YEEART!!
Creative Staff:
Original Work: Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez
Art: Yuki Togo
Script: Yoshiaki Tabata
Manga Adaptation Supervision: Yu Honda and Leika Sugi
Character Design: Warainaku and Yuki Yogo
Translation: Christian Storms and HCL
Original Production: Keiran O’Leary
Production: Grace Lu
What They Say:
The Neo Saitama of the future is a sprawling urban landscape constantly flooded by neon light. And in its shadows lurk a vast criminal world filled with all sorts of shady characters. Among them are the deadliest force known to humanity…ninjas! These merciless warriors lord over the cityscape with their overwhelming karate, influencing the private and public sectors equally. But their time is about to come to an end. A force known as Ninja Slayer is determined to rid this world of Ninjas, and he’s willing to go through heaven or hell to do so.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Ninja Slayer, the show that took the world by storm when Studio Trigger released its anime version as a spiritual (animated) successor to Inferno Cop, is finally here in manga form and I’m happy to say it’s way better than that anime version. Books are always better. I do miss the YEEARTs I heard in the anime though, as I’m pretty sure I missed some reading the book.
You see, it’s high octane, exciting, and page turning. I was hesitant to read the book because I didn’t like the anime, but I ended up enjoying it much more than I thought I would. It’s simply fun to watch Ninja Slayer, well, slay ninjas. And reading through this, I think what put me off most about the anime was the weird art style. It’s just…not good. But the art in the manga is way above that of Trigger’s anime and draws you into the book with more than just testosterone-driven killing.
This book is simply about this ninja who lives in what is seemingly in the future where ninjas still exist and are way more ridiculous than humans could ever be and wants to kill all the Soukai Ninja for some mysterious reason. The reason here doesn’t matter—at least not for now—because it’s cool, just go with it. He seems to have a troubled past that may go into the next volume, but only hints at for now. I mean, he has his own back alley doctor…Or at least one that he can go to.
Ninja Slayer is a very interesting comic in that there is very little spoken dialogue; most of the text is narration or internal monologues, but it works like this. Ninjas speak very little (presumably, at least, because they’re sneaking around and junk) to each other and I would expect the same out of my fictional comic ninjas. Only the traditional greeting because, even in battle, you mustn’t forget manners.
In Summary:
I’ll admit it…I went full YEEART when I was reading this. I never thought I’d say it, but the Ninja Slayer power was too strong for me. I can definitely say that more than one volume of just cool ninja fights probably isn’t something I’d be able to deal with, but I think Ninja Slayer has a lot more up its sleeve. For now, I’m glad to have an exciting ninja killing comic in my hands. I mean, a dude kicks another dude’s head off. Who can’t love it at least a little?
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Vertical Comics
Release Date: October 20, 2015
MSRP: $12.95
