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BEAT&MOTION
49
6
Finished
Feb 25, 2023 to Jan 25, 2025
Tatsuhiko Hirayama's love for drawing began at a young age, and his aspiration was to work in animation someday. But when the young boy is bullied for his art, Tatsuhiko swears to never draw in front of others ever again. Desperate to find something new to fill the void in his heart, he turns to music but eventually becomes jaded by his own mediocrity. While Tatsuhiko is out drinking with his friends, his sob story earns the ire of a drunk woman, who intimidates the young man into reassessing his attitude toward life. He decides to give animation another chance and soon rediscovers his love for the medium, pushing himself to publish a short video. Tatsuhiko is stunned when the video goes viral, even more so when his favorite singer, Nico Kashiwagi, requests a collaboration on her next music video! Excited to finally meet the artist he has admired for so long, the young man is shocked to discover that Nico is the same bar patron that gave him an earful, though she has no recollection of that drunken night. While initially hesitant of their new partnership, Tatsuhiko slowly learns that there is more to Nico's brutish passion than he realizes. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
8.0/10
Average Review Score
75%
Recommend It
4
Reviews Worldwide
Beat and Motion follows an animator and a singer, and how they form a friendship which then spirals into a relationship. The story follows many themes of success/failure, friendship and following your dreams. The plot essentially begins with a guy who wants to do art but feels like he can't pursue art due to a variety of reasons, who eventually meets a girl who is following her dreams despite them being difficult and hard to reach. They start out on the wrong foot to begin with, but eventually become friends who aim to work together on a project. His first project fails and during theproduction he meets two other art dudes who help him with another project that eventually takes off and then bam, the dude gets to work with the main girl who is now his girlfriend and it's all yipee and wahoo. Overall- it's a fine manga, plot isn't generic but isn't anything outstanding. The artstyle is okay, definitely isn't a favourite, but isn't anything horrendous. The series begins to feel rushed towards the end, as most shorter mangas tend to. It is not a super memorable manga, but the female lead is pretty cute. Male lead is pretty forgettable. Not a bad read and doesn't take up a heap of time.
Another amazing manga ended. I couldn't believe how satisfying this manga is. But first of all, I want to thank MangaPlus for bringing this masterpiece into the app, I couldn't ask for more than this treatment. Story. Straight, point blank. Both MCs have dreams and they actually achieve them. Not only that, they ended up together very fast unlike a certain series that took up hundreds of chapters to confess and they still haven't gone out together. Even tho, the ending could be a little better, I would say overall the author did a great job of conveying the story straight and didn't take an off-railtangent to try to get as much rage money from their fans with their ridiculous story that took more than 1 year to develop. Illustration. I saw some people complaining about this actually saying that their appearance doesn't look like their age, which is about twenties. And I would like to say, I kind of agree and disagree. I agree sometimes these authors try too hard to make their OC look so young despite their age but on this occasion, I would have to disagree because I looked into the mirror and felt like I still looked the same as myself at 17 (and I'm in my 24 this year). So, their appearance is valid I would say. Other than appearance, the background illustration looks stunning and I don't have a complaint about it. Characters. I would love to discuss a lot in this section of the review, but I don't want you all to sit here and read my praises for these characters. So, I'm just going to say read it, and you'll love them. No extended drama, no misunderstanding of more than 2 chapters, and even better, they talked about their problems and solved them like champs by collaborating and finding the solutions. That's insanely rare in these days and ages of manga/webtoon/comic, right? Proportions of the manga. I wish I could buy the physical version to compare it but I'm just going to talk about the MangaPlus version. Overall I don't have any complaints. I don't even have nitpick. I could see this manga becoming popular if they decide to make an anime out of it and animate it beautifully. I wish the story would stay longer though, like just a little bit more. Overall, I recommended this manga. It's 9.9/10 for me.
Despite the character design making them look rather young even as adults, I think we get to see some of the more proper adult characters in the shonen jump space, though they do suffer from being a lil delulu, childish, and struggling (that's a neutral statement, many artists struggle). We have a musician wishing to make it big despite having a former superstar musician mom, she's trying to escape the nepobaby curse, which, good on you, girliepop. Then we have an artist who aims to make his animations into films at some point, but he always had a love for the musician's music so hewants to animate a music video for her. Great, the characters intermingle, the goals are set, there's some setbacks, some drama, some growth, and overall just a solid time, if a little boring and with typical usage of cliffhanger endings due to weekly chapter drops. I read somewhere that this was not intended to be a super long running manga, which is great to see from time to time, if anything, its rambling, uneven attention to detail or plot may be due to extending something beyond its intended ending point. And that's honestly a good problem to have instead of the opposite where your wings are cut before you get to fly. There's kind of a sweet spot that this manga hits between realism and the contrived, messy plot creations of shonen manga. The characters don't express their feelings and bottle it up until it explodes or causes a problem, another manga might have this go on for entire arcs, this one solves it in a couple chapters. A different musician is later introduced and she has a major problem with main protag musician Kashiwagi, and the first time they interact while alone, we see the problem directly, they yell, they air out their grievances, and then they become closer, then another issue arises and since they aired out a previous grievance, they are at a better, healthier place to discuss a new one. Similarly, the main protagonists don't stay in the will they won't they stage for too long, and once the reveal is made the couple moves with certainty. Main dramatic moments are solved relatively quickly with a conversation and a rant and things get better. Main themes include music and animation industry woes, relationship mismatches due to business, creative differences, and success and failure in creative endeavors. This is decent read for anyone who wishes to see how creatives deal with their problems in a productive way, and while the beginning of this manga really focuses on the intensely driven drunken but ambitious waifu-bait, I think that changes and improves enough to keep things interesting. Our main guy is kind of boring the whole way though he is hardworking and resilient, and the moments where the mangaka's art vastly shines are in those contemplative moments where the main man questions why he is even an artist, or those moments of realization that he's not alone anymore or he's improved in quality. Things got a little rushed towards the end but that's fine, author probably wanted to end things semi-ambiguously because the story should have been relatively short. It's not a remarkably amazing manga but I hold a sweet spot for its short, self-contained story with an endless possibility for what happens after the curtains fall. I wanted our cast to succeed and I think I was left satisfied with how things ended up. Side characters were not the most fleshed out but they contained a lil bit of growth in their interaction with the two protags.
God, I'm so fucking sad this series ended so soon. One of the freshest, sweetest romcoms I've read. It was incredibly refreshing to read a story about love that wasn't set in high school! They're adults!! Thank god!! Both Tatsuhiko and Nico were incredibly charming, and had fantastic chemistry together. Rooted for their romance so fuckin hard!!! The art and character design were both super cute, it had a really unique style, especially all the facial expressions. Usually in romcoms I get a little impatient whenever it focuses on things other than the romcom elements, but here I was really invested in both. Tatsuhikos strugglesand insecurities about getting into the animation industry were really compelling reads, and Nico's slow rise to stardom and drama due to her mother's identity was super good. I'm really glad we got what we did of the series, but I'm so sad it had to end so abruptly and un-satisfyingly. It is getting an anime luckily, and I really hope that will drum up more interest, and we may potentially see a revival. Please, if you like romance, or manga about art or music, or whatever, read it!!! Please!!! And watch the anime when it comes out!!!