Yes, I know that we're all desperately awaiting news of the Death Note movie, but in the meantime there's this.

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's second collaboration Bakuman is being dramatised for the silver screen. It will appear in 2015.

Bakuman is the semi-autobiographical story of two Japanese school-boys trying to make it in the world of manga creators. Ohba and Obata undoubtedly pooled their own experiences into making it as realistic as possible.

Takeshi Obata will be personally involved in the Bakuman film, as a consultant staff member. No word as yet whether Ohba will also be on board.

It will be directed by Hitoshi Oune, known for the movies Moteki, Koi no Uzu and The Vortex of Love.

Already cast in the title roles are Takeru Satoh (Mashiro Moritaka, aka Takeshi Obata in disguise) and Ryunosuke Kamiki (Akito Takagi, aka a very good manga writer like, for example, erm, Tsugumi Ohba).

The actors have already co-starred in the upcoming film Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen (Eng: Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno) another manga movie adaption. Their roles are, respectively, Kenshin Himura and Sōjirō Seta. Which should be deliciously confusing, when both films are out!

Bakuman follows the fortunes of Mashiro, a talented teen artist determined to make it as a mangaka. He co-opts his classmate Ryunosuke to write the stories.

Together they traverse the roller-coaster journey involved in breaking into the tough manga industry. While most definitely a story, with plot-lines and all, the manga also serves as a kind of career guide, for people seeking to follow in their footsteps.

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata began their collaboration on Bakuman in 2008, two years after Death Note was over. It ran for 176 weeks, with chapters serialised in Weekly Shonen Jump, ending in April 2012. Bakuman has already spawned an anime adaptation, which was aired between 2010-2013.

Is anyone excited about this? Personally I'm quite meh about it.

Back in the day, I rushed to grab the first of the twenty volume paperback Bakuman manga. I thought I'd be reading something akin to Death Note. I only made it as far as the third installment in the collection before giving up.

It wasn't that the story was bad. Quite the opposite, as would be expected by this pairing. But it certainly wasn't Death Note, and the overt sexism burned.

Nevertheless, my teenage nephew read on to the end with all signs of enjoyment.  I guess that I wasn't the target audience.  How about you?

We've all delighted in his artistry. We've debated long and hard over the decisions that he made visually.  But until you glanced at that photograph, did you even know what Takeshi Obata looked like?

It's perhaps the mark of a true artist that his life is judged by its creativity, rather than his biography. 

Nevertheless, as soon as it occurred to me that I knew nothing about him, I had to go on a voyage of discovery. Coming with me?

Takeshi Obata was born on February 11th 1969, in the city of Niigata, on the eponymously named Niigata Perfecture, in Japan. (For those of you with as dodgy a grasp of geography as myself, that's a port on the north-west coast of Japan's largest island.)

In 1985, he entered his one shot 500 Kōnen no Shinwaa into a competition run by Weekly Shonen Jump. The Tezuka Award was established to discover and showcase new artists. Takeshi certainly fit the bill. He walked away with the top prize AND a job at the magazine.

Death Note author Tsugumi Ohba is teaming up with Little Monster artist Robico for a unique one-shot.

Jump Meets Girl will be the theme.

As announced in tomorrow's Weekly Young Jump (Shūkan Yangu Janpu), the collaboration marks the first of a series to celebration 35 years of the publication's run.

Each Jump Meets Girl one-shot will pair a Jump writer or artist with a partner from the world of Shōjo.

 Shōjo means 'maiden or virgin', with the manga genre targeting young female readers. The story-lines tend towards romantic drama.  Not entirely what we associate with Tsugumi Ohba then!

Ohba and Robico's one-shot will appear in the May 8th 2014 edition of Weekly Young Jump. It should make interesting reading!

Related post: Tsugumi Ohba's Skip! Yamada-kun - Jump Meets Girl One-Shot by Death Note Writer

Obata has teamed up with Ryōsuke Takeuchi (storyboards) and Yoshitoshi ABe (character development) in order to recreate Sci-Fi novella All You Need is Kill as a graphic novel.

Hiroshi Sakurazaka's 2004 novel focuses upon the tale of a military man trapped in a time loop.

Aliens are invading the Earth and Keiji Kiriya was just one soldier sent on a suicide mission to stop them. He was duly killed within seconds, but that was not the end of his story.

He awoke just minutes later to find that time had rewound until the day before his fatal mission.

He's sent straight back out again, in full knowledge that this will be the end of his life. But once again, his death is followed by resurrection on the eve of his deployment.

Each time it occurs, Keiji grows a little wiser and much more cunning in how he meets the alien Mimics.

So will he eventually be able to defeat them? There seems to be little choice but to keep on trying. After all, the time loop is not going to stop thrusting him into his Fate.

All You Need is Kill was nominated for a Seuin Award (Japan's equivalent of the Nebula Awards) when it was first published.

It rose to even greater international prominence in 2010, when Warner Bros optioned it for film adaptation under the title Edge of Tomorrow.  Starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, the movie is due for release in June 2014.

Takeshi Obata's version of All You Need is Kill began serialization in Shonen Jump magazine in January 2014.

He ultimately aims to release the full collection of chapters as a complete graphic novel.

However, we might question why that is necessary, when Sakurazaka has himself adapted his short story into this same format. The author enlisted the help of Nick Mamatas (adaptor) and Lee Ferguson (illustrator) to produce his All You Need is Kill graphic novel.

It's due for release in May 2014.

Once Obata's graphic adaptation hits the markets too, that's bound to spark some confusion amongst fans of the genre.

It's effectively two books, telling the same story, using the same illustrative device, published in the same year.

But then, with Tom Cruise and a Hollywood block-buster on board to promote the work, there's patently going to be a lot of money in the franchise. Fans will be hungry for more merchandise.

Perhaps there's room for both graphic novels after all.