obata's masterful artwork(Come on, the guy's gotta move to seinen already). Bakuman's plot isn't really groundbreaking, but the storytelling is one of the best in current shonen manga nowadays. The manga shows us how writing manga for Jump works, how hard it is to even get published, how it is even harder to stay serialized in Japan'smost popular shonen magazine. The characters also have their own appeal; Niizuma Eiji with his L-ish mannerisms and quirks, and Miho and Mashiro's strange approach to their pseudo-engagement.However, as good as Ohba's writing is, sometimes his characterizations fall flat. Aside from their unique quirks, they aren't that well fleshed-out and we can't really form a bond with any of them. Takagi, for instance, is perhaps the blandest character in the whole manga while his girlfriend, Miyoshi can sometimes be very grating. Having great characters is very important in this kind of story, since it's not action-y. That aside, the plot moves forward in a straightforward and concise manner as is the style of Ohba. All in all, if you want some intelligence in your shonen manga and a bit of insight as to how the whole industry works, read Bakuman. You won't regret it.