Eiji Niizuma

Eiji Niizuma is a character from the Bakuman anime and manga.

Eiji is a high school genius mangaka who has been drawing manga ever since he was little. From Aomori he moved to Tokyo for the serialization of his manga Yellow Hit with the condition that if he becomes the Jack's best mangaka he will be given the right to end one series in Jack that he hates. Niizuma also has a great love for manga, loving manga more than Ashirogi Muto and his opinions are valued by everyone at Jump. He also is able to give pretty spot-on analysis to other manga, as when he predicted the results in the Golden Future Cup. His rival is Ashirogi Muto, though he is also a fan of their manga.

Appearance
Eiji has short brown/red hair with the exception of his bangs (his hair has gotten longer over time). He has brown eyes which are sometimes considered purple. In all of his appearances, he wears the same purple clothing which consists of a long sleeved black t-shirt and simple blue jeans. He is rarely seen wearing shoes but can sometimes be seen wearing sandals. On occasion, Eiji wears a plaid, haori-type jacket. When he was writing Crow, he had feathers stuffed in his outfit, which was until late in the 140 chapters, after which he switched to having random props that made him look injured as he writes Zombie Gun. However, the feathers do return in later chapters, possibly because he grew accustomed to having them in his clothes. In the early chapters of the manga, Eiji looks darker and more antagonistic, but later looks friendlier and sillier, likely due to changes in Obata's art syle. It might also be because of the years of experience Eiji has gained from his job as a mangaka.

Personality
After a few year he becomes more humble, even claiming to not be "good enough of a Mangaka to be judging other people's work" when asked by his editor to judge for Jump's monthly award. (He judges anyway, but is not very helpful, only expressing his interest in Ashirogi and Ryu Shizuka). Niizuma shows great respect for his fellow authors, calling them sensei regardless of age. He loves manga, considering his job fun and reading every comic in Jump. He despises sleeping, but does so when needed. However, with how long he can stay awake, he will be out for a long time. His earliest assistant, Nakai, said Niizuma usualy slept for 20 hours (which is practically a coma.)

He tends to make noises and sound effects when drawing or writing his manga. At times, he is often seen making weird poses or doing things bizarrely, such as drinking four glasses of soda at the same time. Eiji is constantly chastised by his editor. At first, he seems to be rather oblivious towards his rivals' feelings towards him, even expressing great excitement when he meets Ashirogi Muto and saying he is their fan. He is a great lover of manga and his opinion are valued by everyone at Jump, including his rivals. He refers to himself as an "Eternal Boy" and that's why he writes Shonen manga.

He has only ever had a crush on one girl, back in elementary school, which paired with his naivete most likely explains his lack of success in the Super Leaders' Love Fest. He also is very good at noticing the obvious, as he knew immediately that Miho was Moritaka's girlfriend instead of Akito's based on the heroine of Dectective Trapbeing modeled on her. Even Yujiro wonders if Eiji is psychic sometimes as Eiji always seems to know what's going on; he even knew of Nanamine's secondary plot to make manga, giving a vague explanation that Ashirogi later revealed in detail.

Though it is worried a public appearance of Niizuma would fail, he's actualy clever enough to know what not to say and do on public television when he was invited on Have a Laugh. However, he didn't think he needed to tidy up his appearance, keeping the feathers in his outfit. Also, he maintained his bizarre behavior of jumping around and posing.

Despite good qualities, Niizuma hasn't grown out of his poor table manners; eating large amounts of food loudly and talking with his mouth full. Seen at Takagi's wedding and the Two Awards party where he was being asked about Zombie Gun getting animated.

Trivia

 * He ranked 1st in Weekly Shonen Jump popularity character polls making him the most popular character in the series.
 * Nizuma is truly a manga creating genius
 * Crow managed to almost always get 2nd place in popularity without Eji really trying.
 * When he wanted to end Crow, Eiji put more thought into creating the chapters and took more time to revise them, successfully getting 1st place for fifteen weeks.
 * When Crow ended, and he was offered the chance for Jump to pay for a trip to anywhere in the world to broaden his horizons, Eiji expressed interested in seeing the Aurora Borealis, the Pyramids and the Louvre museum. It's unknown if he did go or to which one.
 * Given the large amounts of food he's been seen eating at once, Eiji may either have a hyperactive metabolism (which is when someone's body burns calories faster than normal) or he simply forgets to eat a lot.
 * Eiji seems to be fond of lobsters, as he's always seen eating several of them all at once during various manga award parties.
 * Eiji almost seems psychic, being able to see things ahead of everyone else, often being questioned by Yujiro.
 * Its possible Eiji has sharp intuition and is able to piece together scenarios from simple fragments and clues.
 * Unlike Hiramaru, Eiji doesn't seem to suffer negative effects from not getting enough sleep (he said he hates to sleep); he's always cheerful and happy, while Hiramaru's negativity is only increased.


 * Eiji makes an appearance in Chapter 72 of Sket Dance where a character named Shinzou dresses up as him.
 * Eiji seems to be more serious than he appears, as whenever his thoughts are shown, his usual goofy smiling is replaced with a serious look.
 * The odd posing seems to be a conscious choice on Eiji's part rather than impulsive behavior. The few times he's shown drawing at night, Eiji is acting calmer and barely gives off sound-effects.
 * When Team Fukuda boycotted to get Trap back in Jump, Eiji had 100 million yen saved up as he never spent more than he needed for work and living conditions.
 * When attending Takagi's wedding, Eiji wore a white suit; oddly this is the color Fukuda normaly wears, and one of the few times he didn't have feathers in his clothes.
 * In the later half of the series, Eiji usually greets Ashirogi sensei saying "Long time, no Bleach".
 * In Chapter 139, while having an editorial discussion with Yujiro Hattori on a new manga, Eiji considered writing a manga about space cockroaches. Naoko Takeuchi of Sailor Moon fame wrote a manga about space cockroaches that was discontinued after four chapters.
 * Eiji is speculated to be based on Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece. Oda is known to be a genius mangaka who won the 2nd Prize of the Tezuka Award at the age of 17, similar to Eiji's achievement at 15. Oda also mentioned in an interview that his characters move on their own, and Eiji made a similar remark at chapter 19. Oda also seems to be in the habit of wearing sandals everywhere, even to supposedly formal events like award giving ceremonies and parties. This is not unlike Eiji's own habit of wearing his usual pair of sweats everywhere he goes.
 * Eiji's odd behaviour and talent are possibly taken from L, a character Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba previous work Death Note, who is equally skilled and of odd behaviour.
 * His favorite manga is Doraemon.