Aug 6, 2023
It's hard to recommend the original Ninkū.
Let me start by saying that the manga has NOTHING to do with the anime. Only a few chapters were reprised for the anime, which was made by studio Pierrot.
Ninkū had a first run of 9 volumes. The first six volumes (later dubbed ~First Stage~) take place with an older Fūsuke (older as in 12 years old), our main character who can control the wind. He mostly goes through adventures alongside his friends Tōji (who controls the earth) and Aichō (who can fly), as they are all part of the Ninkū elite group of combatants, of which there are
...
12 schools, all based on the Chinese zodiac signs.
The series goes through a slew of episodic stories which lack a compelling storyline or any development at all. It's mostly bad guys showing up after bad guys, with no overarching plot. The fights mostly always unfold the same way, with a substitution technique used by our protagonists, and then a shocked pikachu face by the enemies, and then a few more blows. Some of the image compositions are really nice, but most battles are awkward, stilted, and lack any sort of adequate flow.
I'd say only the first three books are worth reading, the most interesting story arc being the one featuring Aichō and one of his disciples, Hamaji. It's also the only arc the anime took, because it's the most interesting one. After that, the story gets ridiculous, with random enemies popping out of nowhere all the time and disappearing just as fast. They're just there to pose a threat but offer no complexity whatsoever. There's also like, a scroll which contains all techniques ever, even the most far-fetched deus ex machina techniques, for example. Just so our heroes can do pretty much whatever they want. That's basically Ninkū for you.
Some of the artwork in the later volumes is also very rough, with the author Kiriyama himself admitting he lacked time and spent more time thinking about the story than drawing. It shows... except the story isn't very good either. It seems like Masashi Kishimoto of Naruto fame was a huge Ninkū fan, but don't let that fool you. It feels like Kiriyama didn't know where to go, or that he really just wanted to write the story for his ~Second Stage~. That's right... the Second Stage takes place BEFORE the First Stage, when Fūsuke was like 5 years old. Those are books 7-9. We learn how Fūsuke discovered the existence of Ninkū and how he met some of the other Ninkū masters. It's not much better.
But Kiriyama seems to like that era, because 10 years later, he would come back to release another 12 volumes of Ninkū subtitled ~Second Stage: Etonin-Hen~, this time in a seinen magazine instead of shōnen, and that, my friends, is a much better manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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