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.

When Moritaka Mashiro, a middle school student, forgets his notebook in class, he finds his classmate, Akito Takagi, who notes Mashiro's drawings. Takagi asks him to become a manga artist to his stories. However, Mashiro declines, citing his late manga artist uncle, who died from overworking. Takagi incites Mashiro to meet with Miho Azuki, Mashiro's crush, and tells her the two plan to become manga artists. In response, Azuki reveals her plans to be a voice actress. Mashiro proposes to her that they should both marry when Azuki becomes a voice actress for the anime adaptation of their manga. She accepts, but under the condition that they not meet face-to-face again until then. The two boys then start creating manga, under the pen name Muto Ashirogi, in hopes of getting serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump.

After submitting many one-shots to Shueisha, Ashirogi begin their first serialized manga in Weekly Shōnen Jump, Detective Trap (疑探偵TRAP（ぎたんていトラップ）, Gitantei Torappu), which is eventually canceled due to its declining popularity, after Mashiro is hospitalized for overworking on it. Their next series is the gag manga Vroom, Tanto Daihatsu (走れ!大発タント, Hashire! Daihatsu Tanto), which they give up on, realizing it will never be popular, coupled with Takagi's difficulty with writing rapid-fire humor. After being challenged by the editor-in-chief of Jump to create a superior manga to their rival's, Ashirogi develops their current series Perfect Crime Party (PCP -完全犯罪党-, PCP -Kanzen Hanzaitō-). It is met with considerable popularity but due to its theme, is unfit for an anime series. When their rival, Eiji Nizuma, submits a one-shot for serialization, Ashirogi competes by submitting Reversi which replaces Perfect Crime Party while the latter is moved to Shueisha's fictional monthly magazine, Hisshou Jump. After many conflicts involving the graphic novel sales and the voice actress choice, Reversi is chosen for an anime adaptation with Miho as the primary actress, after she passes a public audition. After fulfilling their dreams, the series ends with Mashiro officially proposing to Miho at the place they made their promise, the front gate of Miho's old home, followed by their first kiss.

Tsugumi Ohba came up the idea for Bakuman after thinking of all the people who long to be manga artists. Because he is in the industry, he felt he could create a manga about manga. Takeshi Obata, illustrator of the series, said that the title "means bakuhatsu (explosion), bakuchi (gamble) and baku (an animal that supposedly eats dreams)… It has many meanings to it, and I think it's a very fun title." Ohba said that for the fictional manga created in the series, he did not worry about the plot and settings, only focusing on "cranking them out." He revealed that he did actually make storyboards for the fictional The Classroom of Truth, and one he created for Otter No. 11 is actually seen in Bakuman.

When creating a chapter, Ohba did not meet with Obata. He would discuss things with his editor and create storyboards that were given to Obata. Obata then would create his own storyboards that were given to Ohba and their editor. The author said only minor changes were ever made and they never had disagreements. Obata said that when he started the manga, he struggled with the large amount of dialogue and information, not having enough space to draw the detailed backgrounds that he wanted. But he eventually realized that the dialogue is "the main character" of the series and shifted to making the art as unobtrusive as possible, such as using simple camera angles so that the composition was not too elaborate and the text could be read smoothly. Ohba referred to Bakuman as "a weird series." He revealed that the hardest part was coming up with new ideas as the story kept getting longer. But said because of this, he was able to include stories that he never initially considered.

When asked how accurate the manga process depicted in Bakuman is to reality, current Weekly Shōnen Jump editor-in-chief Hiroyuki Nakano said that as a work of fiction, some things are exaggerated for dramatic effect, "But it takes a lot of details from real life, so I think it's quite close." Bakuman features many homages to Fujiko A. Fujio's Manga Michi, a semi-autobiographical manga series with a similar premise that Obata is a big fan of.