Creative Talent
Writer/Artist: Akira Segami
Translated by: Satsuki Yamashita
Adapted by: Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir
What They Say
Kagetora is a ninja with the most important duty in his village: to serve and instruct Yuki, the pretty young heir to the Toudou martial arts family. There’s just one problem: Kagetora has fallen in love with her. And more trouble looms when Yuki’s overprotective best friend, Aki, needs someone to pose as her boyfriend.
Although she’s never trusted Kagetora, she now sees him in an attractive new light. But the biggest threat to Kagetora’s hopes of romance turns out to be Yuki’s intimidating grandmother, who threatens everything between master and ninja.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This is one of the better volumes in this series. The somewhat obvious theme running underneath this story is the fact that Yuki is the head of an elite family and Kagetora is a mere ninja, so their romance can never go anywhere. Even with that, the previous five volumes of this series never really addressed this fact. Now the former head of the Toudou family, Yuki’s grandmother, has summoned Yuki and Kagetora. On a side note, I wonder if only women are allowed to head this family? Anyways, Grandmother’s intention is to make sure Yuki understands that Kagetora is merely a servant and can never be anything more. To be sure she is obeyed, Grandmother also confronts Kagetora.
Kagetora is young and thickheaded, but he can’t argue that he has romantic feelings for Yuki. Having his secret desires pointed out by someone else gives Kagetora some serious doubts about his position as Yuki’s protector. Grandmother also has her own contingent of ninja guards, one of which knows Kagetora very well and has his own interesting history with Grandmother. Can you say foreshadowing?
With Yuki and Kagetora somewhat questioning their relationship, another girl enters the scene. Nao needs Kagetora to help with the schools archery club. Nao is popular with both the boys and girls at school, so Kagetora agrees to help her out. This means they spend a lot of time together during practice. These interactions set up the obvious love triangle, but what makes this interesting is Nao’s personality. She is so outgoing that even Yuki can’t help but like her. Therefore, with Yuki and Kagetora unsure of themselves, and Nao’s blossoming attraction to Kagetora, there could be some good conflict on the horizon. Especially since this story builds up steam when Yuki and Kagetora are separated for awhile, or people from Kagetora’s past pop up to help along the character development.
Content Grade:B+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Del Rey Manga
Release Date: June 26th, 2007
MSRP: $10.95
