The positive is that it's a shonen manga written by veteran Masashi Kishimoto with art by Atsushi Ookubo, who does a good job emulating Kishi's art style. The fundamentals are there.
The story so far has potential but where exactly it's going is a mystery. Naruto wanted to be Hokage, Hachimaru wants to be a samurai. The difference is Hachimaru becomes a samurai right out the gate in chapter 1, so where to next? That said, I'm rating a 6 because what we are seeing is going largely unexplained, which wouldn't be so bad but there is already so much being thrown at you that it just makes you think "What is even going on here?"
Related to my story gripes, I'm rating the art an 8 because the art is great, but is very busy, makes heavy use of white, and action sequences add to that feeling of "What is even going on here?" Someone says "Here's my attack!" then there's a couple panels of gobbledigook followed by the end result.
The characters are typical shonen characters. So far, the only ones of substance are MC Hachimaru (typical shonen protag) and his dad (knows more than he lets on). There's also a mentor character but they've yet to be fleshed out.
All in all, this series has legs, they're just the legs of a newborn deer. Coming from someone who wrote such a sprawling story in Naruto, I'd have expected more, but it's not bad enough to tap out before seeing a little more.
