Nabari no Ou 1
May 28, 2009
Ooh, more ninjas. I haven’t had any ninja action since I read Tail of the Moon, and to be honest, Nabari no Ou has a bit more to do with ninjas than that series did.
The best thing about this series so far is Rokujou, the main character. The plot of the series is basically that Rokujou was born with the super-secret ninja wisdom inside him, and that ninjas are starting to come after him to try and claim the wisdom for themselves. The thing is, Rokujou doesn’t care. He really, really does not care. He doesn’t even try to argue or act out against all this ninja weirdness invading his life. He simply walks away, often in the middle of a conversation. It’s a good gag, and it works really well since Rokujou sticks with his indifference throughout the entire volume and never comically overreacts or shows any emotion whatsoever.
His teacher, Kumohira, and a classmate named Aizawa try to teach Rokujou ninja techniques for his own good to try and get him to defend himself and help with the extraction of the ninja art from his body and/or master the art so that he can become the “Nabari no Ou,” or king of the hidden ninja world. Not only does he blow off their sincere concerns for his safety, most of the ninja techniques he learns in this volume are things like ninja substitution and veil techniques that get him away from the two of them as fast as possible.
There are other jokes in the series, but not many, and Rokujou’s indifference was enough to make this a pretty funny book. The plot is fairly serious, however, and throughout the first volume, things like Kumohira making a vow to protect Rokujou’s life and the attack and deaths of several people in a ninja villiage come up. Rokoujo doesn’t want any of this to happen to him, of course, but… you know, it kind of does anyway. The tragic angle hasn’t really come up yet, but after the Fuma village slayings at the end of the volume, I have a feeling Rokujou will be more serious next time.
The ninja techniques are pretty cool. You have everything from throwing stars and kunai to the veil and substitution techniques I mentioned earlier, swords, hand-to-hand combat, and even some ki manipulation. The action scenes are pretty fast-paced and easy to follow, and haven’t really overwhelmed the story as of yet. I’m hoping that it stays out of the realm of tournament-style series, but that depends on how long it is. As of now, there’s quite a bit of plot, so there’s a good chance a lot of the story might just be a lot of the same silly keep-away that was going on in this volume. If so, that would be great, because this was a pretty solid first volume.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
May 28, 2009 at 6:52 am
[...] Lovely Complex (Slightly Biased Manga) Connie on vol. 1 of Masca (Slightly Biased Manga) Connie on vol. 1 of Nabari no Ou (Slightly Biased Manga) Wolfen Moondaughter on vol. 5 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom [...]
May 29, 2009 at 3:35 am
Sounds pretty good
May 30, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Love this series; it really gets interesting after the secret pact between two characters from the different factions is formed.
June 1, 2009 at 4:06 am
Awesome. The first volume laid out a pretty good story, and I got a kick out of Rokujou, so it’s good to hear that I’ll be rewarded in future volumes.
November 25, 2009 at 8:56 pm
This is definetely a naruto rip off a huge NARUTO RIP OFF!!! This is like copy infringement taking Kishimoto’s ideas. Origional yah right origional story my ass!
If you really watched it you will see that they use ninja seals and ninja techniques in this too and another ninja world? Naruto is already a ninja world for crying out loud. Also the main character has something sealed within him well so does naruto and they use the same weapons kunai, giant shuriken and they all have forhead protectors. How can you say this is not a naruto rip off. I watched up to 7 episodes of nabari no ou and the more i watched the more i got pissed off because they use the same concept of Naruto the only difference is there is a different plot line and though someparts are funny it’s still not even a fraction impressive as naruto because Kishi’s ideas for naruto were origional the guy who made this crap just copied Kishimoto. I wouldn’t be suprised if the main characters friend becomes evil and they have a huge fight and split up like naruto and sauske. This load of bull crap is as much as a rip off from naruto as Pokemon is to Digimon and Yu-GI-Oh is to duel masters
November 25, 2009 at 8:59 pm
If you got something against me fuck you i’m only doing this because i really care about the naruto anime and manga its my favourite of all and it pisses me off to see it getting ripped off by some fuktard. it even pain and yah i don’t have a life cause i’m wasting my time posting this right got anything else to diss me with FUCK WHOEVER DARES TRY TO FLAME ME FOR EXPRESSING MYSELF
It’s called freedom of expression and speech in the charters of rights and freedoms look it up
February 3, 2010 at 12:07 pm
*sigh* oh Z, you have to learn that there’s life outside of Naruto >.> kunais, shuriken, jutsu and forehead protectors have been used in other ninja anime, they aren’t Kishimoto’s own ideas…. yeah, the main character has a special power in him, WHAT MAIN CHARACTER IN AN ANIME DOESN’T? Seriously, almost every main anime character has something special in them or about them. The plot is completely different. And wow, you really make yourself and other Naruto fans look intelligent by swearing every sentence. My god. Well, everyone is allowed to have their own opinions, as you said… I personally liked Nabari much MUCH more than I will ever like Naruto.
Also, I’m pretty sure Dual Masters is the rip off, not Yugioh, although I could be mistaken…