Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto

Screw any elitist who tells me that this isn't worthy of any kind of literary review, even one as humble as my own. Naruto is a series I enjoy greatly (moreso than the anime, although that's fun too), and I think it's just a good read that anybody who likes graphic novels or manga will enjoy. Let me start with the basics.

The title character is Naruto (who for some inexplicable reason always wears orange pants and an orange jacket), a shinobi (the original word for what we now commonly call ninja) just out of shinobi school. He's none too talented, smart, or attractive, but he's blessed with tons of energy and an incredible will become the Hokage head ninja of Konoha village). The first volume deals with Naruto's attachment to a team which includes a boy he hates and a girl he has a crush on and their inevitable disasters in trying to pass the tests their teacher puts in front of them. Needless to say, they do eventually start learning how to work together and at least become real ninja. Fortunately, the rivals don't just eventually become the best of friends (a cliche that goes back at least to Dumas), they pretty much stay rivals. That's an example of one of the better features of this manga; the relationships feel somewhat realistic and have a greater depth than you commonly see in youth-oriented graphic novels and manga. That brings up another point, which is that the Naruto anime is, in America, targeted to younger audiences, whereas the manga is really written at more of the YA level. Now I haven't seen much in the way of sex alluded to, but there is more violence in this manga than any 10-year-old's mom is going to approve of, and it gets a little graphic. Some examples include a decapitation and a guy getting crushed to death by sand.

The shinobi "magic" (in reality chakra, based on the idea of human bodies being endowed with natural energy) doesn't come off as stupid, and as a matter of fact seems to have some rationale behind it. There are quite a few instances where the mechanism by which they perform some feat is explained, and in their world it is consistent. That's certainly better than most American comics oriented towards youths are, not to mention the sometimes imbecilic American cartoons where the authors felt no need for consistency whatsoever (He-Man, Thundercats, etc). The point is, if you can take Harry Potter seriously despite the fact that people actually fly around on brooms, you can handle Naruto.

Furthermore, character development is deeper than you'd expect for a manga about kid ninjas. Some of them have traumatic pasts, some don't, and their interactions all make a decent amount of sense. I really think Naruto's characters are the best part about the series, followed by tense, relatively uncomplicated stories.

The art of the books is no great shakes. Some of the panels are nothing but speed lines and a blurry shape intending to portray someone's awesome speed and technique. But the effect can fall flat when you can't make heads or tails of what's going on in the frame. Character design is basic, with most males being extremely similar except for things like facial hair and what they wear. Manga are always drawn in strict black&white, and I just find that more visually confusing when the artist likes to have a lot of action going on in each panel.

Lastly, as I said about the plot, it's relatively uncomplicated but it does manage not to move too slowly. New characters get introduced and for some reason it's fairly easy to remember their faces and names, so you never get lost when one of the characters starts using someone else's name. That keeps things simple and it means they don't waste panels reminding you who someone is several times. So almost every panel advances the story, and the artists make pretty good use of that to keep the story flowing. Plus which, there is enough plot to fill all that space, so that's not a worry either. They do tend to stick to the basic themes, like power-hungry villains or revenge, but then, so do most books. The question is how well they execute those stories, and in the case of Naruto, I'd say they do pretty darn well.

My recommendation is: Read it! After all, one book does only take about a half hour!