Beat & Motion
Beat & Motion is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoki Fujita. It was serialized on Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ app and website from February 2023 to January 2025, with its individual chapters collected into six volumes. An original net anime adaptation is in production.
Plot
As a child Tatsuhiko dreamed of being an animator but gave up that dream after relentless teasing from his classmates. His friends later started a band and music became his new passion. The band eventually breaks up pushing Tatsuhiko to become cynical and double down on his view of dreams being useless. However, while demeaning a friend's dreams, an unknown drunk woman calls him out on this cynical outlook, angrily yelling at him in the streets. This chance encounter revives Tatsuhiko's childhood passion for animation, and he begins again by uploading a short two minute animation online. He is then contacted by Nico, an independent artist he has long been a huge fan of, who wishes to work with him to create an animated music video for her latest song. To his horror, when finally meeting the artist, he learns that she is the same drunk woman who had berated him about dreams before. She appears to not remember their previous encounter and the two agree to work together. They begin to growing closer, encouraging each other throughout the process.Nico is eventually contacted by a major record label to have her sign on with them. This unfortunately puts her project with Tatsuhiko on hold since the label will hold the rights to her song. Tatsu instead works on creating a different animation for a local contest and also befriends a couple other aspiring animators at his college.
Nico is shocked when the record label has to put her debut on hold due to an influx of artists from another label that had to close down. Nico asks if in the meantime she could write and compose songs. She submits a song to a competition which may lead to a collaboration with a popular pop artist Miyu. Nico's song is chosen but she discovers that Miyu is her childhood best friend, Miu, who shared Nico's passion for music. The two had a falling out and drifted apart after Nico gave up on music. At first Miyu pretends she does not know Nico, but later pulls Nico into another room demanding an answer for why Nico initially gave up on music.
Characters
;Tatsuhiko Hirayama;Nico Kashiwagi
Production
In June 2021, Shōnen Jump+ launched an eight-part web series titled . On the show, manga artists and their editors competed in a contest, with the grand prize winner getting in cash, a chance to serialize their manga on Shōnen Jump+ with at least one volume being published, and an anime adaptation from Netflix. Beat & Motion won the contest.Media
Manga
Written and illustrated by Naoki Fujita, the series was serialized on the Shōnen Jump+ app and website from February 25, 2023, to January 25, 2025. Shueisha published the individual chapters in six volumes.Viz Media and Shueisha's Manga Plus service are publishing the series simultaneously with its Japanese release.
Anime
An original net anime adaptation is in production, with Netflix set to distribute the series globally.Reception
Robbie Pleasant from Multiversity Comics felt the story was "relatable" and "hard-hitting". He also praised the artwork and its use of small details.Anime YouTuber Gigguk recommended the manga, saying, “this is a story about art and artists and the struggles that goes into being creative.”