Nabari no Ou Volume 1

The first review. This series I started picking up recently, and it's not very long, so this is a good place to start.

STORY
Miharu Rokujou is your typical 14 year old manga schoolboy. His classmates think he's 'cool' and 'mysterious', he's indifferent about everything and looks like he's constantly stoned.

Turns out little Miharu possesses something known as the 'Shinra Banshou', the greatest hidden art of the ninja world, the 'Nabari'. In order to fully understand and control the Shinra Banshou, Miharu and his buddies need to track down five secret art scrolls from five different ninja clans. Without getting into spoilers, that's the basic premise.
I'll admit, I don't know jack crap about ninjas or ninja lore. The only thing I associate with ninjas is Naruto, which I've never touched, and that one bloke from Sengoku Basara, so the accessibility of this manga was surprisingly easy for me. It didn't force the ideals on the reader, and let the world expand as the volume progressed. The story hasn't struck me as the most original just yet, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It just isn't special. Yet.

ART & PRESENTATION

My first impression of the art was YAOI HANDS.

To be honest, I'm not really bothered by yaoi hands, it just makes me chuckle a little bit whenever I see them. As for the rest of the art, it's good, but not, strictly speaking, impressive. My two favorite scenes are below.

There are two things about the art that are really well done. The first is that the backgrounds are lush and beautiful. Almost every page is filled with detailed backgrounds that pull the reader right into the scene. The second is that there are clear and precisely drawn action scenes. No swooshing lines that fill three-fourths of the panel and make impossible to tell what's happening (07-Ghost, that's you I'm looking at). Other than that, the art is mostly just adequate. It's not bad, by any means, but there are some things that need some work. Mostly feet. Characters have weird feet in this series. They always look big and way more cartoony than the rest of the art.
The presentation is well done. Yen Press has supplied one nice glossy color page right at the beginning, and the book is solid and well put together. The spine is nicely square, and aligns well with the rest of the volumes I have in this series pretty well (I have the first three volumes at the moment).

CHARACTERS

This manga is going to have a huge cast, I can tell. So for now, I'll talk about the four leads and introduce new characters as they appear.
First is Miharu. I talked about him earlier. He doesn't have a lot of distinctive personality yet, besides using his cute, boyish looks to guilt other characters.

Miharu's quite the little devil.

Next is Tobari Kumohira - Sensei. He's acting as Miharu's guide on the journey and was one of the people who introduced him to the world of the Nabari. He doesn't have a lot of development yet either, but hey. It's only volume 1. The only real development we see is that he has a crippling fear of motorized transportation. It's very strange.

He's cool, 'cause he smokes.

Third is Kouichi Aizawa. He's the one who has the most development so far. He's calm, level headed, and sort of dorky during his everyday life, but once he gets down to the brass tacks of the Nabari realm, he gets deadly serious, and I mean DEADLY. He's not afraid to do what needs to be done.

"Bye, Miharu! I promise not to murder anyone!"

Lastly is Raimei Shimizu. She's energetic, bouncy, and just sort of only seemingly exists right now because the cast was filled with too many males. I feel like she'll be more of a major player soon.

By the way, she's a SAMURAI. Could you tell?

FINAL VERDICT

Volume 1 of Nabari no Ou is a promising and good start for a series. It sure ain't perfect, but it's perfectly good. Below is a plus/minus for those who are too lazy to read the rest of the review.

+ Good, accessible ninja story and lore
+  Nice balance of action and plot
+ Nice balance of comedy and serious tone
+ Art is good...

- But not outstanding
- Not much character development (yet)

And that's all! I'll award Nabari no Ou volume one with and overall score of

B+ - BUY IT

I'd like to say borrow it from a friend, but this series really looks like it could be special. We're only scratching the surface of a seemingly expansive and beautiful world.

(I don't own Nabari no Ou. All rights go to the author, Yuhki Kamatani, and the licensing company, Yen Press).