Itsuwaribito◆Utsuho◆
Itsuwaribito

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This manga was pretty dang good if memory serves me correctly. While there were definitely pacing issues in the early parts of the story (We meet quite a few characters over the span of the first two volumes) it evened itself out over time and eventually managed to hit a decent stride.

Story: 7
The plot is serviceable. The lead character, Utsuho Azako, is a young orphan living with a monk. He loves to lie, trick, and play pranks. After tragedy strikes, he becomes an Itsuwaribito, a criminal who utilizes lying as their primary tool. However, unlike traditional itsuwaribito, he decides to use his lies for good ... and to save over a hundred people. On his journey he meets allies and enemies while sticking to his creed of constantly lying. The overall plot is far less relevant than each individual story arc and the characters that fill them. Still, the story is not bad at all.

Art: 7
The art was pretty good. The character designs were amazing; each one is unique and stand out among the rest. The action scenes were well choreographed. The only issue is that comedic scenes and moments tend to have the characters go all chibi and it messes a bit with the tone of scenes prior.

Character: 9
The characters make this manga. Each one is full of personality, and almost none of them come off as grating to watch. The way the characters synergize, interact, and bounce off one-another is always a delight. The only gripe is that the early-story enemies are pretty one-note and shallow. However, as stated before, the author fixes that issue later on with much more compelling foes.

Enjoyment: 9
I absolutely LOVED this story when it was first coming out. I made it a point to read each volume as it came out in my Local Library and at my Book Store a town over. I wish I bought every volume instead of just most of them, because it's much harder to look back on this adventure.

Overall: 8
I loved this franchise back when it was coming out, but that was a few years ago. Still, I think it's worth at least an 8 considering how much time I sunk into this manga, as well as the memories I have.

This is an absolute must-read manga. If you read Naruto, you will love this. The story is set in the early years of Japan stemming from a small mountain village. There we find the hero of the story, a teenage orphan named Utsuho Azako. He is a self proclaimed itsuwaribito (one who masters the art of theft) whose philosophy in life is that lying is the ultimate weapon and at the same time, the ultimate savior. Now this is one of his most likable traits. Not only does he use it so often, he lies about lying, and ... very often tricks people just for lols.

THIS MANGA IS FUNNY AS HELL BECAUSE OF HOW OFTEN HE LIES AND TRICKS PEOPLE.

As far as he's concerned, lying is the only way he knows how to help people. He's laid back, lazy (of course), but friggin ninja bad a**. Rockin' the bandana with his signature design, he moves like ninjas do, only cooler with more intricacy and finesse like you've never seen before. He has never lost his cool in a fight nor has he lost a fight at all; its as if the fight is always going his way and according to his plans (which in the first 3 friggn volumes...it does!)

So when he sets off on his inevitable adventures away from the orphanage to travel the world and lie to everyone he meets (to help them, of course) he inevitably meets up with people and gets a little group together. Pochi the cute Tanuki, Yakuma the truthful, trustworthy surgeon and Neya ("ne-chan" as Utsuho calls her cuz she's a girl) all have their own dreams and aspirations, but have similar interests in helping people in their own way. Yakuma heals people and tells truths, Neya helps people materially/physically (as spurred by her maternal instinct) and Utsuho just does whatever he likes however he likes, whenever he likes...just awesomer.

Did I mention that all of them conveniently have ninja skills? No? Well, they do. Yakuma has his knife. Utsuho has his bombs, potions, and tools. Neya has her kunai and shuriken and an occasional bow & arrow.

Overall, the art is drawn flawlessly with scene-appropriate chibis. Crisp, clean and fluent and appealing and unique. Utsuho kinda reminds me of Gin Ichimaru from BLEACH cuz of the white hair and eyes. Other than that, EVERYONE has an original look. Neya looks especially cute. i can see why Utsuho....er...um...*cough* spoiler *cough*


P.S. If anything, just remember that after reading volume 1, YOU WILL NOT WANT TO STOP.

tl;dr: A manga about lies and trickery that’s terrible with lies and trickery but is pretty good dumb fun anyway.

An Itsuwaribito is a master of trickery, capable of using stealth, lies, and force in order to enact their plans. This manga focuses on one named Utsuho who decided to use his skills to help people. At least at first. As the manga progresses, it becomes about a treasure hunt for nine treasures known as the Kokonotsu that various individuals including Utsuho and his friends are searching for. Regardless of whether the focus is on helping people or searching for the Kokonotsu, the manga remains pretty ... episodic throughout with the only things really carrying over from arc to arc being the main cast. That’s probably the core of the weaknesses of this manga, though also one of its strengths.

The biggest problem in this manga is that it’s very haphazard and inconsistent with everything. It really felt like there was no overarching plan with regards to anything, whether it be character arcs or plot. The main cast grows to a group of ten characters eventually. But of those, only the first four felt like they were properly written. With everyone else, it felt like they were never planned to be so important when they were first introduced, but the mangaka decided to do so anyway, and then had to write around their original portrayal in order to make them characters that would fit. At times this was decent, in that this shift was done through a proper character arc. Other times there was just really forced writing trying to make their previous actions somehow be different from what they appeared to be.

It also felt like the group holistically had really bad chemistry and just in general felt kind of off and not like a proper group. The plot sometimes taps into this lack of unity at times, but even when it’s supposed to show them as united it doesn’t land all that well. Furthermore, the writing also didn’t really handle characters backgrounds and motivations all that well, just kind of throwing them in there randomly at times and in ways that doesn’t help flesh them out at all. And a lot of the cast was also just in general useless or lacking in presence for long stretches. The same applies to side characters that it tries to give depth, as the writing surrounding them often ends up running around itself trying to fit as much into their character as it can but it just feels really forced. All in all, it made it pretty hard to get invested in or like any of the characters outside of Utsuho and his Tanuki friend Pochi. I suppose the ending wasn’t bad, but it was a pretty generic ending and due to lack of investment in the cast not all that satisfying either, and thus not that great either.

The plot was also really random. The overarching plot is simple enough, with the cast going around helping people and looking for treasures. There was some foreshadowing of what it’s all building up to at times, though it doesn’t really matter as it essentially gets overwritten. But overall, every arc has very little connection to any other arc. However, there’s a lot of variation in terms of what that actually goes on from arc to arc. This results in every arc feeling messy in new ways. One would expect a manga where the protagonist is a master of lies and trickery fights others to have a psychologic aspect to it. In certain arcs, it certainly tried to do so. However, for the most part it glosses over things entirely. It involves a lot of characters being able to predict tricks with no explanation for why they were able to see what was going to happen, or characters being able to trick others with it not really making sense why the trick worked. It’s all incredibly simplistic and not something that you’re really supposed to think about much.

The plot beyond that felt similarly mishandled. Each arc very much felt like the type of story where the plot wasn’t really planned out much in advance so twists and turns were thrown around on the fly even if they led to plot holes and inconsistencies. I suppose that that’s pretty standard for a shounen action manga, but the problem here is that the fights here are still portrayed like they should be battles of wit and skill, so them playing out like battles of strength feels really weird. It also results in action that isn’t all that interesting because it’s trying too hard to stay grounded, though that too is pretty random from arc to arc. At first the manga felt pretty grounded, other than the talking Tanuki, with the general stance being that anything supernatural was just a trick. However, it dropped that completely with all sorts of crazy things thrown in over time, ranging from self-moving combat dolls to abilities vastly superior to what humans are capable of. The problem though is that none of these really stuck, with them pretty much always being constrained to a single arc. The writing also tries to somehow explain a lot of these as rooted in science, which was fine for some things, but with others completely ridiculous.

With all that said, that does make the manga kind of fun in a sense. Since the mangaka wasn’t all that concerned about keeping things consistent, having an overarching narrative, or making sense in general, he went crazy with the story. It moves fast and goes in all sorts of directions, making it unpredictable and despite all the messiness, pretty interesting. It helps that there’s a large focus on humor with it being throws out in spades and most of it being pretty good. It’s not the type of manga you really get pulled into, but more so the type you just turn off your brain and flip through, and in terms of that it’s pretty solid. I do wish it had better art though. The quality is decent, but the character designs and style in general felt kind of dull.