Ranked #978

Shinobi no Kuni (Manga)

This tale begins by introducing us to Shimoyama Heibe who is in the middle of a flat out war between the Momochi and his family or you could call it a skirmish but whatever. So he is in the middle of this 'war' and he questions the ethics of its happenings; he could be seen as the voice of morality in this scene and finds himself surrounded by 'fools' who haven't a drop of mercy in their hearts. He refused to take out any weapons because he considered the enemy as 'human' whom had a family to look after. However later on, he is coerced to wield a weapon by his father who we later realise is basically one of the heartless men his son, Heibe is repulsed by. Alone in his hatred for violence, he gets questioned for having a conscience by the rest of the population, a lonely man in the land of beasts. In the first chapter we also meet Mumon who is a feared heartless man but in his own way, like Heibe, he stands out (in a bad way). And so the story begins...

To be honest, I liked the story. It had a lot to do with ethics which is something so very rare in Manga deserving the author a definite nod of respect and approval for pushing those boundaries so seldom pushed. In all its complexities there is still a healthy dose of gore that brings the book down from the boring-ethics-books shelf and adds a, strangely enough, more realistic twist on things. I don't know if its stellar quality will remain untarnished in the upcoming volume two {like so many other books} but here's hoping.

The art was a tasteful display of artistry that an observing eye will notice and appreciate. It isn't an extremely detailed style but it was detailed enough to have style and style is one of the toughest criteria to have however there are things in the criteria sheet which are more important than style (there is only a meager few but unfortunately for the illustrator, style isn't the most important) and one of them is proportion which (again) unfortunately, the illustrator does not fully establish. But overall, the art was very good.

The characters were very solid with their idiosyncrasies and characteristics, they draw your interest to them and develop a kind of bond with you like they are not only characters in the book but people you KNOW (well, at least that's what happened to me).
Now that we have concluded that the characters were remarkable, the next step is...

The finale, which is would I recommend this.

Would I?

Yes, I would. Definitely a good read well, until at least, the end of the first volume which is where I dropped it so get your ethically arid brains pumping by reading what could be your undiscovered favourite Manga. read more